With the clock locked, and DDR2 maxing out at 1066mHz, is it even possible to overclock this processor?

What do you mean the clock locked? It's not locked at all.

Have a look at this post

I'm sure there were some E6600's tested there.

Remember the real FSB for the Conroe is 266MHz. And DDR2 800 for example actually runs at 400MHz *2 (effective) so you've got quite a bit of headroom for overclocking. The E6600 seems like a pretty sweet spot for overclocking. It's got the 4MB L2 cache of the top end chips but comes in at just over $300.

Yeah, 1066 is more than enough. Also, by all accounts, 3.3-3.4 GHz seems to be a shoe-in.

Prophesy: The demo chips are never locked, but the retail ones are. My misunderstanding was that I thought Conroes were DDR2 1066 native.

Now, as far as OC ability, I ran across this: http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/s [...] =2795&p=18
They achieved 4.05 GHz with a tuniq cooler, which are... huge. Even so, that's more than a 50% overclock on stock voltage. I can't wait until someone can confirm that.

In the meantime, I have a few newbie OC questions. If the Conroe runs at a default 266 mHz bus, what DDR2 RAM would that correspond to? What DDR speed would you need to obtain the 4.05 GHz mark?

I am planning to purchase a Conroe, but not until early next year. I want to let the chipsets mature a little, and the prices are supposed to drop when the quad-cores are released.

Will I really be able to get a 4 gHZ Conroe for under $300 in January? I sure hope so.

That corresponds to DDR2-533 @ 1:1. To reach 4.05GHz with a E6600 is 9x450=4050MHz. That means you need DDR2-900 for 1:1. to achieve proper memory bandwidth.

The multipliers are locked.... but you said the clock, which I interpreted as being the FSB, but that is definitly not locked.

Are the multipliers in the Conroes (excluding the EE) locked or capped? Most of the language I've seen used is "locked", but it strikes me odd if they were completely locked to a multiplier. I could be wrong about this, but I thought in previous Intel processors (and assumed this would be the case here too) the lower end was not locked, partly to allow for underclocking during low usage.

In either case, as was already said, the clock certainly isnt locked. FSB is as variable as ever... Also, the 4GHz overclock of the 6600 mentioned, Im working off memory but if it serves me correctly that was with a boost in CPU voltage, not stock. I could be wrong though, but its something to check if you are really interested.

I apologize, my terminology sucks. The "clock" multiplier on all but the extreme edition can not be adjusted upwards. All of them can be stepped down, though. So say the review sites, anyways.

I'm a newbie too, but I'll try to help.

The clock multiplier is that multiply by whatever number that you see - this is locked. That's what multiplies the FSB to reach those very high numbers. The FSB starts off at 266Mhz for the E6600, this can be changed a lot depending on the motherboard. Get a good board which allows you to change the FSB and you can overclock like crazy - I'm getting this one Gigabyte GA 965P DQ6 - which allows 1Mhz incremental increases in the real/original FSB. There will be significantly better boards than this available when Conro has matured.

So, from a newbies perspective (thats me), it basicaly works out like this (I hope):

locked multiplied x front side bus = CPU frequency
9 x 266MHz = 2394 MHz (stock speed)
9 x 333MHz = 2997 Mhz(easily reachable speed with DDR 667, running at 333MHz and CPU to RAM ratio of 1:1)
9 x 400Mhz = 3600 Mhz (likely under basic air cooling with DDR 800, running at 400MHz and CPU to RAM ratio of 1:1)
9 x 450MHz = 4050 Mhz (seriously good air cooling or water cooling required, with DDR 800, the ram would be running at slower frequencies than the CPU, not possibly a terrible thing, but not the ultimate solution either, ratio would be 9:8 I think)

I hope that helps. You may need to change the core voltage to support your new speeds, so consider that as well, including the dangers vs rewards.

All of this information is really helpful, and I thank everyone who has responded. I have a couple more questions/comments to keep this thread alive.

How is the CPU to RAM ratio derived, and how will it effect system performance? Would it make enough of a difference to justify staying at 3.6 gHz?

And, regarding core voltage, the Anandtech screenshot shows the processor running at 1.15v. Is there any way to confirm that the chip Anandtech was playing with was the same as the retail processor? That seems like a very low voltage setting, I can't imagine the default would be much lower.

As far as chipsets go, would there be any advantage to waiting for the nVidia 500 series to make its way to the Intel platform? The 965P seems like an ideal platform for me, if not a little pricey. The new nVidia's have thins like SLI RAM, which would be useful in overlcocking. I'm not interested in having two PCI-E video cards installed, so we can eliminate that from the comparison right away.

Well, Im learning as Im reading in this forum, so I'll take a shot...

So if your FSB is 450Mhz, and your RAM is 400Mhz, and you divide both values by 50, you get a ratio of 9:8. If you're running FSB at 400Mhz, and your RAM at 400Mhz, then you get a 1:1 ratio, given that both values are equal.

I have no definite answer on whether is better to go up to 9:8, or stay at 1:1. Tho your RAM would be slightly slower, you would get a 450Mhz CPU speed boost if you go to 9:8. That tells me(in my amateur understanding), that your general system performance may not improve much, as the RAM is still at 400Mhz, but for CPU intensive applications (like video encoding, WinRAR, 3DS Max, etc) the 450Mhz (10%!) gain in CPU speed would kick in bigtime! So I would go 9:8, as you have nothing to lose.

