Question about Q6600 and video cards.

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RaptorZX3
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Question about Q6600 and video cards.

Post by RaptorZX3 » Wed Mar 26, 2014 12:27 pm

ok i have my 2nd PC set up, with a Q6600 in it, slightly overclocked to 2.62Ghz (stock: 2.4Ghz), with Win7 Ultimate 64-bit on it, and i was wondering some things.

1- Which one would be best for this PC, a Geforce GTX 280 or a GTS 450?
2- Is it overkill to have a GTX 280 or i can still get a better one without making my CPU being the bottleneck? (i'm trying to find a good balance here)
3- Someone told me that since the Q6600 is a 1066Mhz FSB, i should use DDR2-533Mhz RAM sticks with the same timings compatibility, for 1:1 ratio, is that true?

lm
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Re: Question about Q6600 and video cards.

Post by lm » Wed Mar 26, 2014 1:35 pm

I've a Q9450, running at stock 2.66GHz - it's slightly faster than your CPU. And I have a gtx 460 with it. Still getting good framerates in most games, at 1920x1200 resolution. Crysis 1 is mostly ok, Crysis 2 a bit sluggish.

kater
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Re: Question about Q6600 and video cards.

Post by kater » Wed Mar 26, 2014 2:06 pm

Bottlenecking might depend on the game - there are some that require pure VGA power, and some are CPU intensive (e.g. Civ V). That said the GTX280 is not really overkill, after all it's quite old itself. For Q6600, especially OCed, many ppl recommend 7850/7870 (or equivalent Nvidia) as a good match. 7850 is, roughly, 15-20% faster than GTX280. GTS450 is considerably weaker than GTX280.

Memory, dividers - for benching and pure numbers 1:1 is preferable (with high clocks), but in real world just go for highest clock you can get with your RAM and dividers be damned. Also, rule of thumb with 775 is that 1066 sticks will give you most options. Low speed sticks (533, 667) will actually keep you back, as in 775 the FSB to mem ratio cannot be higher than 1:1 - meaning that if you have (hypothetically, like Im) a Q9450 (8 x 333), you won't be able to OC it with 667 MHz RAM - unless your mem sticks can run at higher speeds (unlikely for budget sticks). If you have 800 MHz stick, then you could achieve perfect 1:1 with Q9450.

If your Q6600 is SLACR G0, then you should be able to OC it effortlessly to at least 9 x 333. Provided your mobo is sth like P35 or better - and not a G31 or some budget board with weak, bare power section. A lot of Q6600 could OC to 9 x 400 easily (with upped voltage and good coolers, mind you). But 3,6 Ghz will mean considerably more watts, heat, noise - the works. I'd personally try 9 x 333 and see how stable it is with def Vcore. This + GTX280 and the good ol' 775 can still give you some good times :)

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Re: Question about Q6600 and video cards.

Post by RaptorZX3 » Wed Mar 26, 2014 2:39 pm

yes it's a G0, and it's a Dell XPS 630 board (with the .12 BIOS, not the last .13), with DDR2 RAM slots only.

i've put my Scythe Ninja Plus rev.B on the CPU for better cooling, and i wonder if i can still overclock that CPU for more than 2.62Ghz.

This is funny because my friend used to have a GTX 275 in this system, and i'm using a GTX 280 instead.

i'm not really spending money on a newer card though, the best ones i could use in it are the GTX 280 or the GTS 450, and then after that i fall right to the 8800GT, so...

quest_for_silence
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Re: Question about Q6600 and video cards.

Post by quest_for_silence » Wed Mar 26, 2014 3:54 pm

RaptorZX3 wrote:yes it's a G0, and it's a Dell XPS 630 board (with the .12 BIOS, not the last .13), with DDR2 RAM slots only.

i've put my Scythe Ninja Plus rev.B on the CPU for better cooling, and i wonder if i can still overclock that CPU for more than 2.62Ghz

Broadly speaking a SLACR (Q6600 G0) can go much higher than current 2,62GHz (I was able to clock a SLACR at 460MHz, so 4GHz, and I am not such a very good overclocker), but it strictly depends of your board, and your expected use: as a personal experience, I never found a board which clocked it lower than 372-375Mhz.

