CPU upgrade for Asus Rampage Formula?

[JoHubb]

I would be grateful for advice on my 3 year old system.

I run a Q9650 in this mobo mainly for flight simulation (FS9 in XP) with advanced hardware (throttle quadrant, rudder pedals, triple monitors). I also have many software addons. Graphics card for the main monitor is Nvidia 260GTX overclocked 216 core 896MB. I run the other monitors off a GTS250 with 500MB. I have 4GB DDR2 RAM of which 3GB is accessible.

Performance is pretty good but I would like to improve it! Is there any point upgrading the Q9650 on this mobo, and if so to what (socket 775)?

Thanks.

John

 

[JoHubb]

Thanks to all you guys! I've no experience of overclocking.

The mobo has a utility called Asus AI Suite which has a setting for extra performance. I've never dared use this. It also has an advanced setting page which allows CPU Freq to be changed (currently 333.00), and also CPU Ratio (currently 9.0), DRAM voltage (currently on Auto) and DRAM Freq (currently on Auto).

At idle, the CPU temp is 19C, and voltage 1.208V

John

 

[JoHubb]

Thanks jamesfreddie,

I've discovered a Beginners Guide to O/C on another board here. I will avoid the Asus AI utility and use the BIOS to adjust settings. I will check each iteration with OCCT. I will not be trying to max out the processor - I do not want to have to replace it - pricey little chap the Q9650 even after nearly 4 years.

Just one thing, what temperature should I take as upper limit allowing a reasonable safety margin? I realise that all chips are not the same of course.

 

[JoHubb]

Hmm....

The Asus BIOS Menu has controls under 'Extreme Tweaker' for manual overclocking. With this I can alter the CPU voltage to 1.3V but it is not obvious how to alter the CPU frequency.
Under the 'Extreme Tweaker' menu there is an 'AI Overclock Tuner' menu which gives an option 'CPU level Up'. This apparently optimises the processor at a 'higher level' but the details are not specified.

FSB freq is 333 by default and DRAM settings for frequency, command rate and skew are all set to AUTO. I do not see any control for disabling load line cal (LLC).

What to do now? Thanks again to all posters.

John

 

[JoHubb]

Thanks, jamesfreddie

Not having used OCCT before I am now running a 30 min test on my non-overclocked CPU. Does OCCT produce a 'result' or analysis at the end, or how will I know if my system is stable when I ramp up the CPU voltage etc?

I suppose I must run HWMonitor at the same time to keep an eye on temperatures. EDIT: no I don't need to - I see the four core temperatures now.

John

 

[JoHubb]

Success! No errors after 1 h OCCT. I am running 430/1.3V and getting CPU frequency of 3.9 GHz. Temperatures 55-60C cores 1,3,4 and 48 in core 2 (XP 32 bit)

Should I leave the DDR2 RAM freq at 840MHz?

John

 

[JoHubb]

Still tweaking! I've been running 1.3V/FSB 420, DRAM 820 fairly successfully. This was giving me 4.0GHz and was stable with OCC. The simulation runs much more smoothly but I have had a few graphics problems, or at least I think they are graphics card problems (see first post for details). At one point I tried upping DRAM freq to 840 but the BIOS sent me a message saying it was not compatible with my settings.
I have just OCC tested these settings: 1.3625V at FSB440 and DRAM 820. Results were stable over 90mins - CPU cores not above 60C. CPU 4GHz.

The CPU overclock is given as 32%. Is there a possibility that running at 4GHz will adversely affect graphics card performance? Probably a daft question.

John