Hello all, I'm doing my first proper build and OC soon. And want to know as Much as I can.

As far as applications go. I will need MemTest, Orthos, Prime95, CPU-Z and some temp monitors(none come to mind at this time). And that for a true stable system I should have no errors on a 24 hour run. I assume that if at any time the programs error, shut down, or any sing that the system crashes I'm using an unstable settings, correct?

I understand I need to shut off a lot of things in my BIOS. Differ from board to board. I'll be using an EVGA board with the 680i t1 model I believe. This will take stress off the Northbridge and help for faster boots.

I understand that I will be limited to only increasing the FSB of my processor because of its locked multiplier(E6600). And that the TAT readings should not go over 100% on the stress tests. I know the Vcore is the voltage running to it. And can be increased to help stability at higher OC's. With a max of 1.55v.

In general I think I understand Mem timings. Lower is better. Generally what the numbers mean. The t1 and t2 thing is something rather new I've been noticing and don’t understand that. Is there a way to see the correlation between tight timing on a lower speed RAM can be the same speed(memtest) in relation to a looser timed higher speed RAM? Oh and voltage may need to be increased to help stabilize it or run higher OC's.

Running a 1:1 ratio is best? I honestly don’t know. I know things are running "synchronously" but what exactly is beneficial about that? also, I've assumed you want your FSB speed to be the exact same as your memory. In my case if 400mhz with the 9 multiplier giving me 2.7ghz and 400mhz for the memory. Rating it DDR2 800. Is this correct or no? Also, what does the FSB on my motherboard have to do with anything? Or its "standard memory speed"? Does it have to do with CPU/MOBO compatibility? The C2D says FSB 1033 and my MOBO says 1333/1033 meaning they support each other?

If I wanted to obtain the highest OC possible with water cooling. And lets say I got to a speed of 517mhz. Giving me a total speed of 3.6ghz roughly. I would need to run my memory at 1033 then right? At least with a 1:1 ratio. And if my MOBO says "1200 memory standard". that’s DDR2 at 600mhz. meaning with a 1:1 ratio. Optimal speed son that system would be FSB of 600? I know I may not get near that mark. But in theory this is correct? When does it become needed to cool the bridges past stock cooling? And why?

I think I've said and asked what I can. I work nights so I’m ready to fall asleep. I want to do thing well. But I don’t want to go about it in a stupid manor. I understand blacks may need to be lapped. You need a good thermal grease. Ample air flow. Good water cooling. What am I missing? I don’t in any way feel I know it all. And would love all input. I think missed many voltage areas. TAT and Vcore are all that came to mind that I know of for sure. Any suggestions, advice, anything. Feel free.

MOBO - EVGA 122-CK-NF68-A1 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813188013

CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115003

RAM - Patirot Extreme PC8500 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820220161

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Edit - I fixed the spelling errors!

Also, Does the FSB:MEM Ratio possible mean relation to overclocking? With a 1:1 instead of meanign same speeds. it means same percentages in overclocking? Like going to 300mhz to 400mhz is a 25% increase so you will need to increase your memory 25% in order ro run properly?

I hope this helps you:

Overclocking guide for C2D

OC is very easy too learn just have to know what you're doing thats all.

Well, the C2D OC guide is a great place to start. It should answer the majority of your questions. I'll do what I can for some of the others.

For temp monitors, Speedfan and TAT are two I find useful. TAT more for its ability to independantly stress the cores quickly. Yes, any memtest or prime95 crash is a detection of instabiliity, though it does not necessarily mean any one component is faulty. Constant memtest errors indicate bad modules, but other than that, are usually an indication of insufficient voltage or timings that are too tight.

Depending on your desired overclock, you should not have to go over 1.4V, much less 1.55.

For memory, tight timings are better, but only slightly. When overclocking, it's a good idea to loosen the timings for the sake of stability. Good modules allow overclock while maintaining timings, but often require a lot of voltage, as much as 2.3 or 2.4V. Keep in mind that loosening the timings is only a very minute performance sacrifice. If it lets you get another 200Mhz out of your CPU, it is well worth it.

Running 1:1 is sometimes regarded as best, but there's no real answer here. Whichever will run stable on your system is the best.