With a Dell board, however, YMMV, as OEM boards are often severely crippled: my somewhat educated guess is that you should be able to clock at 333MHz at stock voltage at least, maybe even undervolting, and that a 360-380MHz target could be a perfectly legitimate one with minimal required tweaking and heat penalties for a 24/7 OC.

The proposed cooler is enough capable, even if an high end one usually helps when you're going to clock very high, and the venerable Ninja is no more an high end one (particularly if it's not on push-pins: a TR bolt-thru kit would help it).

About the RAM, the higher the ratings, the easier the oc'ing: more probably that not, a rated 533Mhz stick couldn't run at 370MHz FSB (synced or not), and you might have to relax too much the main timings even to clock at 333MHz FSB. But above all, I don't see any reason to look for such a slow RAM today.

Finally, which graphics: IMO it depends of resolution, games, and coolers, not just performance.

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Re: Question about Q6600 and video cards.

Post by RaptorZX3 » Wed Mar 26, 2014 5:01 pm

hmm i tried a way to overclock the CPU, and now when i look in Speedfan, the "CPU" goes up to about 80 Celcius, though the 4 cores tend to be much lower, around 50-60 Celcius. With a little research, i found that the G0's "TjMax" is 100 Celcius, while on CPU-World.com, they say the CPU's maximum temperature is 60.3 Celcius, so which one is the real CPU's maximum temperature? And should i trust the "Core (0,1,2,3)" temps more than the CPU temp itself?

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Re: Question about Q6600 and video cards.

Post by RaptorZX3 » Wed Mar 26, 2014 6:29 pm

another question. Will THOSE sticks work just fine on my Intel board?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-4GB-2x2GB-P ... 3f2d125bef

They say it's "AMD only" but i have the feeling it might just be some kind of marketting only.

kater
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Re: Question about Q6600 and video cards.

Post by kater » Wed Mar 26, 2014 10:25 pm

On one hand, as long as the memory is DDR2, 800 MHz CL 5 or 6, 1.8 - 2.0 V, it should run OK on any 775 chipset. But, the seller's tip sounds more like a warning to me. Maybe he has actually checked it? I dunno, I've never heard of such limitations for mem sticks. Your call.

As long as your board can up FSB you should be good. For moderate OC your chip will not need upped voltage. Also, perfectly, the board should let you play with memory dividers a bit.

Ninja Rev. B with push-pins? Push-pins = meh. Perhaps try replacing them with size fitting screws and nuts? Perfectly, with a backplate (or even better with Tr kit, as suggested). But I understand you may not want to spend too much messing with it, given the system's purpose and value. Still, even tho Ninja is a capable cooler, it needs proper pressure to shine. And Q6600 is not exactly your coolest chip. That said, it can take a lot of abuse and work in high temps - it's 65nm, unbreakable.

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Re: Question about Q6600 and video cards.

Post by quest_for_silence » Thu Mar 27, 2014 12:35 am

RaptorZX3 wrote:hmm i tried a way to overclock the CPU, and now when i look in Speedfan, the "CPU" goes up to about 80 Celcius, though the 4 cores tend to be much lower, around 50-60 Celcius. With a little research, i found that the G0's "TjMax" is 100 Celcius, while on CPU-World.com, they say the CPU's maximum temperature is 60.3 Celcius, so which one is the real CPU's maximum temperature? And should i trust the "Core (0,1,2,3)" temps more than the CPU temp itself?

Briefly, the TjMax is the value for an internal package temperature (Tjunction) above which the CPU starts throttling, expressed in Celsius degrees (please write Celsius, not "Celcius"), while the TCaseMax is the one you read about on CPU-World, and it's a statistical max value for safe operation of an "external" temperature for the CPU package (the TCase), usually taken by a thermocouple just under the heatspreader: so both are real, and TjMax is usually much higher than the TCaseMax value, but more important there's no direct relationship between those two.

