general core2 overclocking questions

[meauounji]

Hello all,

I have a few questions, wondering if you expert [H]'ers can help me out. I know, I know, everybody and their mother has a question about overclocking a Core 2 Duo nowadays.

Here's the story:
I recently purchased a C2D e6400 with the intention of overclocking it to 3.2ghz (8x400). Nothing too extreme, just looking for a good bargain. Anyway, the parts came in and the machine works fine. It seems stable enough at 3.2ghz, (no extensive tests yet, just a half an hour of dual instance prime95 torture tests) and I only had to bump the v core up to 1.350 (it started at 1.325, CPU is stepping 6 I think). The temperature right now is idling at apx 50c, and going up to about 70c, depending on which monitoring program you look at.

My questions are:

Do you think that 50 idle and 70 load are acceptable temp ranges? I keep the room at about 80F (I'm from the tropics)

Long term, with using the retail HSF be a bad idea, or should I upgrade to a larger one? If so, what's a good one without getting too fancy? Hey, $50 isn't going to break the bank, but if I don't have to spend it on another heatsink when I've already got one that works, I'd rather spend it on something useful.

...and dear gosh, what is with all these discrepancies between all the temp monitor programs? For reference, I used core temp and speedfan. It can vary up to 10 degrees between the two of them.

Thanks ahead of time!

Art

 

[WarriorX]

Even though u live in a warm enviroment, 70c load is to warm imo. I suggest a new HSF.

The Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro is pretty good for its cost and size. http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=FA...28a8d6e0a3ed34f4db3e0fdce27f0faf85bc37e53c867
Cant believe newegg wants $60 for it.

There are other options but they are more expensive and larger. The arctic should do fine in lowering your temps.

Core temp reads from the digital sensor on the chip. Speedfan reads it from somewhere else. Core temp is the accurate temp.

 

[ghost6303]

My questions are:

Do you think that 50 idle and 70 load are acceptable temp ranges?

Long term, with using the retail HSF be a bad idea, or should I upgrade to a larger one? If so, what's a good one without getting too fancy?

70C is walking the line between safe and heat damage. when im going for benchmarks 70C under full load is ok for short periods of time. if you want it to run 24/7 i wouldnt go over 60-65 loaded. you also have to remember that under 24/7 usage you will rarely use 100% cpu power for extended ammounts of time so this might not even be an issue. but be sure to keep an eye on it, if a program hangs or crashes or gets stuck it could peg the processor at 100% (rare but i have seen it) and if you are AFK you could melt your mobo.

and for temp monitoring tools use intel's thermal analysis tool and/or coretemp. speedfan sucks and does not read the correct temps