You shouldn't have to lap a good waterblock. You may want to lap your processor's IHS, C2D's are notorious for not being quite flat. This voids the warranty, so be careful.

You should consider alternative cooling of your bridges if they regularly exceed ~55-60C. They overheat the same reason your CPU would when overclocked, they are operating at a higher frequency than they have been designed to, and often have additional voltage applied as well. In your case, make sure that you have good airflow over your northbridge and your VRMs. These mobos are designed to have the excess spill air from your CPU's HSF dissipate their heat. With a waterblock on the CPU, this air is not present, and needs to be compensated for.

Your motherboard choice. Are you going to ever run SLI? Or are you looking for max overclock? DFI's new Infinity 965-S is the best overclocking C2D mobo I've ever seen. 535 FSB with the first bios. It's a lot cheaper too, and easier to cool.

Ok, that's most of your questions I think. Let us know if there is anything else.

Thanks for the posts

I understand the core concepts of overclocking. Just a bit confused on the frequencies and their ratios. I guess the best way as far as memory timings are concernced etc. Test with 3DMark or pi etc and see if it hurts your scores or not.

The C2D guides yes did say "Changes this and this". As far as some of the BIOS area's I understand. But simply telling me "CHange your northbridges voltage" isnt enough for me. I want to know why. When are signs shown that you need to. You know what I mean?

If I hit an instability problem. And I up my Vcore. An it isnt corrected. I should turn it back downand try upping the voltage to the memory. if that doesnt work. Try upping both vcore and mem. If neither of those work is it time to up a little more and test those. Or is that the time when you should start playing with your bridges?

I'm not going to be running SLI right away. So thank you for the MOBO idea. I will look into it.

As for cooling goes. I'm planning 2 seperate loops. One to CPU one to the northbridge and GPU. The rad will be using 4 120mm fans in a push pull set up. And the casewwill haev at least 3 fans in it as well. All 120mm. 80CFM rating at 20+db under full load. I'm hoping thats plenty. I looked for the coolest fans I could while keeping a low noise rating.

Basically, any voltage increase is an attempt to increase stability. At higher frequencies, more voltage is needed, plain and simple. The tricky part of the thing is, when system instability begins to present itself, it could be a number of components, or only one that is to blame. There's real no surefire way to look at the situation and say, "I need to up my mem volts" or "I need to loosen my timings a bit" or "I need a touch more vCore." You might have to do only one, or you might have to do all three, it just depends.

That being said, you should add at least .1V to your NB right of the bat. Remember, it, for all intents and purposes, IS the FSB, and therefore you'll be stressing it quite a bit once you go beyond 1333Mhz. Also within the NB is your MCH, which controls your memory, and that will need additional voltage as well. This is also why you want to disable some of the little extra firmware stuff that runs on it through bios. As for the SB, you should be fine leaving it at stock volts.

Here's an look at that DFI board I mentioned:
http://www.csd.dficlub.org/forum/s [...] hp?p=19143
The 680i boards are good boards, but their NB is quite power hungry, and you'll have to disassemble the VRM heatsink to WC the NB, so I think the 965 will be simpler for you, add less heat to your loop, and save you some money while maintaining performance at or beyond what you would get otherwise. This board will easily overclock beyond what a standard 600 board will do as well, DFI boards overclock like no other.

Here's a quick and dirty bench showing the performance relationship between mem timings and frequency:
http://gomeler.com/2007/02/22/memo [...] comparison

Thans for the links. The board seems great from the link you posted on it. I'm no fan of any aprticular chipset. So its no real problem for me. I do like that the Intels have better Raid capabilities versus Nvidia. Doesnt come with a lot of stuff. Then again I'm paying half the money for it. By chance do you knwo the difference between this and the G/X Board?

Is it true you cannot change the multiplier down from stock?

It seems to me like he wasnt gettign 533 stable(24/7). I think he meantioned a prgram that boosted his clock speed. Which I wont be using. I was hoping to run at a true 533 core clock. With a 1:1 and 1066 memroy syncroniously. Even if I had to drop my muliplier down to do so. I dont mind running at

Some other things I lied about that DSI board. Were the 2x16 pcie the 2x4pcie and the 3xpci slots. Althoguh you said not SLI? Or do the drives just not yet support it? The board looks capable just you'd lose out on some slots. Sorry I just realized that its rated for crossfire not sli. I'll be running the Nvidia cards not ATI. So if I do go that board route. I'll either have to switch to ATI or get a new MOBO. I plan to run dual GPU's in the future. Anyone knwo when the R600 series is supoes to be relased? If they can offer a competitive product that is int he smae price range. I may opt to go that route and sell the GTX or put it in a seperate build later.

