question about overclocking e6400?

Question

ok so i am planning on building a pc and my original plan was to get an intel e6600 cpu but then it occured to me overclocking. is it more worth it to get a e6400 and overclock it or o just get a e6600...and maybe later overclock that??

i would also like to know what is needed to overclock and how to do it.

Answer 1

That last was a bit of a narrow answer on the issue. First off, these chips can be overclocked a bit without a voltage increase, and even more with a voltage increase.

You will need a good motherboard with good overclocking abilities, the right type of RAM, and most importantly adequate cooling. As for which chip to get, that would depend somewhat on how far you want to overclock, and what type of RAM and cooling you plan to buy with it. If you want further advice, feel free to give me an email, because no one is going to be able to give you a full and complete answer without asking you some questions.

Answer 2

There is one main differnce in the e6400 and the e6600 and that is the e6600 has 4mb of chache and the e6400 only 2mb. The new 6420 just came out and has 4mb cache and I here they are overclocking well. I would think that you should be able to get at least e6600 speeds if not higher with stock voltage. I currently run a e4300 at 3.2 ghz at 1.45v with out any heat issues.

If you really want to get serious about overclocking I would recommend a high end cooler such as the Tuniq 120 or the Thermalright Ultra 120. Both would let you take the e6420 to over 3.2 ghz. with minimal temperature increase.

Answer 3

overclocking, if allowed on those certain chips, involves stepping up voltage. it's not like overclocking video cards and such pci pieces, and i cannot recommend it. in all honesty, new intel chips are incredibly cheap piece by piece, so i'd look to those for a high-powered cpu. check newegg.com for sweet deals.