How high should I set multiplier on new Pentium 965EE?

Hello,
I just found a great deal on a 965EE, which is the very top my mobo (intel D955XBK) can handle. My last chip didn't have an unlocked multiplier, and I am wondering how high I should set it. Most places say it's safe to jump a few notches even with fan cooling. I have a liquid cooling kit for my processor (because of prior overheating problems).

Any thoughts?

Also, what should I check as I go? I got Speedfan to check CPU temps, and Prime995 to test it.

Thanks!

Great deal better mean you picked it up for $20 or less. Most/all C2Ds are faster then this chip.

Stock is 14, I doubt you'll be able to get it much above 16. It's already running at 3.73GHz, most of these chips topped out at 4.2ish. 266*17=4.5GHz so 16x will probably be as high as you can go.

I know your board doesn't support C2D CPUs, but if you spent a lot of money (and definitely anything higher then $100.) you were better off dumping your current setup and getting a C2D and new board. I've seen used C2D chips for $40, and I'm sure you can find a good S775 board for $60. (reuse your current DDR2 ram.) Such a setup would greatly outperform that old P4, while not costing you much more.

Going from memory 4.2GHz-4.5GHz is the top end of what that chip can do. (not counting high end H2O loops or LN2.) However you get there is up to you and your equipment. If you want to do it with just multiplier bumps or FSB increases it doesn't really matter.

Every chip is different, you'll have to try both and see. If you have the multiplier adjustment I'd start with that. If it can handle 17 or 18 that's great. Don't be afraid to bump the Vcore up some however as you'll need more juice the faster it gets.

I'm not trying to be a jerk either. I know you are setting in front of the computer you have, but maybe its not the computer you should use. You also said "water cooling kit". Some of those kits aren't any better then good air coolers, so don't be totally shocked if/when you get a heat issue. Not saying it will happen, but unless your "kit" is really a "loop", you might strain it with your high TDP chip.

Like I said, try it both ways and see which gets you farther. And please report back as I'd love to hear how it went. I'm going to guess CPU multiplier will get you farther, but I also bet a small mix of each will be best of all.

Well that was a real pain the buttocks. The Intel-recommended method for recovery from a bios-setting-induced non-booting state is to manually reset the bios with the .bio file on either a USB stick or a CD. NEITHER of these did anything at all. No matter what I tried with putting the jumper into "reset" mode (as instructed by Intel), nothing ever showed on the screen.

Frustrated, I pulled all harddrives and CD drives from the system, still nothing.

Super-frustrated and about to give up, I put the jumper into the "reset bios passwords" mode... AND IT WORKED! By putting the jumper into this third option, it let me get into the bios where I could change passwords if I wanted, but it also let me reduce the multiplier! Yes!

Rebooted (replaced jumper and reattached windows harddrive) and got into Windows, albeit VERY slowly. I rebooted again, and it started moving a little faster. I shut down, reinstalled all hardware and rebooted twice more. Now it seems to be back to full speed. Success!

Well that's all for now, i'm gonna rest on my laurels and watch some Fringe with a beer. I think I deserved it. The saga will continue tomorrow.

I'm not going to mess with the FSB for now, I've decided. I'm just going to try to work up the multiplier and the CPU voltage. Let's keep it simple, one variable at a time. Once I decide on a max CPU speed, maybe I'll go back and mess with FSB... maybe.

At any rate, I'm back at 16x multiplier, CPU running at 4.267GHz. I want to go further, but I think going to 17x without bumping voltage will just fail to boot like last time. So I think I have to raise the CPU voltage. The default is 1.3250. I've read that max safe is 1.4, but it's best to go up in small increments.

So, first I bumped up the CPU voltage from 1.3250 to 1.3375, but kept the 16x multiplier. When I boot into windows, I see no discernable difference in my reported voltages. While sitting at desktop, Speedfan is reporting anywhere from 1.20-1.24, which is the same range I always see (tested at 14x, 15x, and 16x, all at default 1.3250 bios setting).

Any idea how much I have to bump the bios voltage setting before I can safely jump to 17x? Is there any way to establish better feedback on voltage settings without reaching a point where I have to reset jumpers to recover?

Update:
I got comfortable with 1.3375 and bumped it again to 1.3500. System booted up just fine, and it was acting normal. Temperatures were a little higher, but still never got over 65.

However, then I turned on Prime95. After less than 10 minutes, I got a BSOD. System reboot, I backed it down to 1.3375. Re-ran Prime95, and got same BSOD. Now I'm back to stock 1.3250, with a 16x multiplier.

At no point in this did I ever see the temperatures break 70. Temps spiked as soon as Prime95 started, but then dropped and stabilized close to 62. Then, several minutes later and seemingly out of nowhere, BSOD.

So it seems raising the CPU voltage is a problem.