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MurderCityDevil
Gawd
- Joined
- Dec 6, 2007
- Messages
- 724
I wanted to tell the story of my CPU, a chip that throughout constant abuse, mishaps, and over a year of moderately high overclocks, still powers my machine and amazes me to this day. The system I have now is the first one I ever built myself, and over the last year, my Q6600 has been the most reliable, unfaltering component of them all. It all started in late 2006, when I first got the idea to build a machine myself.
After doing a lot of lengthy research about which parts to get and balancing the desire to get the best parts as well as the financial constraints of being a working student, I got the list together. I wanted to go with a quad core cpu because although dual cores were much cheaper, everyone talking about future proofing convinced me that this would be the way to go. They were right, and I'm glad I didn't skimp. The mobo that I decided on being my Q6600's home was originally a Maximus Formula SE that I bought at Fry's. However, the way that I built my system was piece by piece, gradually, so for about a month, I had nothing but a case, a mobo, and my cpu, while I saved up money for the next component on the list. During this time, I convinced myself that taking the SLI route would be another excellent way to make my money go farther, and so returned the Maximus and swapped it for an EVGA 680i A1 edition board, which is currently a vegetable and hangs on my bedroom wall like some kind of gay post modern techno art. More about that later.
After all the parts were finally together and everything was up and running, I was able to have some fun and overclock. Well, it turned out that the board I bought was a big mistake; as we all know today, the majority of 680 boards were very poor overclockers. If I remember correctly, I was never able to get above 3.0 ghz with my Q6600, but figured that maybe in the future I'd be able to go higher as I refined my OC skills and purchased an aftermarket cooler. But then the unthinkable happened. Here's the part where you'll all laugh and point and I'll hang my head in shame like a 3rd grade kid that got pantsed on the handball courts. It all went down like this -
I decided that getting a new CPU heatsink was mandatory, and figured a Zalman 9700 (I don't remember the exact name of it, it's the round copper thing with incredibly dangerous razor sharp fins, and a big flaming blue fan in the middle) would serve me well. With that purchase, I also learned about the importance of thermal paste and the wonders of Arctic Silver. The next part still bamboozles me to this day - how I could make such a painfully obvious blunder, and even more than that, how my trusty Q6600 managed to survive. This is what I did: Somehow, amidst my excitement, I must have had some sort of mental blackout and my mind decided that the phrase "thermal epoxy" meant "perfect thermal compound for your cpu - safe, effective, and completely unrelated to anything you would associate the term 'epoxy' with!" Yes, I purchased the two part AS epoxy, and went home to put the whole thing together. Now, the most retarded thing about all of this, is that nothing ever even dawned on me UNTIL I bought a TRUE 120 and needed to take off the old heatsink.
Well, to make a long story short, after a brief period of shock and cursing myself for being such a crippled retard, hours of trying to pry the zalman hsf off my precious (at this point, mind you, still brand new, cpu and motherboard) using nail polish remover, a hair dryer, exacto knives, brute force, rubbing alcohol, flathead screwdrivers, etc, the goddamn thing finally came off. Except, when it came off, it didn't actually release itself from the cpu - it just ripped the chip out of the motherboard socket. Hence, my old EVGA mobo, with its completely mangled cpu socket and missing hinge to cover the chip, is now hanging on my wall.
After a lot of gloom about how I killed my motherboard, and most certainly, my cpu as well, I re-purchased the Maximus Formula that I still have to this day. In retrospect, it was a great choice - this mobo has been absolutely nothing but rock solid, filled with more features than I know what to do with, and a great overclocker. It handles my OC'd cpu, as well as 8 gigs of PC8500 1066 DDR2 with ease, and does so with all voltages in the green and cool temps to boot. But back to the Q6600. After being catapulted out of my EVGA motherboard, I was able to pry it from the heatsink with much greater ease. Throughout all the pulling and wiggling and scraping, all while being doused with chemicals, I was sure the chip was dead. Its pins remained unharmed however, and I tried to remain optimistic. While I waited for my motherboard, I decided I might as well try lapping the chip and my TRUE 120, just in case it did work after all. After that was done, I couldn't wait for the whole shipping ordeal and picked up my motherboard from the warehouse's will call.
