E6600 overclocking in Asus Blitz Formula

[zalaszen]

Hi,

 

With this Blitz Formula I managed to OC E6600 up to 3874 MHz which I am pretty satisfied with. My question is (that I also saw in the mb official Asus website forum topics) why this motherboard requires such high voltage settings?

 

With 423MHz ext cl, 1058 MHz DDRII I had to apply the following voltages, otherwise the system dumped the total physical memory and crashed:

 

Vcore: 1.737

FSBT: 1.6

NB:1.75

DRAM:2.36

 

SB/PLL pinned close to default

 

CPU temp 76C!!! under heavy load with water cooling!!!

 

So why such high voltage settings are necessary? Guys are writing on the forum, that a P5K Deluxe can do the same speed e.g. 3.6GHz with lower voltages than Blitz. Is it possible that a new BIOS release will cure this problem or it is normal?

 

Another issue is why I cannot run my 1066MHz Kingstons (PC8500) @ 1066 by setting 1066 in BIOS?? (all settings CPU etc. default or Auto but windows hungs at booting - progress bar). What should I adjust in order to reach higher memory speed than 800MHz default (I tried to increase voltage but did not help, the modules are specified to run @ 800 with 1.8V and @1066 with 2.2V with 5-5-5-15). In my former P5B-V these modules ran @1160MHz without any stability issue @ 1.9V with a latency timing of 5-5-5-15.

I would expect this motherboard to handle memory better. Here are some BIOS screenshots, but there are settings I did not see in any of my previous motherboards.

 

Is there anyone out there with another Blitz Formula or Extreme, who is experiencing the same issues?

[Comp Dude2]

Damn, 1.7 is flipping high! Looks like you are into phase change teritory lol And those temps are pretty toasty, 70 is around the limit for Core2's

[M3NF]

Personally as much as a nice OC that is, i would drop that vcore and forget getting a high OC. On a e6600 i be happy with 3.6-3.7, not a real difference in performance but will make that chip last a damn site longer

[zalaszen]

Do not worry I run 3400 MHz with 1.5 V long term, I was just interested if reaching the technical max of a CPU is possible, well yes. This voltage by the way was visible by PC probe as 1.46V in use. An interesting stuff is that in heavy CPU tests Vcore is dropped significantly. When I made the benchmarks with 1.73 V (seen 1.71 in use) it went down to 1.65V.

 

Regarding baking I did not risk long hours stability tests with heavy CPU load, just Everest repeated 5 or 6 times. Only during CPU Mandel made the 76 C peak for short time (few sec) otherwise around 40 - 57 throughout the tests.

 

Watercooling takes away 10 degrees anyway compared to big heatpipe+fan coolers with a very sudden drop in temp when coming out of a CPU test and makes 32 C wo load, just the operating system running.

 

I had a feeling that WC was necessary with this MB, the CPU would have been cooked without it...

[hightech123]

WOW thats pretty high

[Comp Dude2]

that fact that your Vcore drops that much under load makes me think your PSU is suffering because a movement of 0.06 is pretty significant. And seriously, ease off generally

[zalaszen]

that fact that your Vcore drops that much under load makes me think your PSU is suffering because a movement of 0.06 is pretty significant. And seriously, ease off generally

 

I have a Zalman 460B-APS, this is quite good at 12V, on the two 12V output it can provide 32A permanent / 42A peak, which equals 500~550W from other brands. Efficiency is also not bad. I popped in a zero performance VGA and the drop is still there. I do not think it is the power supply.

[firky]

thats a yumy 1.7! ive had 3.9ghz on 1.7v 65-70 load temps but on a evga 680i!

[Urwinn]

I'm also using the Blitz Formula and noticed the same vcore drop under heavy load (Orthos). Try changing the Loadline Calibration option in the BIOS from Auto to Enabled (or on). Once I did that my vcore stayed much more stable under load and I was able to drop my voltages quite a bit. I'm running a q6600 oc'd to 3.8.

Regarding your memory, not sure... I'm using OCZ XLC 1150MHz oc'd to 1260 without any problems. But then again I'm running it at 2.4v (within tolerance per OCZ).

 

Hope this helps!! GL!

[zalaszen]

I'm also using the Blitz Formula and noticed the same vcore drop under heavy load (Orthos). Try changing the Loadline Calibration option in the BIOS from Auto to Enabled (or on). Once I did that my vcore stayed much more stable under load and I was able to drop my voltages quite a bit. I'm running a q6600 oc'd to 3.8.

Regarding your memory, not sure... I'm using OCZ XLC 1150MHz oc'd to 1260 without any problems. But then again I'm running it at 2.4v (within tolerance per OCZ).

 

Hope this helps!! GL!

Thanks for the tip, it really nails Vcore, no drop seen under load, however it is better to set lower Vcore in BIOS with Loadline Calibration enabled otherwise the irrealistically high Vcore is fixed in use, causing the CPU overheating. I mean I had to set 1.7V+ Vcore, because there was the drop under load (went down to 1.66V), with Loadline Calibration enabled it does not go down to 1.66V, nicely stays at 1.7V causing the CPU to run at 80C with water cooling...so Vcore needs to be chosen quite carefully. Maybe the drop is there for some kind of protection?? Actually with Loadline set to Auto despite these drops I never had stability issue and kept the CPU cooler.

 

Regarding the memory I still cannot run them above 1060MHz, I tried 2.4V also, no success. In a P5B I ran them at 1160 @2.2V. Do you know what the Dram Reference Voltage setting in BIOS is good for? These can be set per channel A / channel B respectively, going bellow or above the DRam with some mV.