I'm thinking about to buy one of the latest Q6600 cpu's to change my 6750 cpu who is running now on my P35 DS3 Gigabyte board with 2x2 Gb MDT DDR2-800. The memory is running with 5-5-5-12 and the CPU runs fine at 3,2Ghz. I planned to give these fine running system to my son.What will be the best to get all out of the Q6600 which I want to overclock to 3,6 Ghz.I think I buy again a Gigabyte P35 DS3 board but struggling with the RAM choice, Fast 800 Mhz ram with 4-4-4-12 or go a step higher to 1066 Mhz ram but which one and settings to choose (?)I believe a lot of fellow simmers are using the Q6600 so come on... What will be the best buy.Happy landings.PS: I want to make these shift for running FSX with good FPS.I have already purchased a good old 8800GTX/768

Well if you're OCing, might as well go with the higher clocked DDR2 ram, Although some quality RAM stock at DDR2 800 speeds will allow a good OC on your CPU

Agreed..go for the DDR2 1066, because it's about the same price anyway (4 gigs of G.SKILL DDR2 1066 for $99)Granted you will probably be limited by what your motherboard can do (in terms of FSB/nb) in your overclock, but certainly with DDR1066 that will completely remove RAM from being an o/c hinderance.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

If you are going to a standard O/C with the Q6600, you'll end up at a 400Mhz FSB. That'll get the Q6600 to 3.6Ghz (400mhz x 9 = 3.6Ghz). DDR means Double the Date Rate (DDR) of the FSB. If your FSB is at 400mhz, the ram will run at 800Mhz (at bios default settings). DDR2-800 is the perfect match. DDR2-1066 will allow you to tweak the bios to run the ram faster than DDR (of the FSB). However you will never be able to tell the difference between ram running at 800Mhz vs 1066Mhz. It's really too late to be trying to tweak-out ram. The next-gen (Nehalem) is less than 6 months away and will not use a FSB at all, will need an entirely new mobo/cpu set and will only support DDR3. If it's even a nickel cheaper, go with the DDR2-800.

Just a word of warning, I recently bought a Q6600 G0 and a Gigabyte P35 DS3, and have not been able to get it stable beyond 3.24GHz, even though the core temperatures are still below 60 degrees. This was following the guide by Jim Knows in the recent topic in this forum, trying to adapt his instructions from the Asus board to the Gigabyte one.It's possible that I need to tweak something beyond FSB speed, RAM multiplier and Vcore, but it's also possible that I was just unlucky enough to get a chip that can't go faster than this. My understanding is that some chips are just more overclockable than others, and it's down to blind luck whether you get one that will go as fast as you want to take it.Colin

In this case, DDR2800 @ 4-4-4 is not much better than DDR2 1066 @ 5-5-5You would better served by increasing the memory amount to 4GB and maintaining either spec. 4GB @ DDR2 800 4-4-4 or 4GB @ DDR2 1066 5-5-5 will provide a better result over 2GB.@ 2GB, if you were to maintain DDR2 1066 @ 4-4-4-10, that would be worth the purchase over DDR2 800 4-4-4Unless you understand the entire ball of wax with overclocking, purchasing faster modules will net you little. For the price, these are pretty good modules:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820220241but you must make sure your motherboard BIOS will allow at least 2.3v on the memory voltage. It is possible those can be clocked down from DDR2 1200 @ CAS5 to DDR2 1000-1066 @ CAS4 and get even tighter timing out of them. @ DDR2 1200 (600MHz) CAS5 you are running in a performance/value zone with spec.

Nick,These OCZ sticks will let him run at 800 with a cas of 3, putting him low on your calwi/latency curve.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820227271In this case would a lower latency from these OCZa be a better choice or the higher bandwith from the Patriots you mentioned?Also, if the timings were relaxed on these OCZ sticks do you think that they have a chance of running at DDR2 1066 @ 4-4-4-10 also?Both are rated at 2.3v Is there a way to determine which would offer better performance without purchasing and testing both?Ted

I look at the subs on those sticks 4-4-15 Thats a touch high for the FAB's other than CAS and it indicates to me the sticks are right on the 'edge' of not being able to cut it at CAS3, especially running 2.3v @ DDR2800.So my advice based on the fact that the OCZ sticks still require 2.3v to go with the Patriot'sAs for if that choice would be best.. thats where it gets tricky and you need to do some poking around. I would need to contact an OCZ rep or get in their forums and find out what those sticks are really doing. If they are holding 4-4-4-15 @ DDR2 1000-1066 @ 1T then I would go with the OCZ. If not, I would rather go with the higher rated sticks

2 reviews on newegg said they got cas 4 @1100, but not at 1T. I'm not sure the Patriots would do that either. I will look around the forums and see if I find anyone who achieved that with either the OCZ or Patriot.Thanks,Ted