After all was put back together, the unthinkable happened - my chip still worked! It was some sort of miracle. You'd think that even though technically being "functional", the lifespan/capabilities of the chip would have been decreased. So far I have not seen that to be the case. For about a year now, thanks to my great mobo, I've been running the chip at 3.6ghz, 400 fsb, 400 NB strap, at only 1.38 vcore. It turned out, that the chip I bought also had a very low VID, only 1.2625. I got lucky that I bought it so long ago, back when all the G0s had suhc good VIDS. From what I understand, the most recent batches of Q6600's have been piss poor. Although 3.6 on air is nothing to scoff at, I tried taking my chip even higher, and last summer decided to get it stable at 3.8 on air. After a LOT of tinkering around in the bios, troubleshooting, posting on forums, I wasn't able to get it running well for more than a few hours of Prime95. This was also during a very hot summer, so I'm sure temperatures had something to do with stability. I remember during prime load (this was before IBT) my temps got well up into the 80's.
Just recently, however, I thought I'd give it another shot. I reseated my TRUE120, switched the AS5 for MX-2, added another fan on my heatsink, and utilized the much, much colder ambient temperatures. Needless to say, this chip did it just fine. With 1.49 vcore, it was 8+ hours prime stable, and load temps only got up into the 60's. I have a feeling that with better cooling, this chip could probably do 4.0 - I was able to boot into windows with 4ghz, but unable to test. As you can see though, the jump in voltage for an extra 200 mhz was quite significant. That's why I lowered it back down to 3.6. The cost-benefit ratio just isn't in my favor. Additionally, I doubt I'd be able to run my memory at the rated speed without more NB voltage, which it does fine at 400 fsb. In any case, this chip is capable of it, and has surpassed all my expectations.
So in conclusion, if you have a Q6600 that you bought around the same time I did, rejoice! Overclock the hell out of it! If it's anything like mine, it should be a beast. And props to intel for giving me a chip that's damn near indestructible. You'd think if the epoxy snafu wasn't enough to kill the bastard, stress testing it for days in the middle of July in southern california with less than adequate cooling would, but it lives on. Moral of the story - do not buy Artic Silver Thermal Epoxy.
After doing a lot of lengthy research about which parts to get and balancing the desire to get the best parts as well as the financial constraints of being a working student, I got the list together. I wanted to go with a quad core cpu because although dual cores were much cheaper, everyone talking about future proofing convinced me that this would be the way to go. They were right, and I'm glad I didn't skimp. The mobo that I decided on being my Q6600's home was originally a Maximus Formula SE that I bought at Fry's. However, the way that I built my system was piece by piece, gradually, so for about a month, I had nothing but a case, a mobo, and my cpu, while I saved up money for the next component on the list. During this time, I convinced myself that taking the SLI route would be another excellent way to make my money go farther, and so returned the Maximus and swapped it for an EVGA 680i A1 edition board, which is currently a vegetable and hangs on my bedroom wall like some kind of gay post modern techno art. More about that later.
After all the parts were finally together and everything was up and running, I was able to have some fun and overclock. Well, it turned out that the board I bought was a big mistake; as we all know today, the majority of 680 boards were very poor overclockers. If I remember correctly, I was never able to get above 3.0 ghz with my Q6600, but figured that maybe in the future I'd be able to go higher as I refined my OC skills and purchased an aftermarket cooler. But then the unthinkable happened. Here's the part where you'll all laugh and point and I'll hang my head in shame like a 3rd grade kid that got pantsed on the handball courts. It all went down like this -
I decided that getting a new CPU heatsink was mandatory, and figured a Zalman 9700 (I don't remember the exact name of it, it's the round copper thing with incredibly dangerous razor sharp fins, and a big flaming blue fan in the middle) would serve me well. With that purchase, I also learned about the importance of thermal paste and the wonders of Arctic Silver. The next part still bamboozles me to this day - how I could make such a painfully obvious blunder, and even more than that, how my trusty Q6600 managed to survive. This is what I did: Somehow, amidst my excitement, I must have had some sort of mental blackout and my mind decided that the phrase "thermal epoxy" meant "perfect thermal compound for your cpu - safe, effective, and completely unrelated to anything you would associate the term 'epoxy' with!" Yes, I purchased the two part AS epoxy, and went home to put the whole thing together. Now, the most retarded thing about all of this, is that nothing ever even dawned on me UNTIL I bought a TRUE 120 and needed to take off the old heatsink.
