Q9450 OC / Temps / Settings

[Justintoxicated]

i think that may have been the batch of my first q9450 (which I had newegg RMA just to get a diffferent batch) it liked high voltage and had horrendous temps.
and highest i could get it stable was 8x445fsb.
if you got it from newegg you could always rma for replacement...veritably no questions asked.

Unfortunately I got it from frys for about $250...No returns once box is opened.

[Slovnaft]

well that's a sweet deal, but i guess you pay in the warranty coverage. you can always sell it on ebay, it would probably go for 300(apparently ebayers don't shop around much), and buy one of those nifty 8600s.
but i'd keep trying a little longer. i like these chips./

[003]

Unfortunately I got it from frys for about $250...No returns once box is opened.

I think it is your DFI board. I originally had my Q9450 on a DFI LP LT P35-T2R, and it would not budge an inch over 350MHz FSB no matter what settings I changed or how much voltage I applied to what.

I got a Rampage Formula and presto! I can get 488MHz FSB stable!

[kiikkuja]

Justintoxicated how much vcore have you tried add to the chip? I don't know what stepping mine is but it seems to require quite much vcore. I'll have to change new bios and try with it but i'll doubt that i'll get much more out of this chip. With 1.35000 vcore i'm stable @ 8x426.

Has anybody something to report about the guys running over 1.4 vcore on their chips?

[Justintoxicated]

I think it is your DFI board. I originally had my Q9450 on a DFI LP LT P35-T2R, and it would not budge an inch over 350MHz FSB no matter what settings I changed or how much voltage I applied to what.

I got a Rampage Formula and presto! I can get 488MHz FSB stable!

What asus board can I liquid cool the NB? Every Asus board I have sceen that is decent has those crappy heatpipes that screw up liquid cooling anything other than the CPU.

Or in other words what is the best Asus MB out for this chip right now, and what is the best one that I can actualy use? In many tests the X48 seems to be up to 10% faster at the same speeds as the P45 chipset in games. So I still need some convincing.

I have tried voltages over 1.4, however at 3200 MHZ I'm IntelBurnTest Stable 43 iterations so far and still going at only 1.26v, actualy I think I can lower the voltage more still but it needed a touch of Vtt (1.255v) if I remember. Still working on lowering voltages the IntelBurnTest takes over night to run 50 passes with 8GB ram.

Strange thing is, I was getting 44Gflops with more voltage and I am now only getting 23-42, I don't understand why it is varying so much.

[truehighroller]

What asus board can I liquid cool the NB? Every Asus board I have sceen that is decent has those crappy heatpipes that screw up liquid cooling anything other than the CPU.

Or in other words what is the best Asus MB out for this chip right now, and what is the best one that I can actualy use? In many tests the X48 seems to be up to 10% faster at the same speeds as the P45 chipset in games. So I still need some convincing.

I have tried voltages over 1.4, however at 3200 MHZ I'm IntelBurnTest Stable 43 iterations so far and still going at only 1.26v, actualy I think I can lower the voltage more still but it needed a touch of Vtt (1.255v) if I remember. Still working on lowering voltages the IntelBurnTest takes over night to run 50 passes with 8GB ram.

Strange thing is, I was getting 44Gflops with more voltage and I am now only getting 23-42, I don't understand why it is varying so much.

You only need ten passes man, 50?? Do what you will but, that's a total waste of time IMO. I haven't had mine crash once playing Crysis or benching with 3DMark Vantage and I passed ten passes and called it stable. It might be that chip. I have seen people swear it is there motherboard swap it out and be disapointed that there chip still doesn't clock higher. I will say this though on my x38 dq6 this chip wouldn't go past 3.6Ghz and here I sit at 3.85~Ghz 1.25v.

[Justintoxicated]

Ahh it was because I was running prime95 and burn test as the same time. 10 Passes does not really prove you are stable. When I was at 3.4ghz I would not start getting errors until after 23-26 passes on average. Stable enough for games maybe, but I don't need a BSOD or undetected errors when saving pictures from my SLR. I'd gladly give up 3200MHZ to have truely stable hardware. It's not that much difference in performance. 3400 is better for bragging rights but it won't pass 50 iterations so I'd feel like I was living a lie! Not many on this forum are willing to run 50 passes, so I have to question alot of so called stable overclocks.

If I sell this setup I'll probably ditch the MB and CPU pickup an E0 stepping and P45 chipset. But I want a motherboard I can liquid cool since I already invested so much cash into the nice universal water blocks for it. None of the Asus boards look like you can liquid cool them very easily. Do any of them use Digital regulation like the DFI boards?

