Another upgrade advice Q

Currently running Athlon x2 3800 on Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe, o/c to 2.4GHz on
stock cooler. Thinking of moving to Q6600 with Asus P5K series board, o/c
to 3GHz (which seems easily achievable on air cooling). PC is multi-use,
everything from gaming to encoding and everyday stuff. Operating system
would be Vista HP or Ultimate, haven't decided yet. Thoughts appreciated.

dekhelia wrote:
> Currently running Athlon x2 3800 on Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe, o/c to 2.4GHz
> on stock cooler. Thinking of moving to Q6600 with Asus P5K series
> board, o/c to 3GHz (which seems easily achievable on air cooling). PC
> is multi-use, everything from gaming to encoding and everyday stuff.
> Operating system would be Vista HP or Ultimate, haven't decided yet.
> Thoughts appreciated.

497 reviews fot the Q6600 here.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115017

140 reviews for the E6850.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819115028

So looks like the Q6600 is quite popular. Make sure to get a G0 stepping,
from a source known to ship them.

Paul

"dekhelia" <we're the left side> wrote in message
news:. uk...
> Currently running Athlon x2 3800 on Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe, o/c to 2.4GHz on
> stock cooler. Thinking of moving to Q6600 with Asus P5K series board, o/c
> to 3GHz (which seems easily achievable on air cooling). PC is multi-use,
> everything from gaming to encoding and everyday stuff. Operating system
> would be Vista HP or Ultimate, haven't decided yet. Thoughts appreciated.

3.0Ghz 'should' be easy with the G0 Q6600. Mine goes to 3.35Ghz with Vcore
on 'Auto' with an Asus Striker Extreme 680i board. I would NOT get Vista at
this point. I have a copy of Vista Ultimate here and have tried it twice on
it's own drive and have removed it twice.......:-). I am using XP Pro and
will stay with it until the Vista SP1 gets here. It wasn't just one major
issue with Vista it was a great many small issues that just about drove me
nuts. This system was built with Vista in mind and for the first time in
ages I got everything new from the printer to the monitor and everything in
between. XP just works. Vista is not ready yet.

Ed

Thanks guys. Did buy a Q6600 but didn't get the 'right' stepping. Mine is
B3, I believe. Ah well - let's see what we get. Will report back.

"dekhelia" <we're the left side> wrote in message
news:g_ydnU5OZqoh2ZDanZ2dnUVZ8t-...
> Thanks guys. Did buy a Q6600 but didn't get the 'right' stepping. Mine is
> B3, I believe. Ah well - let's see what we get. Will report back.
Yea.........keep up posted. I have no experience with that stepping......You
still could get a decent OC'er.


Ed

OK. Installed processor and booted up at 9x333=3GHz (instead of
9x266=2.40GHz), on default voltage (1.3V, I think). Not bad. Not using
stock cooler, have a Thermaltake BigTyp cooler (this thing is *huge*), and
stressing all four cores using two instances of Orthos gives me 57C max
temp. Idle is 33C. Not bad at all. I'll run it in for a few weeks, see
how it goes, and report back.

OK. Running two instances of Orthos revealed instability over 12hrs, so
increased vCore to 1.3125V. All stable in Orthos x 2 / 24hrs, and (possibly
more importantly, real world) with the kids tanking the high-end games ...
still, we'll see. Ambient temp in this part of the world is pretty low at
the mo, ~18C, so the cooling system hasn't really been tested.

Watch this space, I guess.

"dekhelia" <we're the left side> wrote in message
news:. uk...
> Currently running Athlon x2 3800 on Asus A8N-SLi Deluxe, o/c to 2.4GHz on
> stock cooler. Thinking of moving to Q6600 with Asus P5K series board, o/c
> to 3GHz (which seems easily achievable on air cooling). PC is multi-use,
> everything from gaming to encoding and everyday stuff. Operating system
> would be Vista HP or Ultimate, haven't decided yet. Thoughts appreciated.