From a practical standpoint, on the Intel platform you may know just something about TjMax through a DTS circuit, as there are no sensor to directly read the TCaseMax accessed by the motherboard, so it's a common sense among overclockers to do not trust any of the mobo sensors. You can read something more here.

Unfortunately you can't directly know even Tjunction, but just the DTS readings, which converts the analog signal from an on die diode to digital values, and then reports them as a relative offset from an absolute 0, when the PROCHOT# function is activated: so those figures are strictly not Celsius degrees, but relative measures on an absolute scale.

Summarizing, when you're oc'ing, you have to trust mainly DTS readings, as most mobo called "CPU" sensors are not so trustful.
Use RealTemp to double check SpeedFan figures, in doubt, trust RealTemp rather than SpeedFan: it may worth a reading here.
As a rule of thumb, people usually want to stay under 65-75 degrees for DTS figures under load, depending of the stress-testing program/methods used, and providing the relevant readings are properly calibrated.

Regarding your reported CPU temp, 80°C would look like a bit on the high-side, so maybe you're overheating the mobo, rather than the CPU (even a mobo can burn, not just the CPU): I would try to blow the mobo around the Ninja with a small fan, in order to see whether it changes.

kater wrote:Maybe he has actually checked it? I dunno, I've never heard of such limitations for mem sticks.


There are chances it just doesn't sport any (IMVHO useless) automatic XMP profile (which should be just for Intel platforms, not AMD ones).

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Re: Question about Q6600 and video cards.

Post by RaptorZX3 » Thu Mar 27, 2014 4:30 am

i do use the XMP profile on my DDR3, to actually use my RAM to its full DDR3-1600 capacity (my board is 1333 of FSB normally, so it's just slightly overclocked by the XMP). But yeah, i wouldn't need such a thing for DDR2.

I do have 2 sticks of DDR2 in my 2nd PC right now, one taller stick (normal sized) and one that look like those sold by that Chinese seller (shorter in height), thing is they are 1gb, and it seem like both doesn't have the same timings configs for 533Mhz, so Dual-Channel isn't enabled.

Though with this 2nd PC, i ran the FF14 ARR benchmark with slightly high details, and i was able to get about 6880 of score, which is, if you ask me, pretty good for an "old" PC like that (though newer and much better than my dual-core Opteron 180)

so i'm on the lookout for 2gb sticks of DDR2-800 right now, but "trusted vendors" which sell those, and supposedly compatible with Intel boards, are too expensive.

Note: my 2nd PC's case is an Antec P180, i replaced all the empty brackets for full ones to block warm/hot exhaust air to get back in, i taped the back-side grill (beside the fan) for this purpose as well, and i have 5 x 120mm fans (3 x Noctua S12, 1x Noctua P12, and 1 x Antec tri-cool @ medium for the PSU-HDD duct) inside, not counting the small stock chipset fan blowing on the chipset heatsink, all Noctuas run at full 12V speed.

I may install my Thermalright HR-05 chipset cooler on it soon, and i've put a fan on it. I just need to find some thermal paste somewhere...

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Re: Question about Q6600 and video cards.

Post by quest_for_silence » Thu Mar 27, 2014 4:56 am

RaptorZX3 wrote:so Dual-Channel isn't enabled.


You've just to manually enter the timings to do so.

RaptorZX3 wrote:so i'm on the lookout for 2gb sticks of DDR2-800 right now, but "trusted vendors" which sell those, and supposedly compatible with Intel boards, are too expensive.


DDR2 is EOL, so if you want it as new, you'll pay more: if you mind, you have to grab something like this.

Otherwise, you'll have to look for a used pair.

RaptorZX3 wrote:I may install my Thermalright HR-05 chipset cooler on it soon, and i've put a fan on it. I just need to find some thermal paste somewhere...


I don't think you may need such a cooler to overclock a SLACR.