Hello All, When I built my new system I went to the G. Skill DDR2 1066 with my ASUS Maximus and the QX9650. It goes to 4.2 and doesn't even work up a sweat. Max temp I've seen under full load is 54C.......the G.Skill hasn't let me down yet and it was really cheap.BestClayhttp://www.dreamfleet2000.com/gfx/images/F...ers/Dopke01.jpgClayton T. Dopke (Clay)Major, USAF (retired)"Drac"

>Just a word of warning, I recently bought a Q6600 G0 and a>Gigabyte P35 DS3, and have not been able to get it stable>beyond 3.24GHz, even though the core temperatures are still>below 60 degrees. This was following the guide by Jim Knows in>the recent topic in this forum, trying to adapt his>instructions from the Asus board to the Gigabyte one.>>It's possible that I need to tweak something beyond FSB speed,>RAM multiplier and Vcore, but it's also possible that I was>just unlucky enough to get a chip that can't go faster than>this. My understanding is that some chips are just more>overclockable than others, and it's down to blind luck whether>you get one that will go as fast as you want to take it.>>Colin> Thats about where my Q6600 Go and P35 DS3 is topping out as well, Colin. I have 4GB ( 4x1GB ) of DDR2-1066 installed now. I'm pretty sure that when I only had 2GB of DDR2-1066 installed I was able to get the Q6600 up a bit higher. I'm currently running Vcore at 1.4V and the memory at 2.1V. Temps are around 60C when running FSX. Paul

>2 reviews on newegg said they got cas 4 @1100, but not at 1T.>I'm not sure the Patriots would do that either. I will look>around the forums and see if I find anyone who achieved that>with either the OCZ or Patriot.>>Thanks,>TedI may know something by the end of the day with any luck. Oy, they dropped down to $73 at newegg, minus a rebate too. Dropping like a rock!QX9650 w/ Retail HSF|8GB Muskin PC-6400|ASUS P5E|EVGA 8800GT @700|Seagate SATA 2 x 4|Seagate Cheetah 15K.x|XP Pro|Vista 64--soon to be installed

$73!Test those bad boys before the price goes back up...:-lol

I thought they'd be here today, but so far no luck and UPS usually gets here by now so probably manana.Ted, my gut feeling: CALWI zone will not translate to anything meaningful. My sense is that Nick would predict it would not do anything meaningful in this context, but that good CALWI best memory bandwidth should. Who could argue with that.It's fun trying and hasn't cost me enough to care since I have returned these suckers, all except my original 8Gbs of Mushkin DDR2-800 5-5-5-18, which runs at 1103, or a little higher. Very decent stuff overall, and all 8gb work at this overclock.QX9650 w/ Retail HSF|8GB Muskin PC-6400|ASUS P5E|EVGA 8800GT @700|Seagate SATA 2 x 4|Seagate Cheetah 15K.x|XP Pro|Vista 64--soon to be installed

One module arrived, and the other is in transit. I am setting up a similar benchmark right now. I am saving a flight segment at 2500 feet altitude from KSFO up thru Marin, in a straight line at 250 knots, W key full unobstructed view and also cockpit view, highest quality. I compared 2gb of the OCZ at the best it would go: 800Mhz exactly, 3-4-4-10, FSB 400, CPU 4.2Ghz, tRD 6. Against 4gb of mushkin at 1103Mhz, 5-5-5-12, tRD 7, FSB 440, CPU 4.19Ghz.I am looking at overall image detail/clarity, smoothness, number of visible texture updates per 1st 60 seconds (by counting them), and finally, frame rate. I am in the lovely Cessna 441 Conquest.So far, hands down the mushkin wins. Glad I have 8GB of them as they are downright effective. I also set up the mushkin at 4-4-4-10, 804Mhz, 4.2Ghz CPU. Again, the o'clocked mushkin wins. When the 2nd module shows up, hopefully they will all 4 run together at spec 2.4v setting. Which will be the best test we can go for. There does not appear to be much headroom in the OCZ's so far, but they do run as 2 x 1GB at spec at 2.4v.As a side note, Everest latency and read rate scores are also best at 54.4ns/9350mb/s in the o'clocked mushkin over the CALWI hitting OCZ at 58.2ns/8200mb/s. It's early, but initial impressions for only 2Gb of the OCZ are not great. I'm going to predict there will be some def improvement with 4gb installed if they run at spec, which is an if at this point. I believe this because of all parameters observed for, the number of visible texture updates in the 1st 60 seconds was actually better/fewer with the OCZ. But even so, the mushkin really does work well, absolutely no shortcomings in this environment. I look forward to round 2 with the next kit installed. I'll try to do some maximally controlled runs.QX9650 w/ Retail HSF|8GB Muskin PC-6400|ASUS P5E|EVGA 8800GT @700|Seagate SATA 2 x 4|Seagate Cheetah 15K.x|XP Pro|Vista 64--soon to be installed