IN9 32X-Max and the Q9550 - Overclocking Help

I've been searching and searching but haven't been able to find any information specific to the Q9550 and the IN9 32X-Max. I'm currently stable at 2.94GHz and I'm wondering if my bios settings are what they should be.

I'm a long time computer builder and recently started overclocking my stuff with the sole purpose of obtaining a bit more performance with stability as the main focus. I don't plan to squeeze as much as I can as I'm on air cooling with a Zalman CNPS9500AT but I feel 3.5GHz? should be attainable with what I have via some xtreme xpert advice. :D

I fully understand that I will have to increase several voltages in order to stay stable at higher clock speeds but, am I on the right track? Are the OCguru settings correct?

When I increase the bus speed my mem frequency drops, is this normal?

Here are some screens:

http://virtual-aviation.org/main/ima...q9550@2.94.jpg

http://virtual-aviation.org/main/ima...q9550@2.94.jpg

http://virtual-aviation.org/main/ima...q9550@2.94.jpg

During Prime95 torture test: Do my temps look ok for my current settings?
http://virtual-aviation.org/main/ima...50@2.94GHz.gif

Linked or Unlinked? Can I get up to 3.5GHz by upping the bus and voltages with this configuration? Are lower multipliers + higher bus speeds preferred? When trying "Linked", I cannot get it to post no matter what settings I try.
http://virtual-aviation.org/main/ima...ru@2.94GHz.jpg

What is a good voltage configuration to start at for 3.2GHz? Currently I dropped the DDR2 V to 1.85 and the Vcore to 1.27
http://virtual-aviation.org/main/ima...es@2.94GHz.jpg

Should I try changing the timings to 5-5-5-15 and bump up the clock? Leave alone? I need faster memory to do what I'm asking?
http://virtual-aviation.org/main/ima...gs@2.94GHz.gif

Thank you for reading and for any help received,

Jon

According to this thread: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=135183

and some others, the lack of gtl/ref adjustments is probably the reason you cant go higher.
Too bad because it looks like a really nice board, I suggest you to sell it and grab something newer to oc that quad :up:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YZjon

I've been searching and searching but haven't been able to find any information specific to the Q9550 and the IN9 32X-Max. I'm currently stable at 2.94GHz and I'm wondering if my bios settings are what they should be.

I'm a long time computer builder and recently started overclocking my stuff with the sole purpose of obtaining a bit more performance with stability as the main focus. I don't plan to squeeze as much as I can as I'm on air cooling with a Zalman CNPS9500AT but I feel 3.5GHz? should be attainable with what I have via some xtreme xpert advice. :D

I fully understand that I will have to increase several voltages in order to stay stable at higher clock speeds but, am I on the right track? Are the OCguru settings correct?

When I increase the bus speed my mem frequency drops, is this normal?

Jon

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Jon i replied you on the other thread

You may want to take a look at this

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=476249

but get a better mobo like the UD3P as i said on the other thread, not a good combo quad and nvidia chipsets.

Cheers mate :up:
Sergio

You have 3 options really:

a) Forget about overclocking and be happy that it runs the way it does, which is outstaning BTW. Never would've thought this would be possible at all.
b) Get a new motherboard to get real Yorkfield overclocking.
c) Get to know how to mod GTLREF voltage on your board and probably some other voltages, like VCCPLL and so on. Mod your board and then try overclocking the yorkfield again. ;)

For simplicity's sake, I'd suggest option b).

many do 4 gh for their 9550

Thank you everyone for the helpful information.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by monza1412

According to this thread: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=135183

and some others, the lack of gtl/ref adjustments is probably the reason you cant go higher.
Too bad because it looks like a really nice board, I suggest you to sell it and grab something newer to oc that quad :up:

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I was afraid that this would be the case but, truth be told, I was ecstatic when I got it stable at 2.94GHz so I'm not to bummed. Thankfully there is quite a noticeable difference between the Q9550 and Q6600.

As much as I would love to do mods like that, I need my PC to work and I don't have the tools. (pretty sad knowing my background) This is good info to have, maybe one day I'll actually get to try the mods. Would be fun. :up:

It's looking more and more like a new MB is my best option.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by andressergio

Jon i replied you on the other thread

You may want to take a look at this

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=476249

but get a better mobo like the UD3P as i said on the other thread, not a good combo quad and nvidia chipsets.

Cheers mate :up:
Sergio

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I wasn't aware that the NForce chipsets weren't friendly with the quad cores. This is good to know since I've been wanting to try an Intel chipset again (haven't been on an Intel MB since before NForce2 :shocked:).

The gigabyte http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128358 looks like a good board and when I have the spare funds plus the time to reinstall two flavors of Windows and all the apps I will do it. I figure this board plus a GTX285 will have me computing well into 2010.

