Q6600 OC

[Spork829]

I've been eyeing parts on Ebay for a super-cheap NAS/home server PC. I'm thinking right now of going with a Q6600, as it's cheap used and will fit my fairly minimal performance needs (just hosting a bot or two, Plex and a VPN as well as NAS functionality). I found a promising looking motherboard with everything I need, the Intel DQ45CB. A few questions:

 

1. Will I be able to OC it with this board? If not, what do I need for that?

 

2. If I go with a Xeon X3220 instead, which is basically equivalent to the Q6600, will I be able to OC that, or will it even work in the board at all?

 

3. What kind of temps am I looking at when overclocking a Q6600? Never used one before. Do I need a really beefy cooler?

[aisle9]

You can OC a Q6600 to 3.0GHz on just about any motherboard with the tape mod. And yes, you'll need a cooler capable of handling 115-130W.

[Spork829]

1 minute ago, aisle9 said:

You can OC a Q6600 to 3.0GHz on just about any motherboard with the tape mod. And yes, you'll need a cooler capable of handling 115-130W.

Oooooooooook first of all what is the tape mod? Second of all the cooler I'm looking at says 95W, would that be ok for stock clocks if I had no other options?

[aisle9]

3 minutes ago, Spork829 said:

Oooooooooook first of all what is the tape mod? Second of all the cooler I'm looking at says 95W, would that be ok for stock clocks if I had no other options?

On the cooler, yes, that'd be right on the ragged edge. Q6600s have a TDP of between 95-105W.

 

I'll link a tape mod/BSEL mod guide here. In essence, you're covering two contacts with electrical tape to make the motherboard and CPU think they're running at a 1333MHz FSB, when the Q6600 is actually only designed for 1066. It's an easy, safe OC if the temps are monitored.

 

http://hubpages.com/technology/Get-more-from-your-Quad-Core-Q6600

[givingtnt]

16 minutes ago, Spork829 said:

I've been eyeing parts on Ebay for a super-cheap NAS/home server PC. I'm thinking right now of going with a Q6600, as it's cheap used and will fit my fairly minimal performance needs (just hosting a bot or two, Plex and a VPN as well as NAS functionality). I found a promising looking motherboard with everything I need, the Intel DQ45CB. A few questions:

 

1. Will I be able to OC it with this board? If not, what do I need for that?

 

2. If I go with a Xeon X3220 instead, which is basically equivalent to the Q6600, will I be able to OC that, or will it even work in the board at all?

 

3. What kind of temps am I looking at when overclocking a Q6600? Never used one before. Do I need a really beefy cooler?

hi, just last year, I built a flight sim with a q6600.

I got it to around 2.9 ghz with base voltage, ram oc would kill everything. 

3.2 with 1.37V
here is what I was running and the part list : 

the temps I got were around 68-72 degrees celcius at iddle. with an intel stock cooler.

while in full use I would go to around 86-87 wich is not too bad for the setup I was running.

 

I woudn't bother with the xeon, the tape mod works but its a pain in the ass for nothing imo.

[Spork829]

3 minutes ago, givingtnt said:

the temps I got were around 68-72 degrees celcius at iddle. with an intel stock cooler.

Okay thank you, this especially is good news because I'm looking at a cooler bigger than an Intel stock cooler and maybe not even OCing (no one has said yet whether the board I'm looking at can do it) so temps should probably be fine.

[givingtnt]

3 minutes ago, Spork829 said:

Okay thank you, this especially is good news because I'm looking at a cooler bigger than an Intel stock cooler and maybe not even OCing (no one has said yet whether the board I'm looking at can do it) so temps should probably be fine.

I plan on (in a few weeks / month) get a new cooler for that pc, and push the oc a bit more. I shall see then. probably a 212 evo or something.

[Spork829]

1 minute ago, givingtnt said:

I plan on (in a few weeks / month) get a new cooler for that pc, and push the oc a bit more. I shall see then. probably a 212 evo or something.

