As you can see from my sig I have an E6600 running at 3ghz(333 x 9).

I want to try for 3.2 next and want the oppinions of expirienced OC'ers as to wether or not I'll need to up the Vcore to squeeze the extra 200mhz out???

What is your Vcore currently set at?

200Mhz is a pretty good leap if you are almost at your peak OC....I would say with your cooling you could up it to ~1.45ish volts to see where you get -- don't forget about your chipset voltages also though as they can dramatically affect your stability.

Before you throw a load on your CPU at 1.45vcore though definately just monitor your idle temps with light use making sure you aren't idling at like 60* or anything outrageous then put on a half load (say stress just one core) and do the same....if you are still looking ok temp-wise then go ahead and throw a full load on there :)

 Ice's advice is indeed a great way to go about it. I really need to get myself one of those laser based temperature monitors, always wanted one. As well as a PSU load tester that someone was referring to in another therad, I never knew they even made such a low cost one.

You should be able to hit 3.2....Just follow ice's advice, just bump up your multiplier and see if it posts, if not, add a little voltage. I normally tend to go into the bios ASAP and look at the temperature to see if it's way too high. Even though it's not accurate for dual/quad cores, it's still a bit close to average temps among the cores for a safety check (atleast in my experienecs it has been). Once you get into windows, run a stress test on a single core as he mentioned to make sure temps aren't too crazy.

Just out of curiosity, are you using orthos or prime95? 

You can only up the multi on extreme edition cpus so my only option is to take the fsb higher.

Using prime... an instance on each core set to be able to use a gig each(out of 3gb). Small on 1 core, mixed on the other.

Actually though I'm satisfied with 3ghz and have come to the conclusion that an extra 200mhz would mostly be redundant as framerates in most games are already more than adequate.

An OC to my GFX card would yield a bigger increase in frames, but unfortunately I hit a wall on my core after OC'ing just 53mhz... meh! My temps were just fine too so it's not a thermal issue... maybe if I ventured into the cards bios & cranked the volts, but it's not that serious so it's highly unlikely that I'd go that route.

 ACK...typo. I meant to say FSB...iono why I said multi.

 Regarding graphics cards, it's a bit more worrying on OC'ing IMO. But if you got a good company (EVGA/XFX), than you can be worry free. But XFX has a better modding warranty IMO.  I took my X700 pros stock core clock of 425 to 496, and the stock memory clock of 864 (432) to  1003.5 (501.75)....FEEL THE POWAAA!..hahaha =P. 

The one thing I've never done is flashing the bios and cracking up volts for the gpu...I just don't see the need for it... 

As you may have noticed from my pic in your ugliest thread, I've got an evga card. What's ironic is that while I couldn't get very far with the core, the memory seems to have a gang-load of headroom. If I remember correctly I took the memory up 140mhz from 2160 to 2300 no sweat... seemed like I coulda gone higher! I hit 2300 after realizing that the core was the bottleneck causing 3Dmark06 to lock up in exactly the same palce 2 or 3 times.

Ahhh....Are you sure it wasn't the memory locking it up =P...lol

Sometimes, you just have the bad luck of getting a GPU that doesn't clock very far. Did you buy a pre OC'ed card? or the stock specified version? 

 First could you list your specs and cooling? Without this information advice is useless.

Zalman 9500 cooled E6600 @ 3ghz(9 x 333, 4:5)on Bad Axe 2 with 3gb G.skill C4 6400

EVGA 8800 Ultra @ refference speeds of 612mhz core, 2160mhz mem - stock cooling with fan @ 100%

Temps

CPU ~ 29-33c idle, 47c max load

GPU ~ 49-53c idle, 68c max load

for those who don't know these temps are actually quite good for a GTX/Ultra, with the fan @ default speed it idled at 62-66c which is considerd pretty normal and acceptable for these cards

You definitely have some wiggle room for a larger oc ^_^. Very nice temps man. Damn..An Ultra? How long have you had that for?

