Retail Q9650 Overclocking Thread

[xguntherc]

Well the Q9xxx series are almost just a cheap to make right. since they can make more with a single wafer? you'd think the profit margins would be similar on these...

I have also heard the prices will rise when i7 drops. so I'd get one now before it's to late. as they are great chips.

[Sparda]

I have also heard the prices will rise when i7 drops. so I'd get one now before it's to late. as they are great chips.

as far as I see hardware barely increase their value as the time goes by.....I believe it just a hoax. :P :P

[SNiiPE_DoGG]

as far as I see hardware barely increase their value as the time goes by.....I believe it just a hoax. :P :P

the q9650 is EOL when i7 is released, its too much competition for intel's low and mid range i7

a little after i7 is out the best quad you will be able to buy is the q9300 :\

[bigslappy]

the q9650 is EOL when i7 is released, its too much competition for intel's low and mid range i7

a little after i7 is out the best quad you will be able to buy is the q9300 :\

Listen to the SniipeDogg He's right about this ! get them now while u can .... the q9650 is too good for any of the i7 which is why the stop production order ... don't let me tell u later i told u soo ..
;p

[xguntherc]

ya if they keep these around they will have some very very strong competition with themselves.. So they are getting rid of them.

I'd get one.. I'm glad I did.

[Loque]

thanks guys, think I'll skip the i7 band wagon for now, the only shop I'm seeing around here only got 1 Q9650 left for sale and the shop owner said the next ones he order will cost at least 60€ more due to the dollar difference..

[Jor3lBR]

Listen to the SniipeDogg He's right about this ! get them now while u can .... the q9650 is too good for any of the i7 which is why the stop production order ... don't let me tell u later i told u soo ..
;p

Hey Big hows your burn-in going?

I'm leaving mine with auto voltage (1.21v) and running Linpack overnight, then some idle time, then I raise the fsb to 4005Mhz or 4045Mhz without raising voltages and run some Prime and Linpack again.

Am I doing it right? For how long should I do this?

[xguntherc]

Here are my new toys..



and does a burn-In increase overclockability in the chip??

[bigslappy]

Hey Big hows your burn-in going?

I'm leaving mine with auto voltage (1.21v) and running Linpack overnight, then some idle time, then I raise the fsb to 4005Mhz or 4045Mhz without raising voltages and run some Prime and Linpack again.

Am I doing it right? For how long should I do this?

3 or 4 days is about all you need with that burn in . mine is ready for O/C'in as i've been doing the same but just not pushing the FSB ( haven't had the time to mess with it ) but am gonna push the new Q9650 this weekend on my new EP45-UD3P MoBo ... will report back

[bigslappy]

and does a burn-In increase overclockability in the chip??

it increases the "life span" of the CPU as any high voltage can decrease the life span(heat is the main issue here) , pushing a Cpu HARD that is not burnt in will degrade the CPU quite quickly...

[xguntherc]

well I ran mine on normal everyday functions for the first about 30 hours I had it.. then went to 3.8 Ghz for 2 days.. then went to 4.0 ghz, and 4.2 ghz. and now I've ran at 4.0 Ghz since..

Was that enough of a burn in? the entire time never going over 62c

[nugzo]

I've never "burned in a CPU". I've never had any CPU issues either. Lost plenty of ram and mobos, just no CPU's.


My opinion on the q9560 EOL is that its not gonna be as soon as yall think. There is tooo many LGA775 systems out there to quit support immediatley. Not to mention the warehouses full of high end 775 motherboards. Heck new 775 boards are being introduced almost daily. There is probably more high end 775 machines out there than all the other sockets combined. I'd say they'll be available for at least a year or 2. Again, Just my opinion. Newegg is still selling one of the highest end 478 cpus, and 478 is oooold.

