Q6600 on Dry Ice -- FSB: 480, CPU: 4.32GHz -- Updated with pics.

Process:

1) Buy the crap...gigabyte DQ6? I'm leaning towards the P35. I like DDR2 and the performance difference vs. DDR3 seems marginal at best.

--I purchased a...

Q6600; L734B275 w/ VID of 1.275
Gigabyte X38-DS4
Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500 @ 2.2V

2) Build the heatsink that holds the Acetone and Dry Ice (refer to link in original post).

--Type L Hardened Copper @ 12" w/copper cap. Found it at local plumbing supply and Brazed by local HVAC company. I placed a 4"x4" conduit cover plate on the top of the copper pipe and secured it to a bottom plate using wing nuts and 8-32 threaded rod cut to about 13".

3) Use a chemical to seal the front and back of the mobo. but what to use?

--Used Duct seal putty~$2. Any gel would probably do fine but I was a little paranoid as it was my first try at DIY extreme cooling. The putty was placed as shown in above pics...around the CPU socket and surrounding areas. **NOTE** It doesn't remove very well from the board

4) Apply neoprene cut outs to socket and surrounding areas as needed.

--Used one neoprene square on the underside of the mobo as shown in the photos above. I utilized a back plate from a Thermalright Ultima 90 to secure it.

5) Bring it all together

6) Post pictures, results, etc.

Feel free to PM me or for amendments as I'm going to see about creating a concise but detailed report as to my experience IF I choose to go through with this.

Well...I guess you could say both.

It started out with noticing the gigabyte competition. Suddenly my dreams of peltiers were flashing in front of me. Then I realized that the TDP of the Q6600 was too high for the 226W Peltier I found.

Doing the math shows that the Peltier would become far too inefficient and that water cooling without the Peltier would probably turn out better.

Then I realized that at my local wally world we had dry ice. So I began thumbing through the internetz for ideas as to how to assemble the heatsink.

Now I'm at the conclusion you brought up. This could turn out to be a bit pricey as I might have to go through several CPU's. The only CPU that seems to qualify for this request would be the Q9650. However, that's not really an option if we compare it with my bank accounts n' such. :>

So bottom line. I want to blow the hell out of a Q6600 with a little help from some voltage and dry ice...but not unless I can reach some mid-level 4+GHz overclocks. But after reviewing information for the Q6600 it seems that I might be running into a 'switching' wall. I'm not so sure the 65nm Quad core process is binning well enough to give me a guaranteed 4+ GHz using Dry ice.

if you have the money get a good phase change cooler

That would be stellar.

However...I was looking at those and they go for about $900 or $600 USD used. That's not something I could justify. It seems like a lot of kids are able to hit about 3.8 with their Q6600 on air coolers though. I might just take the plunge.

Maybe I'll look around these forums and see if I can find a DD 4401 kit. Then I'll see if I can find a higher rated peltier since they're cheap. The 226W was about 38 USD. I have a 750W PCP&C that isn't doing much with my current configuration so maybe I should stretch its legs.

The more I think about it...the more I believe I'm getting carried away.

I bet insulating the underside of the motherboard with neoprene surrounding the socket should suffice the need. I'm also going to throw in some non-conductive gel inside the actual socket.

I think this project is gonna be a go.

As a MoBo of choice I would suggest DFI LP P35-T2R, Asus Maximus Formula, Foxconn MARS.
About the preserve from condensation there are a lot of threads at vr-zone.com and xtremesystems.org

*writing down*

alright...all done with the project kids. I'll update the info as it's convenient for me. I'm a little disappointed.

Final Overclock:

FSB-484
CPU-4.32GHz
Voltage-1.74

I take it it went ok though. No damage.

nah...no damage. I was pissed though.

I'm confused about my temperatures. If my temps in windows are correct, between 2C and -8C, then it's a good overclock. If they're wrong...then I suck

Because temps should have been around -30 or -40. If that were the case I should be able to hit 4.5GHz.

Sorry about the pictures...I'm working on those now.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=4675104

Obviously my 3DMark isn't patched correctly as the score isn't representative of the calculated numbers.

I believe where I made my error(huge mistake) was not realizing how quickly the acetone would dissipate...so I added way too much

You can see that in one of the photos as bubbling acetone nearly reaches the top of the cylinder due to the gas attempting to escape from the melting dry ice.

I'm wondering if my batch didn't bin so well as I needed so much voltage for such an awful overclock. That's why I'm leary about my true temperatures. I might try it again later in the week with a lot less acetone this time. We'll see if I can get my hands on some better equipment too. It'd be nice to have a multimeter and something to read temps.

You also have to throw some error into this project based on the d'ice pot that I made.

Either way...my assumption is that with 1.6V and proper cooling I shouldn't have had such a hard time hitting 4.5GHz. Therefore, my temps under XP were most likely correct.

I could get up to 484FSB and that was my wall. I don't know if it was CPU or board bound but I definitely could not hit 485 without problems. I even tried frying my mobo and CPU to get it higher.

Did you run the PLL up and mess with GTL refs?

I'm having a hard time uploading my final overclock screen shot on image shack as I'm sure your browsing my pictures.

I'll try to get that up asap.

My overall score is 15108 3DMarks...if I were to overclock the GPU I'd add about 1500-2000 to the end score.

My CPU score was 6670.

Yeah, I saw 11,000+ points as the total.

My pc gets 13,500points.

And cnumartyr gets like 17,000+ points

I appreciate that...that's good information. I believe in my bios there are options to for adjusting FSB voltages as well as some timings, ps-something? I adjusted my voltages for the FSB which allowed me to reach 484 stable. I also attempted to add voltage to the (g)MCH/Clock Skew control. I was very limited as to my offering for gMCH though. I was given +or-10%. I did not mess with the gMCH timings. I attempted to hoping for a shot of luck but my ignorance prevailed and it actually rendered my system inept. I could not finish a POST after altering the MCH timings.

I had a similar experience with the CPU clock skew control. I even wasted 2.5lbs of d'ice trying to find a parallel between the function of the two skew controls. Alas, I'm dumbfounded by these settings

What board is it?

I might look up the BIOS on line and see if I can tell you what things are. It can get pretty confusing.

Gigabyte X38-DS4

While testing the board everything seemed to point at a FSB wall. Overvolting the NB didn't seem to help anything and the only settings I didn't mess with were the amplitude settings between CPU/NB/PCIE.

I was pretty much shooting blanks as this was my first extreme clock. But I also now that the X38 doesn't like to be pushed as much as the P35.

Clock Driving/Skew = Not needed to be touched.

FSB Overvoltage = CPU VTT
MCH Reference = I'm guessing NB GTL Ref
DDR Ref = Another GTL Ref.. but Normally it's CPU
DDR Term = Not sure..

What else is in CTRL+F1?

Ya...I had remembered looking over some past reviews where Asus and DFI were preferred due to their extra settings but you might be on to something with CTRL+F1. However, the competition is for those with gigabyte boards

I didn't even notice because I was so focused. Let me reboot.

My Blood Iron was $120 when I got it. It has an insane amount of options and is great for dual cores.

My P5K-E was $140 and it's great for a quad and has all the options I need.. The ONLY thing it doesn't have is seperate GTL adjustments for the 2 dies.

Lol, I have stayed away from those "hybrid" board since when VIA was making chipsets with DDR and DDR2 support.

I was swayed by TGH's shinning review.