Intel 2 Quad Q6600

I'm going to buy a new pc and I need some help with over clocking.

It has a Q6600 processor and a Gigabyte X38-DQ6 mobo.

I don't know much about pc's so can you help me.

1. how would I overclock? from software or from the mobo's bios?

2.If I overclock, will it overclock a single core or all four?

3.What (ghz) should I overclock to? / what is the maximum that this core can cope.

4.What is the optimum temp that a a CPU should be at?

5.How do I check the temps? Do I have to buy a PC thermometer or does the CPU have one built in that can be checked via software?

Thanks in advance
~JackieTran

You mean you are going to buy an old PC.

1. BIOS is best.
2. You overclock all 4 cores.
3. Up to you. The upper limit with stability is about 3.4 - 3.6 GHz.
4. Keep the temps under 70 C.
5. Use software such as RealTemp, CoreTemp, or HWmonitor.

This will get you started:
Shadow's Gigabyte motherboard OC guide:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/foru [...] _11_0.html
It's for an EP35-DS3L but all the Gigabyte Core2 BIOS's are similar.

Go through the guides. Then take your core voltage off Auto and set your memory voltage to factory recommended values. Change the System Memory Multiplier from AUTO to 2.00. Then when you increase the FSB, the memory clock will rise in in proportion with it. At an FSB of 266 MHz, your memory clock should be at 533 MHz.

The stock cooler is good up to 3.0 Ghz. Anything higher will require better cooling.

Also, is overclocking bad?

If I manage to overclock at 3.2ghz while making the temp the same as default, will it still damage the CPU?