Cheers!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by celemine1Gig

You have 3 options really:

a) Forget about overclocking and be happy that it runs the way it does, which is outstaning BTW. Never would've thought this would be possible at all.
b) Get a new motherboard to get real Yorkfield overclocking.
c) Get to know how to mod GTLREF voltage on your board and probably some other voltages, like VCCPLL and so on. Mod your board and then try overclocking the yorkfield again. ;)

For simplicity's sake, I'd suggest option b).

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a) I agree with this and I'm happy, ecstatic actually :D.
b) Will do as soon as I can afford.
c) Option "b" is looking good, when that is worked out I'll look at "c" again!

Thank you all,

YZjon

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gaul

many do 4 gh for their 9550

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With this particular board ? Don't think so :shakes: Time to get a P45 Board or enjoy it as runs now...

Hey all,

Could I get some opinions on my 3DMARK06 score? Only thing changed was CPU.

- With a Q6600 @2.7GHz I got 12008

- With my Q9550 @ 2.94GHz I get 13544
SM 2.0 Score 5779
SM 3.0 Score 5683
CPU Score 4136

A little over 1500 point improvement but is this about where I should be with my hardware?

Thanks,

YZjon

Think ya score is correct mate, but you see that the 8800GT still wants more CPU power as it scales well with some extra FSB. With a good mobo and if ya CPU can handle eg 3.8Ghz you can reach 15K for sure

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Leeghoofd

Think ya score is correct mate, but you see that the 8800GT still wants more CPU power as it scales well with some extra FSB. With a good mobo and if ya CPU can handle eg 3.8Ghz you can reach 15K for sure

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Thank you Leeghoofed.

Cheers,

YZjon

Wow, I wouldn't have thought a 45nm Yorkie would run in this at all. I still had one of those mobos lying around, threw it in the trash a few months ago, after years of miserable performance and unreliability. 680i sucked, period. Not even Abit could change that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jcool

Wow, I wouldn't have thought a 45nm Yorkie would run in this at all. I still had one of those mobos lying around, threw it in the trash a few months ago, after years of miserable performance and unreliability. 680i sucked, period. Not even Abit could change that.

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I must be one of the lucky ones then. The best part is that I got this MB from Newegg right before they were going to stop carrying it. I think I paid something like $119 after $100 mail-in rebate. Actually got the rebate too!

Once I found memory that would work it was quite stable, only had an occasional lockup/BSOD. I've almost got the Arctic5 broken in so I'll start running some extensive testing to see just how table this will be. My gaming experience has improved and games are working flawlessly so I think this is a good sign of stability. We'll see.

It was known for a long time that the "incompatibility" problems with Yorkfield in most cases are just signal level problems. So, depending on the signal level tolerances of your particular board AND CPU, the results can vary from "not even stable at stock speed", to "stable when slightly overclocked", as in your case.
Unfortunately, these signal levels can't be adjusted through BIOS in the majority of older boards. That's the reason why the manufacturers said that the boards were not compatible. Just to be on the safe side.
As I already said, if you were to manually tweak those control voltages, then you might gain stability at much higher clocks. The question's just if it's worth the effort in both time and money. It would involve a serious amount of SMD soldering, which sometimes can be a real pain in the... Well, you know what. :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by celemine1Gig

It was known for a long time that the "incompatibility" problems with Yorkfield in most cases are just signal level problems. So, depending on the signal level tolerances of your particular board AND CPU, the results can vary from "not even stable at stock speed", to "stable when slightly overclocked", as in your case.
Unfortunately, these signal levels can't be adjusted through BIOS in the majority of older boards. That's the reason why the manufacturers said that the boards were not compatible. Just to be on the safe side.
As I already said, if you were to manually tweak those control voltages, then you might gain stability at much higher clocks. The question's just if it's worth the effort in both time and money. It would involve a serious amount of SMD soldering, which sometimes can be a real pain in the... Well, you know what. :D

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Interesting thing with this board from ABIT is that they do claim it supports Yorkfields after the release of bios15. This was probably a mistake on their part seeings how many most likely had the incompatibility problems. I'm very happy to one of the lucky ones.

Check this out:
http://www.abit.com.tw/cpu-support-l...n9-32x-max.htm

I really like soldering so one day I will try these mods, just need to have my crap together before I attempt it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by YZjon

Interesting thing with this board from ABIT is that they do claim it supports Yorkfields after the release of bios15. This was probably a mistake on their part seeings how many most likely had the incompatibility problems. I'm very happy to one of the lucky ones.

Check this out:
http://www.abit.com.tw/cpu-support-l...n9-32x-max.htm

I really like soldering so one day I will try these mods, just need to have my crap together before I attempt it.

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I don't know about the board, as I never owned one. Was said to be a real solid board though and the digital PWM seems to be up to the challange of the quads anyway. Maybe they had the GTLREF-voltage levels adjusted to a suiting value for Yorkfields right from the start. I doubt that they would have done that intentionally, as the board was released way before the Yorkfield architecture, though.
And yes, you can indeed consider yourself lucky to have your Yorkfield running stable on that quite old platform. :)