Question for you overclockers

[AirFlyer]

I run my Q6600 at 3.0Ghz 1333FSB and it's idle at 50C and full load seems to be 60 - 65C max so I think your temps should be fine.

[Mak333]

On a dual core, it's somewhat risky to be running 60C under load.  However, if you'd like to upgrade in the near future, run the hell out of the chip, then upgrade and buy a decent heatsink.

I'm running an E6600 2.4Ghz @ 3.2Ghz with idle temps at 26-27C and load temps around 40C.  Thermalright Ultra-120 Extreme is the trick for the cooling factor.  I'll most likely be upgrading to an E8400 or possibly a Quad in the future.  I may just stick with dual cores if future games do not benefit from quad cores.  Higher performance, less heat.

[BaldEagl]

On a dual core, it's somewhat risky to be running 60C under load. 

That depends on the processor.  The E6000 series safe operating temps are in the mid to upper 60's (C).  Voltage throttling begins around 80C and shut down is around 100C if you have those features enabled in the BIOS.  I'm not saying you want to run it that hot but 60C is well within normal operating range. 

Go to the Intel website, under products go to your chip family and look for the PDF file on thermal design for your chip series.

[Fulmar]

Honestly, except for some confidential Intel documents (possibly) or talking to an engineer who helped design it, there is no telling what the max operating temp for a processor is.  You'd need to have a few dozen system run for a long time before you can really start to crunch the numbers.

The temperature guides out there I take for what they are worth.  There is no citing of sources or any tests done on large scale, but more of a common sense thing.

[llama]

Honestly, except for some confidential Intel documents (possibly) or talking to an engineer who helped design it, there is no telling what the max operating temp for a processor is.  You'd need to have a few dozen system run for a long time before you can really start to crunch the numbers.

The temperature guides out there I take for what they are worth.  There is no citing of sources or any tests done on large scale, but more of a common sense thing.

The "No telling what the max operating temp of a processor is" line is nonsense. There are certainly some things you can infer about max temperatures by merely observing what the processor does as it heats up with the correct software.

Intel CPUs will all automatically throttle back when they get too hot to operate safely. But how can you tell when this happens? If you're a programmer, it is simple. You simply look for Intel PROCHOT# thermal throttle activity bit. This bit flips from a 0 to a 1 if when the CPU is throttling down as a result of being too hot, and it goes back to 0 when it is running at full speed again. There is a second bit that flips from a 0 to a 1 when this throttling has happened since the last reboot - it acts as a "history."

Now then. The temperature at which throttling occurs is different for each model. For the E8400 it is 95 degrees C. That is, you just keep reading the temperature, keep reading the PROCHOT# bit, and then temp at which it flips from a 0 to a 1 is the max operating temperature, and for the E8400, it happens at 95. RealTemp, available from http://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/, is a program that can read the PROCHOT# bit and the temps.

The CPU throttles when the temperature is at an unsafe level. Therefore, if it is not throttling, it is operating at a safe level. Therefore, when PROCHOT# is 0, the CPU is running at a safe level. For the E8400, that max safe temp is therefore 94.9 degrees C.

BTW, "safe" is defined as "returns the correctly calculated result." The CPU lifespan may be decreased by running constantly at 94.9 degrees (in the case of the E8400), but Intel warranties the chip to operate at that temperature for at least a year. Programs like Prime95 can verify correct calculations well after the warranty expires.

That's good enough for me.

-Llama

[Fulmar]

You're reading too much into my post.  I'm referring to some concrete manual from Intel that lists operating temperatures/voltages for it's processors beyond stock speeds.  The numbers we go by have been observed through thousands on different people on thousands of different setups.  So we don't have anything official, rather a good consensus on what to do and not to do.

[BaldEagl]

I'm referring to some concrete manual from Intel that lists operating temperatures/voltages for it's processors beyond stock speeds. 

So you're saying the the Intel thermal design documents are wrong?  I would have thought the chip manufacturer would have been a relaible source of information on their products.  What source then, is more reliable?

Here's a light read for you:

http://download.intel.com/design/processor/designex/317804.pdf

[Fulmar]

The thermal and mechanical design documents with give you the limitations of the processor and the cooling requirements.  But no where does it mention the effects of increased bus speed and/or core voltages or what the guidelines are for such.  If it did, we'd have a set value of variables to overclock.  Same person A and B have the same cpu with a 20% overclock, but different motherboard, PSU, etc.

All I'm saying is that overclocking today and down pat pretty good, but there's still an area of guessimation.

[Fulmar]

No need to bring attitude into this thread.

[sethipus]

There's no point playing safe with CPU's - it doesn't matter if you shorten the lifespan of a midprice product when you will need to replace it to a faster one well before it breaks. If you can get 30% more bang for buck but sacrifice 5 years of product life, you gain probably 5 good years of improved performance for the money.

Of course poop may happen and the system may fry in 2 weeks you never know. It's worth the risk IMO.

What game are you playing that actually takes advantage of the difference in speed between your stock cpu and when it's overclocked?  Because that game ain't Aces High, that's for sure.

