E6400 Overclocking, need advice.

B

BrandonB

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Jan 25, 2007
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Hello everyone,

So a few minutes ago I OCed my E6400 to 3GHz, I was just wandering if you guys knew what the max vcore is for an E6400 n all that? I don't wanna screw up my parts hehe... here is a screen shot, note the voltages in red, what does that mean? Do I need to drop them down? All Idid was keep the voltage settings on auto.

OC.jpg
 
Run Orthos for a few hours to make sure everything's stable.

1.45v seems a bit high for an E6400, though ... might want to bump it down a bit and see how stability is. My E6420 does 3.2 Ghz on 1.375v ... YMMV, of course. :)

EDIT: bah, ignore my advice ... I needs sleep.
 
JaYp146 said:
Run Orthos for a few hours to make sure everything's stable.

1.45v seems a bit high for an E6400, though ... might want to bump it down a bit and see how stability is. My E6420 does 3.2 Ghz on 1.375v ... YMMV, of course. :)
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1.4v seems high on the FSB or the vcore? The vcore is at 1.45v, FSB is at 1.4v, PCI-E is at 1.4v.
 
1.45 volts won't hurt anything. After you reach a stable overclock you can drop your core voltage down until it becomes unstable and then bump it back up to where it was previously stable. A little too much voltage at first is better than not enough.

I've had my E6400 core voltage set to 1.45 volts in the bios for many months now.
 
Correct...1.45v won't hurt anything, and as long as temps stay in check most people hit close to 1.5v on air...again, with good cooling and lower ambient temps to help out.

I wouldn't automatically jump the gun and boost the CPU vcore more then you might have to...take it slow. Start at 266FSB and raise it by 10MHz or so and run Orthos Small FFT's for a few hours before jumping another 10FSB. Keep doing this until it's not stable and then raise the cpu voltage by the smallest increment possible and re-run Orthos. That's what I've done for some time now, and it really does help narrow down exactly what voltages you actually need, and you shouldn't have to do much to your motherboard voltages until the FSB climbs a smidge higher, but remember to try raising them one at a time in place of the CPU voltage if Orthos starts failing.

All in all it's a trial and error process, but it pays off when you take your time and do it right.
 
Do you know what the max temp a E6400 can take? I'm running at 430FSB right now (3.4GHz) running orthos, no problems so far. I would like to know so if it starts to get too hot I can back it off.

OC2.jpg
 
Technically you'd probably be fine up to about 70C under load...but over LONG periods of time you might be looking at shortened CPU life.

Generally people end up starting to back down in the 60-70 degree range, so you do have a fair bit of room left, just don't be too preemptive on the vcore and you'll be fine...these chips heat up quick with extra juice. :D
 
cornelious0_0 said:
Technically you'd probably be fine up to about 70C under load...but over LONG periods of time you might be looking at shortened CPU life.

Generally people end up starting to back down in the 60-70 degree range, so you do have a fair bit of room left, just don't be too preemptive on the vcore and you'll be fine...these chips heat up quick with extra juice. :D
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Thanks for the info =). It just rebooted while it was running orthos, so I bumped the vcore up 1 notch, will see if that fixes it. Overclocking is addicting =|. It's being watercooled (CPU and GPU) so the temps should stay down, with the AC on it stays at about 53c after a few minutes of being loaded.

Edit:
My goal is to keep it at, well I just realised my cpu clock is higher than a X6800 =O. My goal is to keep it at 3.4GHz if I can.
 
I suppose that's acceptable with the GTS on the same water, but I load at 62C or less @ 3.2GHz...but I also only need 1.312v at that clock...so your temps aren't horrible.

Hopefully things work out, but I'm pushing myself to learn/pickup whatever I can as i work on my own chip, so I'll be here (along with others) to lend a hand if needed.
 
cornelious0_0 said:
I suppose that's acceptable with the GTS on the same water, but I load at 62C or less @ 3.2GHz...but I also only need 1.312v at that clock...so your temps aren't horrible.

Hopefully things work out, but I'm pushing myself to learn/pickup whatever I can as i work on my own chip, so I'll be here (along with others) to lend a hand if needed.
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I've got that shitty koolance waterblock, no one else was in stock so I got that one (irritatingly enough the EK blocks came in stock about 2 days after ordering the koolance, but by the time I would be able to send it back and get my money back it would have been too late). I'd say 45c idle on a koolance block isn't too shabby.

Edit:

Do you know of a way I can load my CPU and GPU at the same time? It wouldn't be realistic temps if I just load my CPU as I game a lot, so if the GPU is also dumping heat in the loop then the water is gonna heat up, which means higher temps. Does that make any sense?
 
cornelious0_0 said:
Good to hear, hopefully things go well overnight, it's bedtime for me. ;)
Click to expand...

Night! Hehehehe, the second core just dropped by 2c (48c now).

Edit:
Check this out...

OC3.jpg


And just in-case you don't believe me, I took a picture with my digital camera...


OC4.jpg
Nice temps eh?
 
Per Intel Data Sheet max Vcore for that chip is 1.55 Volts anything more and Intel says you void the warranty and shorten the life.

(I do not recommend more than 1.45 for long life, but I keep machines much longer than the average person).