[bigslappy]

they still will Support it , just not gonna make them anymore . like i said they are bringing out the 8xxx line in 775 sockets for the masses..
For enthusaist like us... Intel & the MoBo MFG'ers wants us to buy the newest hardware & be their test bunnies for them .. it's all marketing why sell such a great CPU that makes yer new product look bad !
I would hate to have waited to buy one & then to find out that the CPU is not for sale anymore
.. then BE forced into buying a i7 system while reading posts like == Napalme is getting the ghz to the sky & beyond

remember Intel has No One to compete with but it's self & the forcast for Intels profits is just Today reported to be DOWN below expectations & the Intel stock is also down (as is everyone else)...I just Read that in the San Jose Mercury Newspaper bussiness section this afternoon.. but believe what u will

[bigslappy]

well I ran mine on normal everyday functions for the first about 30 hours I had it.. then went to 3.8 Ghz for 2 days.. then went to 4.0 ghz, and 4.2 ghz. and now I've ran at 4.0 Ghz since..

Was that enough of a burn in? the entire time never going over 62c

Yeah burn-in does not take long , it's like a new car u don't take it from the sales lot to the drag strip in the 1st hour u get it ..
I work hard for my cash soo i err on the side of caution when paying this much for hardware
.. as it's your hardware do as u like it with what you have ...but i just do what i do
I could be wrong but as said caution is better than sorry to me !

[nugzo]

they still will Support it , just not gonna make them anymore . like i said they are bringing out the 8xxx line in 775 sockets for the masses..
For enthusaist like us... Intel & the MoBo MFG'ers wants us to buy the newest hardware & be their test bunnies for them .. it's all marketing why sell such a great CPU that makes yer new product look bad !
I would hate to have waited to buy one & then to find out that the CPU is not for sale anymore
.. then BE forced into buying a i7 system while reading posts like == Napalme is getting the ghz to the sky & beyond

remember Intel has No One to compete with but it's self & the forcast for Intels profits is just Today reported to be DOWN below expectations & the Intel stock is also down (as is everyone else)...I just Read that in the San Jose Mercury Newspaper bussiness section this afternoon.. but believe what u will

I found this on gamespot dated september 5th. I found this same article at many sites. Looks like No EOL planned as of yet. The QX6850 and QX9770 are to be replaced by i7. Very minimum 3rd quarter 2009 if this info is reliable. Remember, not counting the way overpriced Xtreme chips, the Q9650 is intels best LGA775 CPU. I just cant see them killin it so fast. They will sell plenty of them, and make plenty of money doin it. Again, i'm no genius, this is just my opinion.

Intel to kill many Core 2's by Q1 09

14 CPUs

Intel plans to end the product cycle for 10 of its Core 2 based CPUs. Four of these are quad cores while six are Core 2 Duo SKUs. The first to die are two Core 2 Extreme CPUs, the QX6800 and QX6850 that actually ended their life cycle in July. The QX6850 is replaced by the super overclockable Q9650.

Both the QX9770 and QX9650 will receive a product discontinuance notice in Q1 while the last of them should be selling in Q2 2009, when these two will finally reach its end of life. They will be replaced by Core i7 CPUs.

The Core 2 Duo based E6850, E6750, E6550, E6540, E4600 and E4500 will receive a product discontinuance notice in Q4 08 while they will slip to its end of life in Q1 2009. The Pentium dual core E2180, E2160 and E2140 should also be reaching its end of life in Q1 2009. The last one to end its career in Q1 2009 is the Celeron dual core E1200.

[bigslappy]

Yeah i forgot where i read what i posted , it was in the XS news section & i think it was after that date of the 5th .. Hmm have to look for it when i got more time .. anyway I got mine & am very happy with them

not trying to say i'm right or anything ....... just passing on what i had read ...

[markost]

Well after having a chance to try a few boards with a QX9650 it's time to report. I've followed the pages in this Forum with interest as it covers one chip with different boards. Most interestingly, are the overclocks achieved by NapalmV5 and one or two others using predominantly Gigabyte DQ6 and EP45t Extreme Boards. As posted in other forums within Xtreme Systems, my views are not based on pure overclock numbers but the way that those overclocks translate into the speed and performance of Windows and the Application/Games within. So let's start.........