Please correct me if I am wrong, as it'll only help my understanding

Hope this helps

i am new one to these forums my system is the same as above, but i have x1900's running in crossfire mod, i have booted into windows all the way up to 3.4, but the max i can go is 3.25GHz with total stability with prime 95 running for 24 hour,

jsut wanted to know if that is a decent overclock for crossfire setup, my memory is ocz 800mhz with platinum heatspreaders.
right now i have the memory running at 900. with the front side bus at 9x361. which equals to 1444.

by the way i do believe now that the chips in reviews are cherry picked because i have never gotten what i have read from anandtech or anyother review sites, i cant even boot this thing into windows at 3.0Ghz with bumping the voltage to atleast 1.5. ofcourse my temps are in 30's idle and 40's under load, just watned to know u guys had any inputs about me being able to squeeze another 100 or 200 MHZ out of it.

by the way i alwasy seem to have a hard reset, or if i overclock it to 3.4 it will have just shutoff and than restart.

My sytem specs are as below/

motherboard: asus p5wdh-delux
cpu: e6600 core at 1.54 currently running at 3.25
powersupply is 750watt xcleo quadrail with 18amps on each rail.
and ofcourse the two x1900's which are also watercooled,
my watercooling system is by dangerden and i i have a dual radiator with two fans.

any suggestions would be helpful

I think you have the same problem like me, the motherboard hide or does not have the overclocking feture for core2duo. What motherboard are you using?

You might want to try upping your chipset voltage, I hear it helps...

I'm running my E6600 FSB to 333 with RAM at 667 (1:1), roughly 3.0GHz overall. Vcore at 1.35V, RAM 1.8V (conservative timings 5-5-5-15). System is running stable. SuperPi 1M 19s vs 32s for my X2 4600 @2.6G. SuperPi 32M 19m v 34m (X2 4600 @2.6G). Ran Prime95 for 5 hours without errors. CPU temps idle quite high around 38-40C (vs room 32-33C, may need a better heatsink), in Prime95 runs up to 50-55C. Running the E6600 (stock HSF) with a P5W DH and 2x1GB Mushkin C4.

One question though, in my AMD system, I turned off Cool N Quiet when overclocking. Should I enable C1E and Speedstep in the Intel system or should I keep it disabled?

oh yeah -these kids on these other forums are taking the E6600 up and close to 4Ghz range
One question though is 600 W power supply enough for:

E6600
1 SATA and 1IDE HD
1 DVD rw
1 DVD rom
2 GB memory
PCI express 256 MB X1900 GT
Asus P5B mobo

and then gonna try to overclock ? what do ya'll think ? need more power ?

I am new to overclocking as all my past systems were notebooks, and I didn't risk oc'ing them... I have read around the topic and wanted to clear something up... I have ordered a pc with E6600 on an ASUS P5N32 SE SLI Deluxe. ASUS website states that the board can run on up to 400 MHZ FSB. I have 2 GB of 800 MHZ DDR2 ram...

Am I correct in thinking that if I set the FSB to 400MHZ, since the multiplier is 9, the clocks will be 3.6 GHZ? Since RAM actually runs at 400 MHZ, that gives a 1:1 ration, which would mean no adjustments have to be made to the ram? Will I need to alter any voltage at all?

I do not refer to any cooling issues, as I have ordered liquid cooling for the CPU, so that should not be a problem. However the chipset itself runs stock cooling. Might increasing the FSB numbers heat up the chipset, the Northbridge specifically?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Hi,

At 400MHZ FSB, your clock will indeed be 3.6GHz.
As you're overclocking, you may find that you need to up the voltage on your RAM.

Warning: I have never overclocked a PC, so I can only speak from other peoples experiences and guides that I have read.

I suspect that you may have to increase your CPU voltage, and maybe your Northbridge voltage as well.

From what I've read, First and most important rule, Always overclock in small steps... To jump from stock settings to 400Mhz FSB is incredibly dangerous, bcos theres no way for you to know whats causing it to not work.

So baby steps. Increase your FSB by small amounts. You'll reach a point where you lose stability, even tho the CPU is running cool. Then you'll need to up the voltage on either the CPU or Northbridge. First increase the voltage on the CPU. Boot & test. If that dont work, set the CPU voltage back to what it was, and up the Northbridge voltage. Boot & test. If that still dont work. Up both voltages a tiny fraction. If that dont help, then try upping the voltage on your RAM. If all that dont work, then you've either got broken equipment(if the overclock is nowhere near where it should be), or you've reached your overclock limit. This you can usually tell bcos your CPU is running hot.

Once you reach a speed you're happy with, start stress-testing it. Chances are it'll crash & burn. BCos starting up & handling stress are two very different kettles of fish. So you turn your FSB down a bit, and try Stress-testing again. And down & down you go, until you pass the stress-test.

No 2 pieces of equipment perform the same. Especially when it comes to CPU & MB's. Which is why overclocking is an incremental process, with small steps.

How much voltage to increase per step? I dont know.
How many Mhz to increase FSB per step? I dont know.
What apps to use to stress-test? I dont know.
How long to stress-test? I dont know. (At least 8 hours).

Hope this helps... Feel free to shoot & criticise...

Small steps - that is logical. Have a question: why would I need to up the voltage? any specific guides anyone know for Conroe? or is it all practically the same? Thanks for a quick response.