Also how many people are testing with 8GB ram on the Asus Boards? Running only 4GB of ram significantly increases my stable overclock, but I want to run all 8GB that I paid $280 for...

Bit dissapointed in intel after hearing such great things about their new CPU's and how overclockable theya ll are. I have usualy been able to squeeze much higher percentages off AMD chips.

[truehighroller]

Ahh it was because I was running prime95 and burn test as the same time. 10 Passes does not really prove you are stable. When I was at 3.4ghz I would not start getting errors until after 23-26 passes on average. Stable enough for games maybe, but I don't need a BSOD or undetected errors when saving pictures from my SLR. I'd gladly give up 3200MHZ to have truely stable hardware. It's not that much difference in performance. 3400 is better for bragging rights but it won't pass 50 iterations so I'd feel like I was living a lie! Not many on this forum are willing to run 50 passes, so I have to question alot of so called stable overclocks.

If I sell this setup I'll probably ditch the MB and CPU pickup an E0 stepping and P45 chipset. But I want a motherboard I can liquid cool since I already invested so much cash into the nice universal water blocks for it. None of the Asus boards look like you can liquid cool them very easily. Do any of them use Digital regulation like the DFI boards?

Also how many people are testing with 8GB ram on the Asus Boards? Running only 4GB of ram significantly increases my stable overclock, but I want to run all 8GB that I paid $280 for...

Bit dissapointed in intel after hearing such great things about their new CPU's and how overclockable theya ll are. I have usualy been able to squeeze much higher percentages off AMD chips.

Just bad luck maybe. What are you pumping through the nb voltage wise? That will kill your overclock considering how much stress you are putting on it with 8Gb or ram and all.

[Slovnaft]

yeh imo 8gb is just a little overkill.
if you're looking for a solid asus board rampage extreme will do it, and there's watercooled nb. it's gotten 550mhz fsb stable for a quad, 660 ish for a dual. but it is a tad pricey.
uh, blackops too for $70 less, but i'm not sure how it does with this chip, fsb limitations will be tighter. i could let you know when i get my ram back and finish with P45.
I know my gigabyte X48T-DQ6 did fine up to 490 fsb (with low multi) and 8x475, but no watercooled nb. but i dont think a watercooled nb is really that necessary with this chip.

[Justintoxicated]

yeh imo 8gb is just a little overkill.
if you're looking for a solid asus board rampage extreme will do it, and there's watercooled nb. it's gotten 550mhz fsb stable for a quad, 660 ish for a dual. but it is a tad pricey.
uh, blackops too for $70 less, but i'm not sure how it does with this chip, fsb limitations will be tighter. i could let you know when i get my ram back and finish with P45.
I know my gigabyte X48T-DQ6 did fine up to 490 fsb (with low multi) and 8x475, but no watercooled nb. but i dont think a watercooled nb is really that necessary with this chip.

Lol only $400 for that board...Nah I already have a universal NB MCP block, I'd be willing to change the top but I'mnot putting aluminum in my loop and reducing my tubing to the size of those tiny barbs. What a joke.

This using 1/2 inch barbs by chance?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128350

[billdavis]

im using 1.4vcore on 780i because vdroop goes to 1.32 on load so.......for 3.6ghz

[Loser777]

There is vdroop mod for the 780i/750i. Should help a bit.

[Justintoxicated]

I just leave the NB at stock voltage, I hay have had to bump it a little to get to 3200, but I'm still in the process of lowering voltages. Increasing NB voltage did not seem to help me at 3400mhz to gain that extra bit of stability. I'm prettys ure it must be my GTL settings. I just don't know what percentages to use Theres 1000's of combinations. my Core 0 seems to be the weakest, what does that tell me as far as GTL? The DFI board has virtualy no VDroop (or so I hear) CPU voltage fluzxates slighty NB seems pretty solid but I will take another look.


I lowered my Vtt to 1.105

[Big Lar]

I just leave the NB at stock voltage, I hay have had to bump it a little to get to 3200, but I'm still in the process of lowering voltages. Increasing NB voltage did not seem to help me at 3400mhz to gain that extra bit of stability. I'm prettys ure it must be my GTL settings. I just don't know what percentages to use Theres 1000's of combinations. my Core 0 seems to be the weakest, what does that tell me as far as GTL? The DFI board has virtualy no VDroop (or so I hear) CPU voltage fluzxates slighty NB seems pretty solid but I will take another look.


I lowered my Vtt to 1.105

Try raising the 0/2 Cpu GTl a notch at a time until the core0 catch's up.

Larry

[truehighroller]

Your stressing your NB you need more voltage on it I bet.

