Initial Q9450 overclocking...

[Rob Williams]

This CPU is part of the contest PC that Alex won, but he's cool enough to let me overclock the heck out of it and benchmark it for the sake of an article. So far, I'm impressed. I only began the overclocking last night, but with absolute stock voltages (1.3000v CPU, 1.9v memory), we could reach a stable 3.2GHz overclock.

Nowadays, it doesn't seem too amazing that an Intel CPU can overclock 500MHz on stock voltages, but since this is a Quad-Core, it got me excited. Given the fact that this is a $350 QC that overclocked with stock voltages and turned into a QX9770... what's not to be impressed about?

I haven't touched the voltages yet, but will soon. I hope to find the max stable overclock sometime this evening.

 

[Merlin]

Sweeeet.....

I have been setting up my Q9450 as a server....still some to go

But these OC's look S W E E T

:techgage::techgage: Merlin :techgage::techgage:

 

[Rob Williams]

I bumped the CPU voltage from 1.3000v to 1.3250v and it made a 168MHz difference. This is one chip that thrives on voltage apparently... such a small increase in juice but a significant increase in frequency, very nice to see.

I'm far from done of course... it's going to be an interesting evening.

 

[Kougar]

Aww, that's nothing... ya can do better than that!

65nm Q6600 G0 2.4GHz Stock 1.200v.

2.40Ghz @ 1.10v
3.20GHz @ 1.20v
3.60GHz @ 1.43v
4.00Ghz @ ~1.55v (Required water cooling & still way to hot!)
4.20GHz @ 1.55v (chilled watercooling)

Of course, I'm sure you didn't end up more then doubling the power consumption of that computer in the process! :techgage:

 

[Rob Williams]

Nice clocks! I didn't realize G0 was that good. The Q6600 I have here can barely hit 3.0GHz stable.

Are all those clocks stable? I only report 100% stable clocks.

At 3.52GHz 1.4v at the moment... Have a good feeling I'm going to have to crank the voltage to get anywhere from this point forward.

 

[Merlin]

Nice clocks! I didn't realize G0 was that good. The Q6600 I have here can barely hit 3.0GHz stable.

Are all those clocks stable? I only report 100% stable clocks.

At 3.52GHz 1.4v at the moment... Have a good feeling I'm going to have to crank the voltage to get anywhere from this point forward.

LOL...Dam, now I'll have to go into the other room and start on mine....LOL

Nice Clocks there

:techgage::techgage: Merlin :techgage::techgage:

 

[Rob Williams]

Stop slacking Merlin, and get to work! At 3.64GHz (1.45v) at the moment. It's becoming increasingly difficult, but this setting seems stable so far.

I'm surprised I haven't had to touch the Northbridge voltage yet, considering I'm at 455MHz.

 

[Kougar]

The 4Ghz wasn't fully stable, 4.2Ghz was prime stable when the system wasn't freezing up. Didn't spend that long messing with it, just enough to have a bit of fun and run some random benchmarks.

Everything up to 3.6Ghz that I listed has been 24/7 stable though, I leave it running as a folding box. I think I am more limited by the motherboard than anything else, but without a high-binned X48 to test my theory on, it is just a theory. With 4GB RAM, 1:1 RAM ratio, and a tRD setting of 6 the chipset is pretty solidly stressed... but it makes for great performance. I tried 3.8Ghz, but never could figure out what part of the system was behind the very occasional random lockup. CPU was still testing prime stable, interestingly enough though.

 

[Rob Williams]

I am thinking that 3.6GHz will be the max stable here as well. Using 1.45v wasn't entirely stable after-all (it crashed after two hours), so I bumped it up to 1.475v to see how that goes. Given how this chip has been overclocking so far, I have a feeling that extra bump is all it will take to keep it stable.

Past that, I don't think I'll find a stable setting, but there's no reason to complain. Boosting the chip by 980MHz and still retaining >1.5V CPU sounds like a good deal to me.

I do believe with better cooling, the overclock would improve, though. I'm still using the same junk water-cooling I've been using for quite a while. I might have to suck it up and give it a lapping.

 

[Metatron]

Q9450 overclocking heatsink?

Hi I'm kinda a newbie at this.
I slipped outa the computer race in the 90s and now I'm looking at getting a new
computer with a Q9450 chip. I stumbled upon this Thread when I was researching overclocking the chip.

I was wondering if I could get away with overclocking to 3.2ghz with a stock or aftermarket air cooled cpu fan/heatsink?
any info regarding this would be appreciated.

also any suggestions on what motherboard to use for that chip? I was looking at the EVGA 132-CK-NF79-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 790i Ultra SLI DDR3 ATX Intel Motherboard

 

[Rob Williams]

I was wondering if I could get away with overclocking to 3.2ghz with a stock or aftermarket air cooled cpu fan/heatsink?
any info regarding this would be appreciated.

You could always try on a stock cooler... you are not going to kill it. I would raise it up gradually. Try for 3.0GHz first, and then check out the temperatures you are seeing at full load (using a stress-tester and RealTemp). If temps are kept within reason (~60C), then you could go ahead and raise a bit more.

I would really recommend an aftermarket cooler though. They are far more efficient than the stock models Intel includes with theirs, and are probably a lot quieter as well.

 

[Greg King]

Metatron, I just purchased the Q9450 and so far, have loved it. I am using a Zalman 9700 and it's cool and stable at 3.0 GHz. I have been up to 3.4 GHz but got tired of the Zalman fan running full bore all of the time.

I would like to point you to our latest article, this one. With that CPU you have there, it's going to run a bit cooler than the QX9650 used in the review but you can still get a very good idea of how different coolers will perform.

 

[Metatron]

thanks for the info

Metatron, I just purchased the Q9450 and so far, have loved it. I am using a Zalman 9700 and it's cool and stable at 3.0 GHz. I have been up to 3.4 GHz but got tired of the Zalman fan running full bore all of the time.

I would like to point you to our latest article, this one. With that CPU you have there, it's going to run a bit cooler than the QX9650 used in the review but you can still get a very good idea of how different coolers will perform.

Ok, thanks for the advise guys.
I was looking at the Zalman for aftermarket cooling. I'll try the one you're suggesting.
Like I said, I was looking at OCing to 3.2 Ghz, the whole Idea is to get the FSB to 1600Mhz, so it's running at the same speed as my memory. I'm not sure how much this matters, but that was part of my reason for OCing.
Of course I'm going the have to do a little research about OCing this chip to get both FSB and Clock increases.
Like I said I am a newbie at this OC.

 

[Merlin]

Ok, thanks for the advise guys.
I was looking at the Zalman for aftermarket cooling. I'll try the one you're suggesting.
Like I said, I was looking at OCing to 3.2 Ghz, the whole Idea is to get the FSB to 1600Mhz, so it's running at the same speed as my memory. I'm not sure how much this matters, but that was part of my reason for OCing.
Of course I'm going the have to do a little research about OCing this chip to get both FSB and Clock increases.
Like I said I am a newbie at this OC.

You should get over 400FSB ( 1600 ) . depending on the mobo

Merlin