All results are with the components in my sig except when stated after the board's title. CPU speeds are kept to a reasonable constant to show the difference in boards' performance and not that particular boards overclocking ability. I've tried 3 different ( yes three !! ) QX9650's in all these boards and they all have a maximum overclock of between 4.2 and 4.4 GHz.

1. Striker 2 Formula ( OCZ ReaperX 4 gig memory & GTX280 SLi)
FSB limit of around 450. I've had four of these boards over a period and apart from the usual slight difference from one to the other, they all perform much the same. Very fast in Windows and games but limited in FSB speeds. As with all nVidia chipsets, they offer very good to excellent memory performance especially in linked and sync mode.

2. Striker 2 Extreme ( GTX 280SLi )
FSB limit of 475 with all my chips. Faster in windows than the Formula mainly due to the memory bandwidth with DDR3 and higher FSB and great to work with as everything is extremely responsive. problem with this board is that it has an awful habit of randomly rebooting or blue screening even though the overclocks are completely Prime Stable. There is another thread that address's this issue so I won't take it any further.

3. Gigabyte EP45t Extreme (Crossfire 4870X2)
With all the hype in these pages on how well the DQ6 clocks and how guys like NapalmV5 have got this board to perform, my experience has been dismal. Sure I can get the FSB to 510 @ 4.33 GHz out of my best chip Prime Stable, but the memory performance on this board is dreadful. Sure there may be a compatibility issue here with the OCZ ram I use, however the OCZ gear, from what I have experienced over the years, has the least effect on compatibility out of all the other dimms I have used. The only way to get this board to clock is to back right off the memory which is a stupid thing to do as the memory interface is what slows things down in Windows and in performance generally. What is the use of having a screamingly fast overclock when it gets bottlenecked at the memory stage ??? This showed itself within Windows where, even at 4.3 GHZ it was slower (physically) that either of the Striker's running at around 3.5GHz. if that wasn't enough, I have always used 3 RAID 0 sets. One set each using OCZ Core SS drives for OS and Data (46 gig each) and a third set for ISO images of games and apps etc which has higher storage. When you use this board with any large graphics card like the 4870, 2 of the SATA ports are rendered useless as the the card completely stops the use of these ports due to the way the SATA headers are configured on the board. Even using SATA cables with right angle plugs, it still does not allow all SATA ports to be used. Fair enough, one might say, as most people don't have a need for 6 SATA ports. Well if you want to use an IDE channel with Crossfire using the same 4870 cards, you cannot access the IDE port as the bottom card completely covers the IDE header on the board. I contacted Gigabyte Australia via my distributor and with a sympathetic ear, they informed me that this issue has been addressed in their upcoming i7 motherboards. Good to see that they have seen to this but that should have been done in the developent stages of this board. All in all, apart from the great overclocks, this board, generally, is a dud if you want more than the highest CPU overclock.

I know that some will get a synergy with this board and their own chip/ram combos so please take these comments in an open minded way.

4. Rampage Extreme
Only picked up this board yesterday. straight out of the box and especially with Vista 64bit, It is a screamer Without overclocking anything, it is noticeably faster than Striker 2 Formula, marginally faster than the Striker 2 Extreme and bucket loads faster than the EP45t Extreme. I could almost be happy leaving this thing at stock speeds but as we are all Xtreme to certain degrees, overclocking is something that just has to be done. Based on my partners Rampage Formula which runs a QX9650 at 4Gig on air and will not let me play with it any more because she wants a machine that is hassle free and completely devoid of the chance of falling over, I cannot see any issues of the getting the Rampage Extreme over 500 FSB, but that will be confirmed over the next week.

In a post earlier in this thread, I remarked to NapalmV5 that I indeed may "Napalm the ASUS boards" and move on. Well that is certainly not going to happen at this point and especially not to a EP45t Extreme. As I custom build and sell top fight machines commercially see here I cannot, in all honesty, recommend a motherboard that falls short of reference performance. That is why I cannot recommend the Giga board based on my overall findings.