Per Intel Data Sheet the processor will thermal trip (shut itself off to prevent damage) at 85C.
 
Correct...most people do stop around 1.5v...maybe a smidgen higher, but it's not necessarily recommended...just depends on your intentions with the CPU.

Congrats on the success so far BrandonB, I hope things continue to go your way.
 
BrandonB said:
Do you know of a way I can load my CPU and GPU at the same time? It wouldn't be realistic temps if I just load my CPU as I game a lot, so if the GPU is also dumping heat in the loop then the water is gonna heat up, which means higher temps. Does that make any sense?
Click to expand...

I use the ATI Tool artifact testing screen. I think it kind of unrealistically heats up the gpu, but so does Orthos running Small FFT's for the cpu. But shooting for a good temp in a worst case scenario is never a bad thing.
 
WintersFury said:
I use the ATI Tool artifact testing screen. I think it kind of unrealistically heats up the gpu, but so does Orthos running Small FFT's for the cpu. But shooting for a good temp in a worst case scenario is never a bad thing.
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Correct...shoot for stability in that "worst case scenario" so that you know once you're done stress testing that your system will be fine no matter what.

ATITool's heat-up phases combined with rthdribl is the best way I've found to load the GPU.

Othos SmallFFT's, ATITool heat-up phases and rthdribl gives you a really good mix, and you could run HCI Memtest to suck up any remaining memory at the same time while also hogging some more CPU cycles. Put your system through that for 12 hours and you're gold. :D
 
cornelious0_0 said:
Good stuff so far...keep us updated. :)
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I was gaming for about 2 hours, rock solid! I don't think I can go any farther than 3.4GHz though, the PCI-E and FSB is already in the "red zone" so to speak, or it shows that on ntune. Or can it go higher than 1.4v without damaging it?
 
I'm sorry, but I'm not as "up" on the acceptable voltage ranges of 680i as I am with my RD600 based ICFX3200.
 
BrandonB said:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835118019 :p
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No thanks, other then the fact that I find the 9700LED a bit loud @ 12v...the Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme with a 60cfm fan smacks it around and is much quieter. The 9700LED has a little more of a "bling" look to it, but for straight performance you can't get any better then the Ultra-120 Extreme from any comprehensive testing i've seen.

Thanks though, but I should still be able to push 3.3GHz or 3.4GHz out of this thing with the stock cooler after talking to a couple guys on XS with similar experiences, and I won't be needing any kind of replacement for a little while. ;)
 
cornelious0_0 said:
No thanks, other then the fact that I find the 9700LED a bit loud @ 12v...the Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme with a 60cfm fan smacks it around and is much quieter. The 9700LED has a little more of a "bling" look to it, but for straight performance you can't get any better then the Ultra-120 Extreme from any comprehensive testing i've seen.

Thanks though, but I should still be able to push 3.3GHz or 3.4GHz out of this thing with the stock cooler after talking to a couple guys on XS with similar experiences, and I won't be needing any kind of replacement for a little while. ;)
Click to expand...

I wander if it's possible for me to hit 4.0GHz, I'm already almost half way there. I don't know if heat will go up too much though, or even if I can set the voltages low enough to not damage the components. I'd like to push it as far as I can, but no so much that will prevent me from gaming or give my parts a 2 day life span. :p Any suggestions?
 
Few people can't do 3.6GHz on decent air cooling or low end water...but 4GHz is pushing it for some/many E6600's on air.

I'm not gonna say it can't be done, but don't get your hopes up to much, I'd aim for 3.6GHz and then take whatever you can get after that.

I probably won't be doing any more pushing for 3.3GHz until I get the Ultra-120 Extreme, as it's getting warmer here, and even just from foldling 100% on both cores I'm at 59C load, whereas I used to only hit 62C with Small FFTs.
 
cornelious0_0 said:
Few people can't do 3.6GHz on decent air cooling or low end water...but 4GHz is pushing it for some/many E6600's on air.

I'm not gonna say it can't be done, but don't get your hopes up to much, I'd aim for 3.6GHz and then take whatever you can get after that.

I probably won't be doing any more pushing for 3.3GHz until I get the Ultra-120 Extreme, as it's getting warmer here, and even just from foldling 100% on both cores I'm at 59C load, whereas I used to only hit 62C with Small FFTs.
Click to expand...

I got it to 3.5GHz so I'm happy, it wont go any farther.

OC7.jpg


Thats with the vcore at 1.4750, all the other volts are the same. Running Prime95 and Orthos.

Edit:
Nevermind, that didn't work out so well and I didn't want to raise the volts any higher, so I put it back down to 1705 FSB (cuz I was tired of seeing Windows say it was at 3.39GHz lol, it now says 3.40GHz), stress testing it again to make sure it's stable.
 
Good luck with everything, I know how addicting yet frustrating this hobby can be at the same time.
 
cornelious0_0 said:
Good luck with everything, I know how addicting yet frustrating this hobby can be at the same time.
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WIth the AC off and the cores being loaded for an hour and 20 mins the CPU is at about 57c, which is great! I'm happy with it so I'll definitely stop here, rock solid too. Thanks for your help on everything. :D
 
Good to hear, glad things turned out for you, now I just gotta confirm what I think is going on with my setup preventing me from hitting 3.3GHz /w stock cooling. :D
 
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