I used to overclock cpus, but I haven't bothered in years.  I might try overclocking my present cpu a little if I'm playing something like Crysis, which just eats powerful machines for lunch, but I've pretty much been playing just Aces High for the last couple of years, and my machine (which is slower than yours, I have an AMD AthlonX2 4400) more than handles Aces High.  Machines half as fast mine generally do too.

IMHO overclocking a machine just so you can tell everyone how fast your machine is just isn't worth it.  If you're actually doing something that benefits materially (and I don't mean it goes from 100 fps to 110 fps) it might be worth it.

[BaldEagl]

What game are you playing that actually takes advantage of the difference in speed between your stock cpu and when it's overclocked?  Because that game ain't Aces High, that's for sure.

I used to overclock cpus, but I haven't bothered in years.  I might try overclocking my present cpu a little if I'm playing something like Crysis, which just eats powerful machines for lunch, but I've pretty much been playing just Aces High for the last couple of years, and my machine (which is slower than yours, I have an AMD AthlonX2 4400) more than handles Aces High.  Machines half as fast mine generally do too.

IMHO overclocking a machine just so you can tell everyone how fast your machine is just isn't worth it.  If you're actually doing something that benefits materially (and I don't mean it goes from 100 fps to 110 fps) it might be worth it.

I reduced my virus/adware scan times significantly by overclocking.  I run a full scan weekly on three drives with almost 300,000 files and the difference isn't trivial.  Games aren't the only programs to benefit by overclocking.  Everything launches and runs faster.

[lambo31]

 Back in November of last year I went thru a phase of wanting to learn how to overclock my pc. I have an E6850 with ddr3 so I really wanted to see what it would do. The highest I got it was 3.82 but it was unstable and I had to back it back down. I ran it at just over 3.7 for about 2 months with around 56c/57c at full load (well, playing AH anyway's). Then I got the bright idea to update the BIOS and after getting it up to 3.4 lost interest in going any further.
 And, it did help frame rates in AH. I would test it by forcing vert sync off and going in to offline mode and checking frame rates in tower, runway, and at set altitudes. I recorded the frame rates before and after overclocking and from stock settings to an overclock of 3.7 was about 45 fps in the tower view.
 I didn't in no way need to overclock my pc but it was interesting to do and I learned a few things


 Lambo

[Getback]

Back in November of last year I went thru a phase of wanting to learn how to overclock my pc. I have an E6850 with ddr3 so I really wanted to see what it would do. The highest I got it was 3.82 but it was unstable and I had to back it back down. I ran it at just over 3.7 for about 2 months with around 56c/57c at full load (well, playing AH anyway's). Then I got the bright idea to update the BIOS and after getting it up to 3.4 lost interest in going any further.
 And, it did help frame rates in AH. I would test it by forcing vert sync off and going in to offline mode and checking frame rates in tower, runway, and at set altitudes. I recorded the frame rates before and after overclocking and from stock settings to an overclock of 3.7 was about 45 fps in the tower view.
 I didn't in no way need to overclock my pc but it was interesting to do and I learned a few things


 Lambo

And I have the pictures.


I was curious about the ram Lambo, How'd you go about that?

Thanks,

Getback

[Animl]

I have found that a machine will run better and more stable if it just runs cooler. like below 70 degrees or so.

Most people think just hyping up the CPU is overclocking and it's not. Video cards and the bus system also need to be streamlined to accomplish a true overclocking.

I used to overclock machines years ago.  I found that the difference in what the eye perceives as a change is a lot of times non-existant. IMO, if you need a meter\benchmark test to determine any real change it probably wasn't worth the extra heat added. If your eye can't tell the difference, what was the point?

Again I refer back to a cooler machine will run better and more stable. IMO stability is more important then speed with errors. I have since personally declaired overclocking as over-rated and a false positive. IMO, streamline bus systems, a good match in hardware, performance tweaks and a cooler running machine is more productive then overclocking.

But that's just me. To each their own. Just adding another thought to consider.

  <S>

[Rondar]

I have found that a machine will run better and more stable if it just runs cooler. like below 70 degrees or so.

Most people think just hyping up the CPU is overclocking and it's not. Video cards and the bus system also need to be streamlined to accomplish a true overclocking.

I used to overclock machines years ago.  I found that the difference in what the eye perceives as a change is a lot of times non-existant. IMO, if you need a meter\benchmark test to determine any real change it probably wasn't worth the extra heat added. If your eye can't tell the difference, what was the point?

Again I refer back to a cooler machine will run better and more stable. IMO stability is more important then speed with errors. I have since personally declaired overclocking as over-rated and a false positive. IMO, streamline bus systems, a good match in hardware, performance tweaks and a cooler running machine is more productive then overclocking.

But that's just me. To each their own. Just adding another thought to consider.

  <S>

The only overclocking I intend to do on my e8400 is to maybe place my timex on top of the monitor for a few hours     It runs fast enough that I see no need of making toast in the case.