Max Overclock on Q9400

Michaeljcox24

Michaeljcox24

Michaeljcox24

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Can't afford an I7 bundle at the moment, so I want to upgrade my 775 CPU. Currently have a Q6600 B3 revision, which maxes out at 3.2GHz coretemps of 63C in Prime95 after an hour or so. Idle temps are 25 ish.

If I got a Q9400, would I be able to overclock much more than this? What is the rough speed this chip will do? 3.4? 3.6? Anyone had any experience with them?
 
Trouble with the Q9400 chips is they have quite a low multiplier, so the max overclock is often limited by the FSB of your motherboard or the max speed your RAM will do. Also they have 2MB less cache than the Q6600s. A good chip will however probably do 3.6GHz+.
 
I put on of these in my mate rig, I found a 3.2Ghz very easy to achive, I reckon I could have got it to 3.6 fairly easy.

As said before you will need a good motherboard and fairly decent ram to be able to push higher fsb..

The Q9650 will do 4GHz no sweat in most cases.. but this a much more expensive option than a q9400 it is a far superior chip with higher multipler and double (I think) the cache.. Problem is if your doing ths you might as well just go for a platform upgrage and get a newer chip..

Also think to check is can you mobo support 45nm chips, and can it clock them well.
 
Board is a P5Q Deluxe, got it from overclockers actually.

I've seen a core 2 due on here, the E8400, that does 4GHz overclocked, would this be a good upgrade?
 
Michaeljcox24 said:
Board is a P5Q Deluxe, got it from overclockers actually.

I've seen a core 2 due on here, the E8400, that does 4GHz overclocked, would this be a good upgrade?
Click to expand...

That motherboard will comfortable hit 500+ fsb, so your only issue would be the memory, you would need very fast memory to get the Q9400 to high speeds due to the low multi.

But the mobo will easily handle it.
 
I personally wouldnt go for the q9400, a better alternative would be to pick up a second hand EO stepping q9550, higher multiplier, more cache than the q9400, they clock very well on the p5q boards, had the q9550 p5q deluxe combo prior to switching to i7.
 
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