It also seems like that motheboard doesnt even accept 2 pcie bandwith speeds of 16 if you're running 2 slots. Oh and if there are no onboard graphics why is there a connection to the monitor? I'm nto trying to talk down on it. just wanting to know why. I guess this board is more for OC'ing than it is per say "feature rich". More thinkign I will have to do on this.

edit - I saw talk of a 680i DSI board in the future? Know any info on that by chance?

Ok, I mentioned the DFI board because you mentioned you weren't planning on SLI. If you want dual GPU, I would recommend the 680. The ATI X2900XT is due to be released by May 21st. Based on preliminary benches, it is faster than the 8800GTS by a small margin, but is beat out by the GTX. It is supposed to retail around 400 USD. If you ran crossfire, one would be at x16 and the other at x4. This might hurt performance, it has been shown that the 8800's are slowed down running at x8 and x4, so it stands to reason that this card will be as well.

DFI will likely have a 680 board in the future, but it might be some time. They definately take their time when they build a board, but the results are usually worth it. It doesn't really come with a lot of stuff, because it doesn't really need a lot of stuff, it's built to be simple and effective. There's no graphics port, that's a COM port on the back.

Overall, if you want dual graphics, it looks like 2 8800GTX's will be the fastest for a while longer. To fully use them, you'll need a good SLI board, preferably a 680i. Don't expect to go over 500FSB with one though, it's pretty rare. But they overclock easily and you should be happy with one.

yeah, sorry. I wasnt trying to negate anything you were saying. Simply asking. So if I was sounding rude I apologize. You've been a great help.

The thought of running at 533 sounds awesome. I doubt I could reach that at the 9 multiplier though. Even with all the cooling.

I really like what I've seen with the DFI motherboard. And in fact am really considering it. As all the features of the EVGA baord I was plalnning on getting wont get used for some time. In fact I think I'm going to change to this, as my needs dont quite suit the 680 from EVGA just yet. With how often technology changes I think the DSI is more than plenty. Thanks for meantioning it.

If I ran my memtory with 1:1 at say 1066 efective(533fsb). Would I see increase because they run the same vs say 533 fs at the cpu and increased to 575mhz fro the ram or even 600? Would I be caple of overclocking my meory that high? its only a 67mhz increase from what its rated at. SuperPi would be great for seeing which ran better correct?

Any things other than the CPU, northbridge, and Gu need water cooling? I've seen memory watercooling but may be out of my reach as of now. Even simply heatsinks on things. Suggestions there?

My build is a GTX GPU, e6600 CPU, the DSI MOBO, and the PE RAM above. 1-2 seagate HDD's, and a samsoung GTG 20" 2ms monitor. I've been debating weather or not to get a 700watt PSU or drop to something as low as 550 watts. Because the case(Lian LI a10" suppers dual PSU's. And if I can run a single 550 for now until I later upgrade to more GPU's and HDD's. I can save a few more dollars or should I really stick with the 700 I selected? Its a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817153039

thanks for all the help so far. its been great. I'm feeling much MUCH more confident.

Generally, it's best to keep the multiplier high and the FSB lower, basically less stress on the total system. That's what I would recommend for a long-term setup. If you just want to see what you can push the FSB to, go ahead and drop the multi and see what you can get. I have no doubt you could push your memory this high, in fact, you might not even need to loosen the timing or increase voltage, though I would go ahead and bump it up just a tad to ensure stability. It's 1066 ram?

If I were you, I'd go ahead and get a 700W now. With a fully overclocked system, the 500W would be nearly maxxed out, which results in a big drop in efficiency. You typically get max efficiency out of a PSU when it's around 65-85% loaded. So a 700W might actually help a tad with the power bill. That's a pretty decent PSU, I'm a big fan of FSP:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817104015
And it might save you a money. Note that the efficiency is rated at >85% instead of "up to 85%".