[Justintoxicated]

Your stressing your NB you need more voltage on it I bet.

I had 1.6v to it at one point it didn't seem to makeit any more stable. Once I find my lowest voltage settings at 3200 mhz I will try slowing upping the FSB and making adjustments accordingly. The one problem with burn test failures is that you do not know which core is failing, however prime isn't anny better since I could not get prime to fail in 12 hours...

[Slovnaft]

i've always been satisfied with prime stability, and it's never yielded any unexpected failures for 24/7 clocks.
but i guess burn test is the new standard?

[Slovnaft]

@justintoxicated

so I'm up and running with this new P45 board and i'm very happy thus far. I'm currently testing 8x490 for stability, and went up to 3.96 for a quick spi 1m, but havent had any luck with the elusive 8x500.
I tried IntelBurnTest at 8x488 and holy crap, my temps got up to 94C !!@!# I didn't know what to do--how to stop the test--so I just powered down. It was running fine and all, it just seemed so hot! and I only had 1.33 vcore... anyways, I don't like it, so i'm going to stick with OCCT.

Anyways, if you still need help with settings let me know, just thought I'd give my 2cents on burntest...

[Justintoxicated]

@justintoxicated

so I'm up and running with this new P45 board and i'm very happy thus far. I'm currently testing 8x490 for stability, and went up to 3.96 for a quick spi 1m, but havent had any luck with the elusive 8x500.
I tried IntelBurnTest at 8x488 and holy crap, my temps got up to 94C !!@!# I didn't know what to do--how to stop the test--so I just powered down. It was running fine and all, it just seemed so hot! and I only had 1.33 vcore... anyways, I don't like it, so i'm going to stick with OCCT.

Anyways, if you still need help with settings let me know, just thought I'd give my 2cents on burntest...

Burn test, tests the CPU more than prime 95. It REALLY puts a full load on intel chips since its what intel uses to test their chips! @ 94c it sounds like you should get some better cooling. Even with 1.4v I only hit low 70's however my laptop thermal throttles the CPU (soon as it reaches 86c it decreases the CPU clock).

Heres my newest results. I think with a little more GTL tweaking I can get this stable without any voltage added at all. Crazy how it would not boot up at 3200 MHZ without a ton of Vtt until I started playing with GTL's

CPU voltage - Auto
NB Voltage 1.4v
Mem 1.9v
Vtt is boosted to 1.119 though (going to set this back to 1.1v tonight and play with some more gtls)

Not sure why I can't go over 3200 MHZ though

[crazyea]

My q9450/Maximus 2 Formula/Patriot PC2-9600 combo does 425x8 w/ memory at 1133, 100% stable, all on stock voltages and loadline disabled. Any higher, no matter what settings I chose will fail stress testing. I can boot at 500x7, 450x8, 475x8, etc but again prime fails. I've messed with the gtl's but cant get it to pass. Anyway, I'm really grateful for what I have @ stock voltages, 51c max load temps.

Idle after test:



Load running IntelBurnTest:

[Justintoxicated]

My q9450/Maximus 2 Formula/Patriot PC2-9600 combo does 425x8 w/ memory at 1133, 100% stable, all on stock voltages and loadline disabled. Any higher, no matter what settings I chose will fail stress testing. I can boot at 500x7, 450x8, 475x8, etc but again prime fails. I've messed with the gtl's but cant get it to pass. Anyway, I'm really grateful for what I have @ stock voltages, 51c max load temps.

Very nice, I think mine might go to 3400 as well, but I think the 8GB ram is holding me back a bit.

[Slovnaft]

are you guys on air? i mean, I thought my tuniq tower was doing a fine job, temps are in the 30s at idle at 1.35 vcore (for 3.9ghz). I guess maybe I need a reseat? I'll get to that when I switch to the 790i I'm fixing up.
Maybe I need watercooling...

[Flip_Lx]

Very nice, I think mine might go to 3400 as well, but I think the 8GB ram is holding me back a bit.

i don't see why you'd be limited, im at 3.4 and working on 3.6 with 8gb of ram just took a decent setp in volts to hit 3.4 from 3.2. just required a lil bump to nb as well

[SNiiPE_DoGG]

justintoxicated, i didnt know you weren't raising your VTT volts, head up to 1.35 in bios (1.34v actual) and your proc should easily get to 3.6 seriously the vtt and 1.6v on the NB will give you that ability to do at least 460 fsb with this board.

i posted a gtl chart over in the x48 thread for you a lil while back, that should help with changing the VTT up

[Slovnaft]

vtt is fsb term. right?