I could hug you right now. :) I'll read this more in depth once I get my cooler installed next week.

I had been crawling through this forum from the earliest posts from last year.  I am going to begin my overclocking adventure and was gathering important information into a document.   Even with what I had grabbed I had a lot of confusion.
 
I wish I had started at the top of the forum, as your guide answered almost all my questions!
 
Agreed this is sticky material

3.2Ghz/1600Mhz was exactly the combo I was looking for. I can't wait to get my new cooler. Thanks again.

Glad that I decided to overclock, but not for the reason most would think.  While using this guide I noticed abnormally high temperatures on my CPU.  Seems somehow I had managed to loosen one of the retaining springs on my fan.  Fixed this issue and temperatures immediately went back to normal so I could overclock.

I was successful at getting a boot into windows with the first set of values (3.2 @ 1600Mhz memory) and ran through the 20 sets of LinX with no problem and just standard cooling.  Was running Prime95 I decided to tweak my new GTX 470 card a little at the same time with Precision and went just a little too far.  After the reboot, with the 470 back to stock settings, I could get to where I started windows 7, but it would lock up.  Even tried the memory at 1.65 volts but no luck.  Loading optimized defaults the system and windows works fine.

I was using the standard 655 board with the A59 bios.  I am falling back to the A51 bios and will try again as I have read the newer bios might have problems with stability.

This must get stick!

Hi jambisource, looked at your MODS RIGS...nice case and monitor. I'm thinking of upgrading my case...how do you like yours? Your VCore for your 3.6GHz looks great, to bad your VTT for your 4.0GHz is so high. Are you using 4GB or 8GB for memory...just curious. Remember many overclockers are using higher VTT voltages, and seem to be doing so without damage to their processors. In my opinion 4.0GHz is an extreme overclock, and to extreme overclock is to live on the edge. The biggest problem I see with high VTT voltages is the additional thermal stress placed on the processor. Extreme overclocking should include extreme measures to control thermals, and if that is done it should be possible to manage higher VTT voltages.
 
[edit] I just saw your post on the Antec 900, and I've also had my eye on the 900-2, I definitly want max room for two full length GPU's.

Yeah i have to update my MODS since getting my board back from RMA. My afternoon project is a new photoshoot :).

4 gigs of ram right now till another $100 finds its way into my pocket.

Yeah VTT is a curious little bastard with very few solid answers. Still wanna play with it a bit more to see if i can lower it. My pre-RMA board required slightly different voltages than my replacement and i've only redone my OC up to 3.8 with the new board and what was stable before is not now. The 4.0 i posted is what was stable on my first board. 

I don't have any experience with the 900-2 but i do believe it is bigger and i would recommend that one over the original 900.

I like the Coolermaster storm series. They utilize some plastic tabs which can be a bit annoying but the cases seem to utilize more space and airflow.

jambisource

Yeah i have to update my MODS since getting my board back from RMA. My afternoon project is a new photoshoot :).

4 gigs of ram right now till another $100 finds its way into my pocket.

Yeah VTT is a curious little bastard with very few solid answers. Still wanna play with it a bit more to see if i can lower it. My pre-RMA board required slightly different voltages than my replacement and i've only redone my OC up to 3.8 with the new board and what was stable before is not now. The 4.0 i posted is what was stable on my first board. 

I don't have any experience with the 900-2 but i do believe it is bigger and i would recommend that one over the original 900.

I like the Coolermaster storm series. They utilize some plastic tabs which can be a bit annoying but the cases seem to utilize more space and airflow.

Good luck with your new board. I'm in no hurry to upgrade my case, but when I upgrade to a new GPU (maybe the next generation GTX 470) I want to use my 260 for PhysX, and with my Centurion 5, with those two cards installed, I would only have room for one HD. I also need better air flow.
 
Love your avatar photo, did you take that, if so_awesome...

Nice job on the artwork_keep up the good work.
 
Below is a LinX test I did on one of my first attempts to hit 4.0. At that time I just took the average of what others were using for their 4.0 BIOS templates. Notice the Max temps. It was a good thing I was watching closely.
 
