Q9450 vs Q9550 - Is it really that differant?

[lost.prophet]

I keep hearing about the 9450 getting phased out, and the 9550 being the chip to go for, but isn't it only .17GHz faster (which can be obtained through overclocking with a stock fan and no voltage changes whatsoever)? I can't see any other differance, same FSB, same cache...

What makes the 9550 so good? Am I missing something?

 

[neoboy]

It's the next one up.

 

[DavidB]

Higher multiplier

 

[Cob]

Extra half multiplier. The Q9450 is FSB limited (mainly motherboard), so the extra half multi means the Q9550 should almost certainly overclock an extra 225-250mhz further than the Q9450 does.

The extra half multi will be far far more beneficial than the full multi difference that the Q6700 had over the Q6600, since neither the Q6700 or Q6600 were FSB limited.