OC'n my Core2Duo 6400 Conroe

[Zambini]

Before I start I'd just like to say cpu-z is the best damn program ever ;)

Ok, so I wanna see how good my Core2Duo is, and how much better I can make it via AIR cooling only! (I have a ZALMAN CNPS9500 Heatsink attached to this baby)

First of all, I have never OC'd anything.

Second of all, here is my setup (Thanks to CPU-Z's Export to HTML feature ;))
CPU-Z Report


Third of all, I wanna know the following answers:
-How much can I OC my 6400
-How much of a performance boost is that
-How risky is it to OC my 6400 (to "safe" but still higher levels)


Any and all helpful input is appreciated :D



-Zam

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by Zambini

I wanna know the following answers:
-How much can I OC my 6400

We can't answer that, every setup is gonna be a little different, even two with the same hardware. But I would set your sights at around 2.8Ghz for a good start.

Originally Posted by Zambini

-How much of a performance boost is that

Again, this is gonna depend on how your system is set up and what kind of applications you are benchmarking. THIS and THIS are both good reviews with benchmarks comparing stock and overclocked speeds of the Allendale Core 2 Duo chips (more specifically the E6400).

Originally Posted by Zambini

-How risky is it to OC my 6400 (to "safe" but still higher levels)

Overclocking is quite safe as long as you keep an eye on your temperatures (like like to try and stay at 50ºC or less) and don't crank up the voltage too much (I would say don't do more than about 7% - 10% voltage increase).

[RangerXLT8]

You will be able to take the E6400 to 400FSB on the DS3, I think mine did like 430+ FSB/ So get clocking that FSB.

[Zambini]

How do I do that? Just pop in some #'s in the BIOS?

[gvblake22]

Originally Posted by Zambini

How do I do that? Just pop in some #'s in the BIOS?

The simple answer is "yes", but there's more to it than that. You only want to change it 3 - 5 MHz at a time and test for stability everytime you change something. The value you will want to be changing is the FSB (Front Side Bus), but beware because increasing this value will also increase the speed of your memory. So you can change the divider on your memory to make it run a little slower so when you increase the FSB, the memory will have room to grow. Then you can start over and single out the memory by putting the memory divider back to stock and lowering the CPU multiplier and start increasing the FSB until your memory becomes unstable. Then you can find a happy medium between the highest speed of your RAM and the highest speed of your processor.

[RangerXLT8]

See where it says CPU host Frequency, that is the FSB.

[Panda Man]

The CPU host frequency is your FSB.

The FSB is multiplied by the multiplier to get your clock speed. You can lower the multiplier by one if you feel it will yield a higher bus speed (most people do get better results on the bus when dropping the multiplier.) Since your new to OCing, I wouldn't recommend dropping the multiplier below 7x.


Do everything as blake said, however since you are new to OCing, I would recommend moving up 10MHz, boot, and then run PRIME95 for about 4 hours to make sure its stable (Direct Link). Then repeat this process until its unstable (if you can't run PRIME95 for more than 3 hours after 3 tries, its unstable). Once you find it is unstable, move it back down 5MHz, and run PRIME95 for 24 hours. If its stable for 24 Hours, and the temps don't go above 60C, you have a good Overclock

Be sure to monitor the temps. I wouldn't let it go above 60C under full load. And I wouldn't bump the voltage until you are a little bit more familiar with OCing. I also wouldn't change the PCIe frequency or the memory multiplier (unless it is DDR2 1066).

[Zambini]

Good news :)
Set the FSB +10mhz, jumped from 5776 to 5800 on 3DMark05. I'm gonna boost it another 10mhz, and run the Prime95 till 6AM tomorrow, when I'll wake up and run the 3dmark again & post results. Looks like 5 hours of sleep for me! LoL =)


ps: whats the best CPU temp monitoring software for my setup? (mobo on sig, it's a Rev.2)

[gvblake22]

Speedfan and Everest both work quite good for measuring temps (but don't run both at the same time).

[Zambini]

humph.... I boosted it another 10mhz, but I only got a boost in 2 3dmarks...... cpu-z shows it @ 2288 mhz core speed, 6 x multiplier, and an FSB of 286mhz. Which is weird, because in my BIOS the multiplier shows 8x.


So I think its probably the temp monitoring software that slowed it down? I also forgot to close all programs that I didnt have running in the background in the other benchmarks..... which is steam and pcbackup client, which is about 29mb of memory.

I'll run it again now though, after closing those progs

[edit] Hmmm.... Well it just went down to 5741 3d marks....which is the same score that the stock cpu got... I don't get it. it shows it as Intel Core 2 2.29 GHz which is what I set it to, but it underperformed.

Weird... I'll do more tests/oc'n when I get home today and tomorrow and keep posting....