Could I get more out of this setup?

**texhater42** · May 27th, 2010, 11:01 AM

What's up everyone, had a question...should I overclock? Can I even overclock?? Here are the specs...

mobo: Asus P5E
Newegg.com - ASUS P5E LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard
cpu: Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4GHz
memory: 4 X 2GB Patriot DDR2 8000MHz (4-4-4-12)

Not even worried about the graphics card yet...but for gee whiz its a NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT....

Nothing has been changed, or modified...just wondering if there's anything I can do to improve performance and speed....thanks in advance!

**texhater42** · May 27th, 2010, 11:02 AM

oh...running Windows 7 Home edition 64bit...if that matters

**mdpcrepair** · May 27th, 2010, 11:05 AM

Originally Posted by texhater42

What's up everyone, had a question...should I overclock? Can I even overclock?? Here are the specs...

mobo: Asus P5E
Newegg.com - ASUS P5E LGA 775 Intel X38 ATX Intel Motherboard
cpu: Intel Core2 Quad Q6600 @ 2.4GHz
memory: 4 X 2GB Patriot DDR2 8000MHz (4-4-4-12)

Not even worried about the graphics card yet...but for gee whiz its a NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT....

Nothing has been changed, or modified...just wondering if there's anything I can do to improve performance and speed....thanks in advance!

THIS LINK Overclocking Intel's Core 2 Quad Q6600 | bit-tech.net should answer any of your questions of overclocking.

**texhater42** · May 27th, 2010, 11:26 AM

Overclocking Intel's Core 2 Quad Q6600 | bit-tech.net

..."With the Asus P5K Deluxe, we had a strange time as there was a stability “hole” around the 3.1GHz mark while using the default multiplier – we couldn’t get the CPU stable at anywhere between 341MHz and 348MHz FSB. However, we then lowered the multiplier to 8x and found the CPU worked fine at around 385-390MHz FSB (either side of 3100MHz) so we continued to push onwards and upwards"

...huh?

**mdpcrepair** · May 27th, 2010, 11:54 AM

Originally Posted by texhater42

Overclocking Intel's Core 2 Quad Q6600 | bit-tech.net

..."With the Asus P5K Deluxe, we had a strange time as there was a stability “hole” around the 3.1GHz mark while using the default multiplier – we couldn’t get the CPU stable at anywhere between 341MHz and 348MHz FSB. However, we then lowered the multiplier to 8x and found the CPU worked fine at around 385-390MHz FSB (either side of 3100MHz) so we continued to push onwards and upwards"

...huh?

What I gathered from that site is, that an upgrade would be in order. There is really no way of overclocking unless you upgrade. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

**RacerX** · May 27th, 2010, 01:22 PM

What??? No way of overclocking?????????

of course he can look at doing an OC.
they ran it at 3.3 that's a 900mhz OC.

He just needs to look into a good aftermarket cooler.
They used an old ES, which can be a flip of the coin for stability and a good OC anyway.
someone on the Egg ran it at 3.4 stable on that board.

There's no guarantees it will run that fast, but even at 3.0 would be a decent performance boost.

Down the road, if you get a video card that really likes a faster CPU, you have the option of updating the BIOS and running an E8400 to an E8600 and doing an OC, which would run you in the 4+ Ghz range.
The dual core at 4+ will be faster than an older quad running 1000mhz slower.

**ShyguyXPC** · May 27th, 2010, 04:40 PM

Originally Posted by RacerX

What??? No way of overclocking?????????

of course he can look at doing an OC.
they ran it at 3.3 that's a 900mhz OC.

He just needs to look into a good aftermarket cooler.
They used an old ES, which can be a flip of the coin for stability and a good OC anyway.
someone on the Egg ran it at 3.4 stable on that board.

There's no guarantees it will run that fast, but even at 3.0 would be a decent performance boost.

Down the road, if you get a video card that really likes a faster CPU, you have the option of updating the BIOS and running an E8400 to an E8600 and doing an OC, which would run you in the 4+ Ghz range.
The dual core at 4+ will be faster than an older quad running 1000mhz slower.

Depending on what your running, Games or other types of software that may take advantage of the additional cores, in a case like that, the Dual can't even match the Quad. so like I said, depends on the usage of the system.

Which leads me to the Question, Can I Get More Out Of This System?

Which I reply with another Question, WHAT are you Going to use this system for?

Only gaming, or what?

**JPMiller** · May 27th, 2010, 05:49 PM

What PSU?

What cooler?

**RacerX** · May 27th, 2010, 06:03 PM

If he's only using it for games written for multi-threading and strictly apps written for multi-threading, then a fairly decent quad will give some extra fps, and shave some seconds off that app, but as a whole his system won't be faster.
My buddy tried that same thing, thinking his quad will be faster overall for gaming and some basic multimedia stuff, yet months later after trying various AMD and Intel quads, he opted for the same DC i have, running his at 4.5 and he swears it's the fastest, smoothest system to date.
Sure synthetic benchmarks will win, so i suppose if someone only runs benchmarks all day and only runs those handful of apps written for 4+ cores, then go for a quad.
better yet, get a new 6 core.

I convinced that same person to waste money on the new intel 6 core, so once he gets that system running, we'll be doing some various comparisons. (actually it was easy, he tends to buy new stuff just because anyway.) And specialized programs aside, we'll see how the overall gaming and system performance is.

**ShyguyXPC** · May 27th, 2010, 06:15 PM

I'm just saying, it depends on what the OP is doing, they don't specifically say their PC is mainly for gaming, in fact, says "Not even worried about the graphics card yet" so I suspect their more interested in getting the CPU aspect running better, with the OC questions, etc.

if the rig is primarily for Gaming, then a GPU upgrade would be in their best interest, that 8800GT is no where near enough to bottleneck the Q6600 at stock anyways.

but like Said, I was just saying since we don't know what the primary use of the users PC is, whether a Dual core would be better for them over a quad.

**texhater42** · June 2nd, 2010, 06:03 PM

Originally Posted by ShyguyXPC

I'm just saying, it depends on what the OP is doing, they don't specifically say their PC is mainly for gaming, in fact, says "Not even worried about the graphics card yet" so I suspect their more interested in getting the CPU aspect running better, with the OC questions, etc.

if the rig is primarily for Gaming, then a GPU upgrade would be in their best interest, that 8800GT is no where near enough to bottleneck the Q6600 at stock anyways.

but like Said, I was just saying since we don't know what the primary use of the users PC is, whether a Dual core would be better for them over a quad.

I am a part-time student so I will do some homework on this(some of it will be Java Programming), I will use it for gaming as well, I have a flight sim FSX I play regularly, as well as some FPS and some RTS games. I do some video editing with digital videos I record on my camera...I guess what I'm trying to say is that I use this machine for a little bit of everything, not just surfing the internet....word?