4.0GHz LinX T...VTT 1

Working on getting a stable 3.6 here.  It seems like I have to be a lot more aggressive with my voltages to get it stable then some here, which is a bummer.  At 1.275 Vcore and 1.20 CPU VTT.  Also, doesn't matter if my VDimm is 1.60 all the way to 1.65, even though my ram is rated 9/9/9/24 at 1.65 for 1600 MHZ, if I try to get to 1600 MHZ my system becomes EXTREMELY unstable, not sure what the issue is there, so for now I'm leaving it at 1440 MHZ (2:8) at 3.6 GHz.

I'd also like to make a note for anyone thinking about overclocking with these motherboards.  DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT USE AUTO SETTINGS!  When I first built my system, i5-750, using the 655 board, at stock everything and everything on auto, the system reports around a 1.23 Vcore and 1.1 VTT, and 1.5 Vdimm.  Totally fine.  But I upped to a modest 3.4 Ghz overclock, because I read that at this level you can leave all voltages alone and the system would still be stable.  Well, everything booted up, but on "Auto" it left my Vcore alone, still 1.23, but it shot my VTT up to 1.31 and my Vdimm up to 1.69!!!   WAY off spec!  I wonder why on earth they would allow Auto settings to actually push your settings out of spec?!  This seems very dangerous to me.  Could this be contributing to why d4 occurs?  Maybe we can't trust these boards with Auto for anything.
Needless to say after that I make sure I control all the settings in BIOS, no matter what I'm doing with an overclock.

jambisource

What is your set up?

4 GB Corsair RAM.  750 Watt Corsair PSU.  2X 5850 in Crossfire.  i5-750 on a EVGA 655 MB.  So far stable at 3.6 Ghz.  Manually set memory timings to 9/9/9/24 at 1.65 Vdimm.  Solid Prime95 for 12 hours so far so good.  Temps never get above 65 C.  Just can't get memory to 1600 Mhz.  At 1600 Mhz I get a hardware failure on 1 core after about 5 minutes running Prime.  

jambisource

Yeah boo to auto!

A 1.23 Stock Vcore seems a bit high to me. So it makes sense if your 3.6 oc is at 1.27.

I think the auto get confused due to the turbo boost head room. 

D4 for me and alot of people has been most likely attributed to auto setting for memory.

Methinks he may have an i7 860. I think their stock VCORE is a little higher than the 1.15ish on our i5 750s. We just need some more detailed hardware info from him.
 
I stand corrected. He does have an i5 750...

rmmil978

Working on getting a stable 3.6 here.  It seems like I have to be a lot more aggressive with my voltages to get it stable then some here, which is a bummer.  At 1.275 Vcore and 1.20 CPU VTT.  Also, doesn't matter if my VDimm is 1.60 all the way to 1.65, even though my ram is rated 9/9/9/24 at 1.65 for 1600 MHZ, if I try to get to 1600 MHZ my system becomes EXTREMELY unstable, not sure what the issue is there, so for now I'm leaving it at 1440 MHZ (2:8) at 3.6 GHz.

 
 
No reason to get bummed dude, you just need to learn to work with what you have. Your voltages look good to me. 1.65V is the maximum rating for your memory, but that does not mean it needs to run at 1.65V. Have you tried setting your CPU Multiplier to 18, with the CPU Frequency set to 200MHz and the DRAM Frequency to 2:8? That setup should also give you a 3.6GHz overclock and also allow your memory to run at 1600MHz. As a matter of fact I'm going to test that right now, and while LinX is running I'll have a bit of lunch and get back to you. Also include your system rig info in your signature, that helps other know what your working with.

Ha, it never even occurred to me to do that!  I'm running 180 Bclk at a x20 Multiplier to get 3.6 Ghz.  Does running 200 Blck at a x18 make it easier on your system to get to 1600 Mhz?  I guess I don't understand that part of overclocking.  1600 isn't extremely important I just wanted to get my memory to run at its rated speed.  The memory that I'm using is CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 XMS3 4 GB

(Edit)  Okay, now I understand, if I change the Bclk and Multiplier I can keep a 2:8 ratio and still get 1600 Mhz.  Simple math at work.  Thanks for all the info guys!