I was actually getting better cpu temps on that q6600 music rig I built for a family friend. His rig was hitting 26-28 idle, 44-46 load =P...lol. It was oc'ed to 3 ghz...Ambient temps were quite cold thoug...so it'd probably be over yours on warm/warmer days =P.

I'm just curious recovering...what do ya use for 3d stress testing? some rendered motion on a loop or like ATItool or......?

 I used to be WAAY into OCing my video cards until I got my 1950PRO -- basically everything on the card is locked up so I can't really do much with it, nor do I need to as for now it suits me :)

 EDIT: Also recovering, you might be interested to know that I have begun OC on my Q6600 -- my NB is giving me trouble though (passive cooling so it gets too hot and I get lockups). I tried pointing an 80MM fan at it during testing but my Zalman and video card are surrounding it so its tough to get airflow through there . Right now I am at 2700Mhz just hangin out with no issues -- I hit 3200 earlier but like i said DAMN NORTHBRIDGE!! haha

I just run 3dmark 06 a few times in a row, bad OCs tend to lock it up in very specific places... I've seen lockups in the same places when trying to OC 3 different cards.

BTW: ice ~ I saw your quad temps in another thread and have to agree with kam that they seem high... have you gotten a handle on them?

BTW: kam ~ My ambient temps are almost certainly higher... a month or so back I remember checking my temps on a really cold morning and idle temp was about 23-24c.

Indeed the ambient temp when I took those q6600 temps were low. The entire time I was build the rig it was rather cool. If it was on a warm/hot summer day, they'd probably be up around the upper 50's. 

How's your guide coming?

BTW: kam ~ I noticed you got 2 bars already under your avy... you're a posting machine!!! lol

If I'm not mistaken I should get my next bar when I hit 1,250 posts which will deffinately happen in the next 24.

=P....I was wondering when mine was going up. I still felt like a little chick ^.^.

I had to take a break from the guide, but atleast I was able to send you the sample of it tonight. I still need to finish the layout also.

Unfortunately not going to be able to do much today or tomorow. My sister got influenza and brought it into the house, brother caught it after, and now my mom has it. My sister's fine now, brother is coming off it, but really worried about my mom considering she's not that young. It's a pretty scary flu I have to admit. My bro, sister, and mom have been experiencing uncontrollable trembling from being cold, head ache, nausea, anxiety, high fever, etc. Not fun at all....So making sure I keep checking up on her every 10 minutes and getting her what she needs. Going to head out to a few homeopathy doctors I found within a 35 minute drive to get this "L52" product or "Gelsemium" (a fllower extract). It seems to help treat what she has. 

 Probably going to have gaps in my time to getting on the net. Damn I hate colds...I'm trying to make sure I don't catch this, I don't want to be laying in bed for a week...hell no.

 we could get that E6600 to 3.3ghz real fast...

Der Meister:

we could get that E6600 to 3.3ghz real fast...

Yeah... I've concluded that too. When I get my new board I'll try taking my OC higher after making sure all systems are go... hopefully the rma process will be quick & painless like the tech assured me.

BTW: Der ~ what divider are you using? I used a 4:5 to get to 3ghz with my ram running at 832mhz C4.

 What is your current Vcore?

 1.3-1.4 should be plenty to bring you up to 3.2. Personally I left mine at 1.45 throughout all my overclocking, so that it wouldn't become an ussue, then when I was satisfied with my overclock and it was 100% stable, I lowered my vcore.

Double check your AS5 application and your cases intake / outgoing air flow, those temps seem awfully high, I was getting those temps at 3.4 ghz and 1.45 volts.

recoveringknowitall:

BTW: ice ~ I saw your quad temps in another thread and have to agree with kam that they seem high... have you gotten a handle on them?

Sorry for the late response (it was revived so I will jump in) -- I actually went to a happy medium between low voltage and as high FSB as I could get from it; 1.225V gets me just under 2.8Ghz and my load temp hits ~50* on the heatsink and 45* or so on the actual die....

What guide is Kam workin on?

trueg50:

those temps seem awfully high

Hardly... my temps aren't bad at all for a B2.

You have water cooling and I'm on air hence your better temps.