Yeah that will be interesting, glad to know cooling shouldn't be an issue for me though.

[aisle9]

16 minutes ago, givingtnt said:

the temps I got were around 68-72 degrees celcius at iddle. with an intel stock cooler.

while in full use I would go to around 86-87 wich is not too bad for the setup I was running.

 

I woudn't bother with the xeon, the tape mod works but its a pain in the ass for nothing imo.

1. Those temps are dangerously high.

2. Did I mention that 72C at idle on a CPU designed to peak at that level under load is dangerous? Seriously, get better cooling or clock back down.

3. The tape mod takes five minutes tops to gain 600MHz. Not sure how that's a pain in the ass for nothing.

[givingtnt]

31 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

1. Those temps are dangerously high.

2. Did I mention that 72C at idle on a CPU designed to peak at that level under load is dangerous? Seriously, get better cooling or clock back down.

3. The tape mod takes five minutes tops to gain 600MHz. Not sure how that's a pain in the ass for nothing.

yeah, good thing its running only for 2h at a time. It really needs a good cooler.

[FloRolf]

I bought an i3 2120 for 20 bucks. Get a cheap h61 board with it and be done. 

Seriously, you get

1. Lower power consumption 

2. Better support for sata 3

3. Less heat

4. Why would you OC your Nas anyways? 

 

Or get a newer Pentium but I'd advice against a Q6600 for that project. 

[Spork829]

8 hours ago, FloRolf said:

I bought an i3 2120 for 20 bucks. Get a cheap h61 board with it and be done. 

Seriously, you get

1. Lower power consumption 

2. Better support for sata 3

3. Less heat

4. Why would you OC your Nas anyways? 

 

Or get a newer Pentium but I'd advice against a Q6600 for that project. 

Should have done more research, I didn't know old i3's came that cheap. Might do this, thank you.

[Spork829]

18 hours ago, FloRolf said:

I bought an i3 2120 for 20 bucks. Get a cheap h61 board with it and be done. 

Seriously, you get

1. Lower power consumption 

2. Better support for sata 3

3. Less heat

4. Why would you OC your Nas anyways? 

 

Or get a newer Pentium but I'd advice against a Q6600 for that project. 

Actually think I'm going to go with an i5 650 and H55 board because it's roughly the same performance and I'm seeing better prices. Thoughts?

[aisle9]

3 minutes ago, Spork829 said:

Actually think I'm going to go with an i5 650 and H55 board because it's roughly the same performance and I'm seeing better prices. Thoughts?

I would. Even with a Q6600 at 3.0GHz, the i5 still more or less matches its performance, but it's cooler and more efficient. If prices are the same (or even if the i5 is 10-15% higher, imo), the -650 is the better buy.

[Spork829]

1 minute ago, aisle9 said:

I would. Even with a Q6600 at 3.0GHz, the i5 still more or less matches its performance, but it's cooler and more efficient. If prices are the same (or even if the i5 is 10-15% higher, imo), the -650 is the better buy.

Okay thank you  

[aisle9]

1 minute ago, Spork829 said:

Okay thank you  

No problem. Only thing to point out is a reminder that first-gen i5 CPUs were dual-core with hyperthreading. For what you're doing, I don't see that being any kind of issue.

[Spork829]

1 minute ago, aisle9 said:

No problem. Only thing to point out is a reminder that first-gen i5 CPUs were dual-core with hyperthreading. For what you're doing, I don't see that being any kind of issue.

Yep, I think 2 threads would even be fine for me at least for my current needs.

[aisle9]

1 minute ago, Spork829 said:

Yep, I think 2 threads would even be fine for me at least for my current needs.

Agreed. Just don't run any VMs.

[Spork829]

1 minute ago, aisle9 said:

Agreed. Just don't run any VMs.

Yeah, planning to do this all through Windows. Would have spent more on a Xeon and maybe ECC and whatnot if I was going more serious like that.