hmm
you really need to test the overclock for stability over a few hours....
I posted this in another thread, it was for some one else so ignore the references to the hardware, but the method you should use to get the highest overclcok for your cpu:
I feel obliged to comment here.
Firstly yea, save your money and overclock your cpu.
You will defo get better results by investing in better cooling.
I think you should look at picking up a good, but not too expensive cooler so as to get a good price/performance cooling solution. Maybe some one can point one out for oyu.
I too was previously totally clueless about overclocking and someone helped me out, so its my turn to contribute back to the communty.
Lucky for you the Core 2 quads are the one cpu's I have actually successfully overclocked, and really it is quite easy.
Right first things first your process Q9300 according to here:
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=33922
It looks like the max 'safe' amount of volts your cpu will operate under (underload, not neccessarily in bios) is 1.3625V which happens to be the same as my Qx9650.
You will need a few programs to help you adjust the volts and monitor heat.
The first program you want is Prime95:
http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft/
If you on 64bit windows get the 64bit version, if not go 32bit.
Next you need a program for viewing volts and one for monitoring temps.
I was lucky in that my Asus mobo, came with both those in one program.
You can try Speed fan:
http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php for volts
and
Core Temp:
http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/ for temps.
Basically before you begin, your overclock will be determined but whic out of the two walls you hit first, either heat or volts. With stock cooling your more likely to be limited by heat than volts.
At this point, I would hold of overclocking and purchase my cooler and then do the overclocking, otherwise your probably do this twice!
Lets say you'v now go a good cooler. (£20 - £30 maybe less)
Reboot your computer go in to your bios. Up your fsb by 5mhz, reboot.
You should boot in to windows. Run your heat and volt monitoring software, before running prime95. Run Prime 95, choose small fft, go to the advanced option and turn the "turn round error checking on".
Run prime for 30 mins. If you dont get an error or a crash, reboot pc, go in to bios, and up fsb by another 5mhz.
Rpeat above steps, if you crash, get an error or windows cant boot, go in to bios and up the volts by the samllest step possible.
Try again. Boot in to windows, rerun software run prime for 30mins. If no errors, up fsb by 5mhz, keep upping fsb or volts as allows untill the cpu is too hot, or your more or less close to the 1.3625v threshhold your cpu can safely opperate under.
During all of this try to run your ram, at its slowest speed ie if its 800mhz ram, run it at the slowest it will allow. For instance I run my cpu at 3.7 but my ram is at 820mhz, which at stock speed is 800. This is mostly so that the ram, is not the unstable thing which is hindering the overclock.
After you'v spent a good few hours, maybe two days..... overclcoking your cpu, you will have found a clock speed that is near max, withing safe volt and temp paramiters... once youv found this, you need to make sure the cpu can maintin this for a prolong period of time, otherwise you may be playing a gaim etc, and the system will just crash on you.
Basically run prime for about 5-8 hours. If it doesnt crash, awsome, you can consider it stable. If it crashes or errors after a few hours, lower overclock by 5mhz, and try again. You will find the right stable max overclock for your processor.
Make sure when you run prime, that you have 5 threads running. 4 testing each core and one the master thread.
As for temps, im not sure what the max is, but for me, anything over 55c-60c is starting to get pretty toasty, with the core 2 Quads...
Also at this point dont touch your northbridge, southbridge or ram volts, but please tell me what your computer reports the volts as.
], overclocking the CPU...again definately...overhauling the RAM....not really. Does 1 FPS extra at 1680x1050 in FarCry2 as an example really set your world on fire?