Well, to make a long story short, after a brief period of shock and cursing myself for being such a crippled retard, hours of trying to pry the zalman hsf off my precious (at this point, mind you, still brand new, cpu and motherboard) using nail polish remover, a hair dryer, exacto knives, brute force, rubbing alcohol, flathead screwdrivers, etc, the goddamn thing finally came off. Except, when it came off, it didn't actually release itself from the cpu - it just ripped the chip out of the motherboard socket. Hence, my old EVGA mobo, with its completely mangled cpu socket and missing hinge to cover the chip, is now hanging on my wall.
After a lot of gloom about how I killed my motherboard, and most certainly, my cpu as well, I re-purchased the Maximus Formula that I still have to this day. In retrospect, it was a great choice - this mobo has been absolutely nothing but rock solid, filled with more features than I know what to do with, and a great overclocker. It handles my OC'd cpu, as well as 8 gigs of PC8500 1066 DDR2 with ease, and does so with all voltages in the green and cool temps to boot. But back to the Q6600. After being catapulted out of my EVGA motherboard, I was able to pry it from the heatsink with much greater ease. Throughout all the pulling and wiggling and scraping, all while being doused with chemicals, I was sure the chip was dead. Its pins remained unharmed however, and I tried to remain optimistic. While I waited for my motherboard, I decided I might as well try lapping the chip and my TRUE 120, just in case it did work after all. After that was done, I couldn't wait for the whole shipping ordeal and picked up my motherboard from the warehouse's will call.
After all was put back together, the unthinkable happened - my chip still worked! It was some sort of miracle. You'd think that even though technically being "functional", the lifespan/capabilities of the chip would have been decreased. So far I have not seen that to be the case. For about a year now, thanks to my great mobo, I've been running the chip at 3.6ghz, 400 fsb, 400 NB strap, at only 1.38 vcore. It turned out, that the chip I bought also had a very low VID, only 1.2625. I got lucky that I bought it so long ago, back when all the G0s had suhc good VIDS. From what I understand, the most recent batches of Q6600's have been piss poor. Although 3.6 on air is nothing to scoff at, I tried taking my chip even higher, and last summer decided to get it stable at 3.8 on air. After a LOT of tinkering around in the bios, troubleshooting, posting on forums, I wasn't able to get it running well for more than a few hours of Prime95. This was also during a very hot summer, so I'm sure temperatures had something to do with stability. I remember during prime load (this was before IBT) my temps got well up into the 80's.
Just recently, however, I thought I'd give it another shot. I reseated my TRUE120, switched the AS5 for MX-2, added another fan on my heatsink, and utilized the much, much colder ambient temperatures. Needless to say, this chip did it just fine. With 1.49 vcore, it was 8+ hours prime stable, and load temps only got up into the 60's. I have a feeling that with better cooling, this chip could probably do 4.0 - I was able to boot into windows with 4ghz, but unable to test. As you can see though, the jump in voltage for an extra 200 mhz was quite significant. That's why I lowered it back down to 3.6. The cost-benefit ratio just isn't in my favor. Additionally, I doubt I'd be able to run my memory at the rated speed without more NB voltage, which it does fine at 400 fsb. In any case, this chip is capable of it, and has surpassed all my expectations.
So in conclusion, if you have a Q6600 that you bought around the same time I did, rejoice! Overclock the hell out of it! If it's anything like mine, it should be a beast. And props to intel for giving me a chip that's damn near indestructible. You'd think if the epoxy snafu wasn't enough to kill the bastard, stress testing it for days in the middle of July in southern california with less than adequate cooling would, but it lives on. Moral of the story - do not buy Artic Silver Thermal Epoxy.
