Got a new rig and after 4 years with a P4 Northwood its like going from a Datsun Cherry to a Aston martin Vanquish. I use multi threaded apps so going the quad route is a no brainer, however I didnt expect such shear finesse,such cutting edge engineering excellence, Intel really have pushed the boat out with these beauties.(well done AMD)
Like a lot of people waiting in the wings for clues asto their performance I have read the overclockers forums avidly to no avail,nada not even from 'Easy' who promised so much, only joking.
I think the majority of people who view these boards have already gone the Q6600 route so they will probably stay put until Nalhem.So its up to noobs like myself to test the waters first. I personally didnt want to go the Q6600 route as the impression I got was of quite high operating temeratures which means you must go water for a very quiet system , quitude is an imprtant criteria for me after having an intel vaccum cleaner under my desk for the last four years, the serenity of a quiet stressfree work environment really does help the creative processes, I have only realised fully the importance of this now that I have my new rig running it is bearly audible ,it is so damn relaxing.
Ok so what made me take the plunge when I did? I came across the maxwell benchmark site(www.benchwell.com) last Thursday and there was a bench in there for the Q9300 @ stock for 17 minutes odd just a tad slower than a Q6600 @ 3.4!!! dubious I know but the Q9300 was running in 64 bit mode and with 2 extragig of ram so possible, on my P4 that same bench took 152 minutes! some 9 times faster!. That was it for me, straight on to Overclockers and ordered the following, Q9300, Abit Pro, Tuniq Tower, 2 gig Corsair Dominator,WD 500 gig hard drive, arrived the next day! and was up and running Friday afternoon.
So how am I doing? @ Stock I am getting 19 mins 55 secs for the Benchwell benchmark nearest equivelant is a Q6600 @ 2.80 with 4 gig and 64 bit app! Damn fast and a KO for the Q9300 especially as it is running so cooly but it just gets better.
The Abit Pro board is a beauty too, it boasts Jap Caps ,essential for stability, however I did need to flash the bios so that it recognised the .5 multi of the Q9300. The Tuniq Tower is incredibly efficient at cooling and the Abit UGuru reports between 27&29 C at full load 22,23 idle. I am a firm believer in letting electronic components bed in especially for top notch components as they are designed to operate within much tighter margins for longer, they do not fluctuate as much and are more predictable in operation than their cheaper bretheren. Evidence for this comes from Audio Electronics, before a review of say a top notch CD player the reviewer puts the CD on repeat play for a couple of days to bed the components in ie the op amps and the caps not the Burr Browns which makes an incredible improvement to the actual sound.
So after a couple of days @ stock speed I thought I'd tun it up a notch or two. Straight in at 400 FSB for 3.0ghz, no problem at all . 420 required a touch more voltage I think it was 1.25 v I took the Ram off default and ran it at 1:1. Straight in no problem @ 3150 ghz which gave me 16minutes 18 secs in the Benchwell bench equivalent to a Q6600 @ 3.36 which seems about right. To conclude I am a comple noob at overclocking, apart from once upping the FSB of the my old rig to get the P4 Northwood to 3.6ghz which it didnt like so went back to stock.I think there is a lot more headroom with this chip as the temps are so low.I am more than happy at 3150 ghz but will endeavor to reach 3.6 ghz as I have this overwhelming urge to beat the fastest Q6600 on the Benchwell site. I of course will do all the prime stuff etc. One question, how do i reduce the cpu fan speed on the Abit, do i reduce the voltage to the fans in the bios? Uguru is reporing 900 rpm I can just hear this if i can get it down to say 400 it will truely be inaudible.
Like a lot of people waiting in the wings for clues asto their performance I have read the overclockers forums avidly to no avail,nada not even from 'Easy' who promised so much, only joking.
I think the majority of people who view these boards have already gone the Q6600 route so they will probably stay put until Nalhem.So its up to noobs like myself to test the waters first. I personally didnt want to go the Q6600 route as the impression I got was of quite high operating temeratures which means you must go water for a very quiet system , quitude is an imprtant criteria for me after having an intel vaccum cleaner under my desk for the last four years, the serenity of a quiet stressfree work environment really does help the creative processes, I have only realised fully the importance of this now that I have my new rig running it is bearly audible ,it is so damn relaxing.
Ok so what made me take the plunge when I did? I came across the maxwell benchmark site(www.benchwell.com) last Thursday and there was a bench in there for the Q9300 @ stock for 17 minutes odd just a tad slower than a Q6600 @ 3.4!!! dubious I know but the Q9300 was running in 64 bit mode and with 2 extragig of ram so possible, on my P4 that same bench took 152 minutes! some 9 times faster!. That was it for me, straight on to Overclockers and ordered the following, Q9300, Abit Pro, Tuniq Tower, 2 gig Corsair Dominator,WD 500 gig hard drive, arrived the next day! and was up and running Friday afternoon.
So how am I doing? @ Stock I am getting 19 mins 55 secs for the Benchwell benchmark nearest equivelant is a Q6600 @ 2.80 with 4 gig and 64 bit app! Damn fast and a KO for the Q9300 especially as it is running so cooly but it just gets better.
The Abit Pro board is a beauty too, it boasts Jap Caps ,essential for stability, however I did need to flash the bios so that it recognised the .5 multi of the Q9300. The Tuniq Tower is incredibly efficient at cooling and the Abit UGuru reports between 27&29 C at full load 22,23 idle. I am a firm believer in letting electronic components bed in especially for top notch components as they are designed to operate within much tighter margins for longer, they do not fluctuate as much and are more predictable in operation than their cheaper bretheren. Evidence for this comes from Audio Electronics, before a review of say a top notch CD player the reviewer puts the CD on repeat play for a couple of days to bed the components in ie the op amps and the caps not the Burr Browns which makes an incredible improvement to the actual sound.
So after a couple of days @ stock speed I thought I'd tun it up a notch or two. Straight in at 400 FSB for 3.0ghz, no problem at all . 420 required a touch more voltage I think it was 1.25 v I took the Ram off default and ran it at 1:1. Straight in no problem @ 3150 ghz which gave me 16minutes 18 secs in the Benchwell bench equivalent to a Q6600 @ 3.36 which seems about right. To conclude I am a comple noob at overclocking, apart from once upping the FSB of the my old rig to get the P4 Northwood to 3.6ghz which it didnt like so went back to stock.I think there is a lot more headroom with this chip as the temps are so low.I am more than happy at 3150 ghz but will endeavor to reach 3.6 ghz as I have this overwhelming urge to beat the fastest Q6600 on the Benchwell site. I of course will do all the prime stuff etc. One question, how do i reduce the cpu fan speed on the Abit, do i reduce the voltage to the fans in the bios? Uguru is reporing 900 rpm I can just hear this if i can get it down to say 400 it will truely be inaudible.