Rampage OC's to follow........

*** I always load any new board up with a new virgin install of Windows and not via an Image, so there is no change of OS / Driver contamination.

[Sparda]

Nice test there but obviously you cant compare chipset of different classes like nvidia , x48 and p45 in term of memory performance because nvidia and the X48 surely kick p45 ass.
If you really want to compare test them in the same class like DFI UT P45, P5Q Deluxe, P5Q3, Maximus 2.

I tried P5Q Deluxe and the memory performance is obviously nearly the same with EP45-UD3P surely because of the same chipset.
BUT in the of reaching >500fsb easy peasy the EP45 is the winner because I cant do that with the P5Q Deluxe at least with my quad.

[markost]

Nice test there but obviously you cant compare chipset of different classes like nvidia , x48 and p45 in term of memory performance because nvidia and the X48 surely kick p45 ass.
If you really want to compare test them in the same class like DFI UT P45, P5Q Deluxe, P5Q3, Maximus 2.

I tried P5Q Deluxe and the memory performance is obviously nearly the same with EP45-UD3P surely because of the same chipset.
BUT in the of reaching >500fsb easy peasy the EP45 is the winner because I cant do that with the P5Q Deluxe at least with my quad.

Agreed !

The primary idea here is to give a little insight into a few different boards for those who have requested info on which board/platform to buy for their next upgrade and to point out some obvious shortcomings which don't often get mentioned. If it comes down to FSB on it's own then yes the DQ6 and EP45t Extreme may be the board of choice, however there is a lot more to a fast motherboard than purely FSB capability.

[GoodToGo]

Well after having a chance to try a few boards with a QX9650 it's time to report. I've followed the pages in this Forum with interest as it covers one chip with different boards. Most interestingly, are the overclocks achieved by NapalmV5 and one or two others using predominantly Gigabyte DQ6 and EP45t Extreme Boards. As posted in other forums within Xtreme Systems, my views are not based on pure overclock numbers but the way that those overclocks translate into the speed and performance of Windows and the Application/Games within. So let's start.........

All results are with the components in my sig except when stated after the board's title. CPU speeds are kept to a reasonable constant to show the difference in boards' performance and not that particular boards overclocking ability. I've tried 3 different ( yes three !! ) QX9650's in all these boards and they all have a maximum overclock of between 4.2 and 4.4 GHz.

1. Striker 2 Formula ( OCZ ReaperX 4 gig memory & GTX280 SLi)
FSB limit of around 450. I've had four of these boards over a period and apart from the usual slight difference from one to the other, they all perform much the same. Very fast in Windows and games but limited in FSB speeds. As with all nVidia chipsets, they offer very good to excellent memory performance especially in linked and sync mode.

2. Striker 2 Extreme ( GTX 280SLi )
FSB limit of 475 with all my chips. Faster in windows than the Formula mainly due to the memory bandwidth with DDR3 and higher FSB and great to work with as everything is extremely responsive. problem with this board is that it has an awful habit of randomly rebooting or blue screening even though the overclocks are completely Prime Stable. There is another thread that address's this issue so I won't take it any further.