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Re: Question about Q6600 and video cards.

Post by RaptorZX3 » Thu Mar 27, 2014 7:37 am

well i just installed the HR-05 on the chipset (Nvidia), i had to screw around with the loops on the board as they weren't facing the right way, so i had to twist them a bit so the hooks would get inside both.

You say this isn't required? well...i think more and better cooling is always better, and since i have a high temps for CPU (maybe it's the board itself?) i decided to switch the cooler as a hope for better temps, and i did lowered the CPU fan (Noctua NF-S12-1200, one of their first fan models) on my Ninja so it may blow more air at the bottom of it...I was told my Noctua themself that since the Ninja have very spaced fins, the S12 fan is great for it as it doesn't need much pressure to push the air thru them.

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Re: Question about Q6600 and video cards.

Post by RaptorZX3 » Thu Mar 27, 2014 8:48 am

i installed Real Temp and Prime95, it seem like while Speedfan tell me 35 Celcius for 1 core, Real Temp tell me around 43-45 Celcius, and i did a Prime95 test, and all cores temps stayed under 58 Celcius under load, and seem to drop rather quickly (i'm guessing this is because of my Ninja heatsinks cooling it off well)

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Re: Question about Q6600 and video cards.

Post by quest_for_silence » Thu Mar 27, 2014 12:40 pm

RaptorZX3 wrote:since i have a high temps for CPU (maybe it's the board itself?) i decided to switch the cooler as a hope for better temps, and i did lowered the CPU fan (Noctua NF-S12-1200, one of their first fan models) on my Ninja so it may blow more air at the bottom of it

At first you should try to pinpoint the heated CPU sensor, moving a small fan around the CPU zone while it's under load: blowing against the cooler base with it at different angles, you could understand whether and where you may place a fan to lower its temperatures, as usually tower coolers like the Ninja aren't able to cool anything else than the CPU itself.

What you may not know is whether it might be actually useful: heated sensor may point out a possible failure or not, but usually you don't know until that failure occur.

At any rate, I don't know your mobo, but at first glance I don't think a massive northbridge cooler should help to lower that specific temp.

RaptorZX3 wrote:i installed Real Temp and Prime95, it seem like while Speedfan tell me 35 Celcius for 1 core, Real Temp tell me around 43-45 Celcius, and i did a Prime95 test, and all cores temps stayed under 58 Celcius under load.


I don't understand why you insist to use the term "Celcius" for the centigrade degrees, when I just told you that it's spelled wrong: perhaps are you teasing me?

Well, Prime95 isn't the most efficient way to heat up an oc'ed rig: I'd recommend to use the Intel Burn Test at Maximum setting for at least 5 passes (more it could be better, but an high pass number is best suited to test stability), while using something as HWiNFO - or Open Hardware Monitor - to identify any mobo heated sensor (as it could be more precise and complete than SpeedFan doing so), still along with RealTemp to correctly read DTS figures.

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Re: Question about Q6600 and video cards.

Post by RaptorZX3 » Thu Mar 27, 2014 1:03 pm

one website recommend OCCT software for stress testing. Thing is it won't start the test with 2gb of memory.

and i really think it's Celcius, since the 2 temperatures standards around are Fahrenheit and Celcius, and Celcius has always been used in computers. But anyway...

The board is from a Dell XPS 630 computer, Dell-branded, but it was made for gaming, with overclocking features in the BIOS.

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Re: Question about Q6600 and video cards.

Post by quest_for_silence » Thu Mar 27, 2014 1:24 pm

RaptorZX3 wrote:one website recommend OCCT software for stress testing. Thing is it won't start the test with 2gb of memory.


I don't know why OCCT doesn't work for you, but it uses the same Linpack libraries of Intel Burn Test and LinX: I recommend IBT, google it, if you want any further opinion.

RaptorZX3 wrote:and i really think it's Celcius


If you don't trust even the Wikipedia page I linked to you, please pick up any dictionary: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/celcius

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