Some other good choices:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817341002
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817151028

These are all good units for your price range. I would personally recommend the FSP unit mentioned first, unless of course you really want modular cables.

SuperPi is a good generic test of system speed, but it doesn't stress RAM too much. If you want a really good test, run the gamut of benches, 3dMark, video compression, etc.

Nah, you weren't rude, I understand what you're saying. Don't worry about it.

Yeah, its 1066 ram.

Thanks for the PSU options. I really like the idea of modular cables. I'll only be running 1 or 2 HDD's to start. But will be maxingout the cases space to 6 HDD's at a latre date. 2 in RAID 0 and 4 in RAID 5. The modular cables are a big plus there, until I get the extra HDD's. Although I'm not set on any one thing just yet. Other than a GTX GPU(If the 2900 doesnt have better cost/performance), the Lian Li case, and the Monitor. And The CPU as well. I wont be buying for a few more weeks until I finish saving up. I've got about 80% of it right now. So not too much logner and I'll start ordering.

Speaking of the memeory. These were the 4 in "compeition".

OCZ - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817153039
Patriot - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820220161
2 different Crucial - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820148069 and http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820148070
THe patriot got the most and best reviews of the 4 so thats why I chose them. Plus they were high up on THG's list on the recent memory testing they did. Oh and OZC hads their platinum on there as well for under $200(which was my goal). But its out of stock sadly, just like the DFI motherboard.

Yea, modular cables are nice, I wish more manufacturers would start adopting them. PC Power & Cooling has been knocking them forever though, even though it's been categorically proven that there isn't THAT much of a voltage drop, it's usually hardly measurable. But I would definately go with a 700W model from the get-go though.

The Patriot RAM should do the job just fine, good price too. Gotta love the way DDR2 prices are falling. The DFI mobo will be back in stock on Newegg on May 14th at 9:15am ET. That's the third time it's sold out, that should tell you that it's a hot motherboard. Let me know if you have any more questions!

I've always got questions. Haha

Thanks for the help so far. Its been great.

I think honestly the only questions that come to mind as of now. Would be alternative cooling for the motherboard for say the voltage regulators and things along those lines. Needed, not needed? The cooler the better.

I'm going to OC it until I cant anymore with the cooling and everything. Just to see what its capable of. But lets say I OC is as far as I can that still posts, passes memtest, Orthos, Prime, etc. At least a 12-24 hour test. Then it is more than capable of handling every day tasks with out fail then? I'm assuming at least. My everyday tasks aren’t quite "everyday" I guess you could say. As it would be used not only for gaming but CAD and rendering as well. I was actually going to go the quad route because I can make use of well over 4 cores. But I don’t think the $500 price tag on even the low end is very appealing yet.

Sound. I was originally going to go with Creative’s X-fi sound card. But after reading some reviews it seems there are lots of issues with it and games like BF2(which I play). And instances of static and things. I really do not want to deal with that. Any other recommendations? I’ve always owned Creative sound products. :x

Last set of questions for now. Haha. Sorry man. The board is rated for a FSB of 1066 and DRR2 800. Now the 680i are rated for the future 1333 and DDR2 1200. Because of this will I run into any issues as far as running a 1:1 if I were at the 533 mark? I assume I wouldn’t and the numbers posted on the board are merely for stock specs of products not for overclocking.

Just for kicks my new build plan is the follow(Sorry no links)
-DFI motherboard you pointed out
-GTX, GTS, or 2900 GPU(waiting on final prices)
-e6600 CPU(May look into the Q6600 if prices fall by the time I buy which I doubt)
-Patriot Extremes DDR2 1066(2x1GB)
-Thermaltake's 700watt PSU with the modular cables etc
-lian Li a10 black case
-samsungs GTG 22 or 20inch LCD flat panel with 2ms(grey to grey)
-XP Pro(May look into dual booting later with Vista and XP)
-Segates 7200prm sata drives 320gb
-Mircosofts 4000 ergonomic keyboard
-Logitechs g7 gaming mouse
-logitechs 5.1 500watt speaker system
keyboard mouse and speakers will most likely be something for later. (My orignal bild plna was over 5k. Which I've cut now into half)