My first stab at a Q9550

[krooton]

So I replaced my E8500 @ 4Ghz with a Q9550 yesterday, and so far so good!

My i45 is pretty well known for being an uber clocker of dualcores, and not so hot on quads.

Now not knowing much about quad clocking, I pilfered someone else's BIOS settings for getting a QX9650 to 4.2Ghz, and made some adjustments.

After a few tests, I've gotten 3.6Ghz, with 1.37Vcore and acceptable temps at load.

Now come the questions:

My BIOS reports my 12v rail as 11.74, but Speedfan has it as 10.74, is that just speedfan reading it wrong?

Similarly my Vram is 2.1v in the BIOS, but 2.58v in Speedfan, so I'm guessing it's not reading it properly?

Is there any other semi-accurate voltage reading software out there? I don't have a multimeter to test with.

Next is VID. CPU-Z reckons 1.3, which I gather is a bit pants for a Q9550? People seem to be hitting 3.6Ghz with around 1.2v, but I've yet to do the elongated tweaking to see how much lower I can get it.

Is there a direct relation to VID and minimum voltages for OCs?

Lastly, is 1.37v ok to have as a day to day voltage? I had my E8500 that high for 4Ghz, but I don't know if quads are more susceptible to higher volts.

Thanks!

 

[Temi_D]

Everything looks ok apart from the voltage. It seems too high have you tried lowering it like to 1.3?

The maximum safe voltage for it is 1.36v

unless you need the speed controlling options of speedfan, I'd suggest you use HWmonitor instead

 

[pastymuncher]

The voltage does seem a lot just for 3.6Ghz. My Q9550 does 3.6Ghz on stock voltage but am waiting a replacement board to see how far i can push it.

It's a 45nm core so treat it the same way as your E8500. No more than 1.45v and ideally 1.4v or less.

 

[setter]

The vid at 1.3 is high for an EO stepping, but ive seen people running them at decent clocks below stock voltage. The one i had was a 1.200 vid chip, ran it at 3.825ghz on 1.216 vcore, board was an asus p5q deluxe p45. Your temps are still very good for the voltage.

 

[krooton]

Thanks guys.

Got her at 3.75Ghz now, 1.3v, with temps not breaching 55ºC, which is surprising as I lost my MX-3, and just used the TX stuff that came with my Tuniq Tower 120, seems to work very well!

HWMonitor is giving the same voltage readings as Speedfan, both matching some of the my BIOS readings and totally different to others. Surely 10.7v on my 12v rail would see crashes?

All that aside, if I can get 3.8Ghz, I'll be more than happy with my £60 upgrade from my E8500