3. Gigabyte EP45t Extreme (Crossfire 4870X2)
With all the hype in these pages on how well the DQ6 clocks and how guys like NapalmV5 have got this board to perform, my experience has been dismal. Sure I can get the FSB to 510 @ 4.33 GHz out of my best chip Prime Stable, but the memory performance on this board is dreadful. Sure there may be a compatibility issue here with the OCZ ram I use, however the OCZ gear, from what I have experienced over the years, has the least effect on compatibility out of all the other dimms I have used. The only way to get this board to clock is to back right off the memory which is a stupid thing to do as the memory interface is what slows things down in Windows and in performance generally. What is the use of having a screamingly fast overclock when it gets bottlenecked at the memory stage ??? This showed itself within Windows where, even at 4.3 GHZ it was slower (physically) that either of the Striker's running at around 3.5GHz. if that wasn't enough, I have always used 3 RAID 0 sets. One set each using OCZ Core SS drives for OS and Data (46 gig each) and a third set for ISO images of games and apps etc which has higher storage. When you use this board with any large graphics card like the 4870, 2 of the SATA ports are rendered useless as the the card completely stops the use of these ports due to the way the SATA headers are configured on the board. Even using SATA cables with right angle plugs, it still does not allow all SATA ports to be used. Fair enough, one might say, as most people don't have a need for 6 SATA ports. Well if you want to use an IDE channel with Crossfire using the same 4870 cards, you cannot access the IDE port as the bottom card completely covers the IDE header on the board. I contacted Gigabyte Australia via my distributor and with a sympathetic ear, they informed me that this issue has been addressed in their upcoming i7 motherboards. Good to see that they have seen to this but that should have been done in the developent stages of this board. All in all, apart from the great overclocks, this board, generally, is a dud if you want more than the highest CPU overclock.

I know that some will get a synergy with this board and their own chip/ram combos so please take these comments in an open minded way.

4. Rampage Extreme
Only picked up this board yesterday. straight out of the box and especially with Vista 64bit, It is a screamer Without overclocking anything, it is noticeably faster than Striker 2 Formula, marginally faster than the Striker 2 Extreme and bucket loads faster than the EP45t Extreme. I could almost be happy leaving this thing at stock speeds but as we are all Xtreme to certain degrees, overclocking is something that just has to be done. Based on my partners Rampage Formula which runs a QX9650 at 4Gig on air and will not let me play with it any more because she wants a machine that is hassle free and completely devoid of the chance of falling over, I cannot see any issues of the getting the Rampage Extreme over 500 FSB, but that will be confirmed over the next week.

In a post earlier in this thread, I remarked to NapalmV5 that I indeed may "Napalm the ASUS boards" and move on. Well that is certainly not going to happen at this point and especially not to a EP45t Extreme. As I custom build and sell top fight machines commercially see here I cannot, in all honesty, recommend a motherboard that falls short of reference performance. That is why I cannot recommend the Giga board based on my overall findings.

Rampage OC's to follow........

*** I always load any new board up with a new virgin install of Windows and not via an Image, so there is no change of OS / Driver contamination.

If you can test the Rampage Formula and report back, that would be much appreciated

[Jor3lBR]

I'm slowly working my way up with this and stability is a concern for me. Need to adjust volts also but I'm getting there.

Note for DFI users: this Q9650 will play better with GTL Ref options set at 66% to 68%.

8hrs Prime95 Blend@4218Mhz:




And a quick Linpack with lower vcore:

[andressergio]

Well guys wish me good luck

My Q9650 is on its way to Portland Oregon form newegg California...Let's hope its a BBBB
I bought it yesterday

Then it'll be the long long road to Uruguay - South America

Thanks to my mate WizardOfOz than kindly get it for me

Best regards to all
Sergio

[Zucker2k]

Well guys wish me good luck

My Q9650 is on its way to Portland Oregon form newegg California...Let's hope its a BBBB
I bought it yesterday

Then it'll be the long long road to Uruguay - South America

Thanks to my mate WizardOfOz than kindly get it for me

Best regards to all
Sergio

Here's to hoping you get the best of 'em all!!

[andressergio]

Here's to hoping you get the best of 'em all!!

Thank you mate !!! got a drink one of those you have on the animated icon LOL

Cheers
Sergio

[SNiiPE_DoGG]

I'm slowly working my way up with this and stability is a concern for me. Need to adjust volts also but I'm getting there.

Note for DFI users: this Q9650 will play better with GTL Ref options set at 66% to 68%.

Damn you and your cryo-z

seriously though, the x38/x48 are limited to <475fsb on quad cores in my experience