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Safe to overclock straight away?

Craig321

Craig321

Craig321

Soldato
Joined
2 May 2004
Posts
19,953
I've never overclocked a brand new CPU - never had the need to really.

I'm getting a Q9550 soon and want to get it up to at least 3.4GHz. Is it safe to overclock it as soon as I get it, or should I wait a week or two until the thermal paste etc. has settled down?

Craig.
 
AS5 is the only one I know of which takes time to settle in, but even then it's only good for a few degrees.

I like the arguements for going up 200mhz and running it there for several weeks before progressing, but I'm yet to see evidence that it matters. So I'd say go for it.

Assuming its an E0, it's likely to do 3.4 on stock volts with no fuss whatsoever. Reasonable chance of it doing 3.4 while undervolted, you're going to have fun I think.
 
3.4GHz undervolted? Nice :cool:. Didn't realise these were such good overclockers. Not sure if it'll be E0, it didn't say in the specs. I heard all new ones were E0 anyway?

Not too worried about temperatures really as I'll monitor those, and I'll turn the safety features on (throttling etc.). Just wondered if it's 'healthy' for a CPU to be overclocked straight away really.
 
Not all of them, but a fair few go beautifully. Whats the fsb limit on your board like? The q9550 has a 8.5 multipliar, so I'd guess you'll run into the limits of the P35 first.

I'm not sure about it being healthy either in truth. The idea that transistors become slightly burnt into their switching speed is appealing, but I don't think it actually happens. I'm inclined to think that running it at one speed all the time is probably better than repeatedly changing the speeds and voltages youre using, but my solid state physics never got far enough for me to be sure. I'd be interested if you find any articles on this, it's always bothered the scientist in me just how 'try it and see' overclocking appears to be.
 
Good point on the motherboard's FSB there.

The specs say: 1333/1066/800 MHz FSB.

The Q9550 has a locked multiplier, so I can't change that to reduce the FSB.

Anyone know if a P35-DS4 (rev 1.0) would handle 1600MHz FSB?
 
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