Overclocking Q9450

Slynet

Slynet

Slynet

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Joined
13 Jun 2008
Posts
115
Hey guys. I've never overclocked before so I want to ask a few questions. I'm not asking how to overclock, I'll do my research later but I'm wondering what I can expect to overclock it to.

Heres my setup:

Antec Twelve Hundred Case
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 LGA775
EVGA nForce 780i
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-9200C5 1150MHz
Corsair HX 1000W
GTX 280

So heres my main question. How much could I expect to overclock my CPU? I'll have an Tuniq Tower 120. So how much could I overlock it with that?

Also, say I had watercooling instead of the Tuniq Tower 120, could I overclock it a lot more or what would be the limit with that?

Thanks for any help.
 
The limit would be whatever you can get your cpu to stay at stable. It dont matter in my opinion if you got water cooling or not, as i can easily hit 4ghz on a Q6600 with a £20 fan, although i dont recommend you do this ^^. Go for a tuniq, much cheaper and you should get a decent clock
 
Vigoro said:
The limit would be whatever you can get your cpu to stay at stable. It dont matter in my opinion if you got water cooling or not, as i can easily hit 4ghz on a Q6600 with a £20 fan, although i dont recommend you do this ^^. Go for a tuniq, much cheaper and you should get a decent clock
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With respect mate that is not accurate info.

Slynet.

Go for 3.6 using the 8x multi, if you have decent cooling it will blow a 4ghz q6600 out of the water in real term apps, that if you can get 4ghz on air in the first place on a q6600.
 
Ok, thanks for the advice guys. I'm just gonna read up on my stuff, mess around with it and check the temps. 3.6 sounds more than enought for me. :)
 
Vigoro said:
What isnt accurate?
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First of all you claim to hit 4ghz on air easily, however, your sig states otherwise. It is very rare to get a stable clock on air at 4ghz, especially with a £20 cooler.

Secondly, water cooling will always be better than air cooling.

Thirdly you don't own this chip dude :D so are not best placed to give an opinion, I do, and thats the sweet spot based on the current architecture. The q9450 are not great clockers but are better work horses in real terms., based on my earlier points. Have fun dude.
 
Well I bought a Xeon X3350 (Q9450) under the misapprehension that the Xeons use better cores, but it requires 1.375v to be stable at 3.5ghz, and I can't seem to go any higher than 3.6. Why do I always get the worst clocking chips :( :(

So don't expect a massive overclock out of yours.
 
reflux said:
Well I bought a Xeon X3350 (Q9450) under the misapprehension that the Xeons use better cores, but it requires 1.375v to be stable at 3.5ghz, and I can't seem to go any higher than 3.6. Why do I always get the worst clocking chips :( :(

So don't expect a massive overclock out of yours.
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Im using custom water so my temps stay very low but yes these chips do not clock very well. They do, however, pack quite a punch so in real world terms your 3.5 chip is much better than higher clocked q6600s.
 
reflux said:
Well I bought a Xeon X3350 (Q9450) under the misapprehension that the Xeons use better cores, but it requires 1.375v to be stable at 3.5ghz, and I can't seem to go any higher than 3.6. Why do I always get the worst clocking chips :( :(

So don't expect a massive overclock out of yours.
Click to expand...

I don't think you can make such a broad, sweeping assumption based on a completely different CPU. Some Q9450's need over 1.6V to go in excess of 3.5GHz, and the CPU voltage isn't often the limiting factor, the CPU PLL and VTT are usually what stops the CPU going higher 'safely'.

And for the record, I reckon a 900MHz overclock is massive.
 
Yip.

PLL and VTT/FSB Term are the main factors when clocking the Q9450. And because they are dangerous at highish settings (over 1.6v PLL and 1.45v VTT are considered as 'dangerous'), they are considered to be the limiting factor.

To get my Q9450 to run an 8 hour Prime95 run at 4ghz I had to up my VTT to 1.62v. Any sensible person would have quit long before that. My everyday clock of 3.9ghz needs 1.44v VTT, so that's on the safe limit. And ofcourse 1.44v in BIOS may well be more in reality.
 
My q9300 is much the same for high clocks you need volts on these chips.
If I run to 3.7ghz I need 1.45v in bios, 1.6v PLL and 1.75v on NB
my everyday is 3.6ghz need 1.4250 for that, same PLL should try dropping that and 1.7v NB

Got PLL down to 1.56v now
stress testing at 1.5v now if this pass's gonna see if I can take some volts of vcore, then NB

Got my vcore down to 1.3750v, NB wont work below 1.71v for 480 FSB, PLL is fine at 1.5v though
running Prime now see how it goes.
 
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PLL shouldn't be as important as VTT. I never had to go above 1.6v PLL, even at 500x8. Tho I have no idea what 1.6v in BIOS is in reality.
 
I have to take that back, wasn't prime stable for long at 1.3750v, nor 1.4v (2hrs20) so now at 1.4125v. should be fine at that.
So basically wasted some electricity to gain nothing, still worth a try.
Still good testing for my water and bedding the TIM in abit more, 58,58,57,57 after a couple of hours gotta be happy with that, especially as this room is really warm right now.
 
Cob said:
Which motherboard?
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Well Im running a p5k premium (buggering up my windows smp clients Cob) at its as happy as larry running 3.65 at stock with no adjustments at all. I tried running at higher clocks but found it a waste of time as the gains are minimal for the amount of effort and power/heat/instability.

Heres the bad boy running 2 windows smp clients that are about to rain on your parade ;) and it doesnt get more stable than running those flaky clients.

BTW temps have just dropped 4/5 degrees as the as5 beds in and I dropped the stupid bowing on the Fuzion (stupid idea) it should normalise after the block bends back to shape again.

 
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*squints*

Can't see anything of interest there old bean :p


That's a damn nice chip you have there with its 1.200v VID. Mine's 1.2275v IIRC (higher than my Q6600's) and it starts to eat vcore after 3.6ghz. Still runs pretty cool tho.
 
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Cob said:
*squints*

Can't see anything of interest there old bean :p


That's a damn nice chip you have there with its 1.200v VID. Mine's 1.2275v IIRC (higher than my Q6600's) and it starts to eat vcore after 3.6ghz. Still runs pretty cool tho.
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