X3350 / Q9450 Overclocking Thread

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Foxery

First, though, I'd like to know why I've apparently acheived the impossible...

simple your cpu is above TjMax.

@ TjMax the cores are set to automatically turn the computer off.

For some wierd reason your system is still operational, and looks like 2 of your cores are dying. :X

 

[Foxery]

Well, you were right after all. I love making a fool of myself, which is why I do it so damned often.

The noise from the new HSF was annoying, and fluctuating a lot, so I yanked it and put my old, larger one in with some Arctic Silver 5. Temperatures reported in RealTemp are now reasonable; 47C idle, 65C load at stock settings. Now trying 3100mhz and it's 75C on core0+2, 70C on core 1+3, which is still terrible, but not deadly.

I want a cookie for having gleefully melted my CPU and come out with it still running!

Not sure what was going wrong with the cooler before, but I suppose I'll have to pick up an Arctic or Xigmatek now to get serious with this CPU. Boo, this was supposed to be a cheap quad!!

 

[runawayprisoner]

Cheap quad = inferior to expensive quad. Hopefully that's not going to kill.

Anyway, try the Big Typhoon (non-VX version) coupled with a really high speed fan. I've gotten good results with that cooler. At least better than with TRUE... for some weird reason.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: runawayprisoner
Cheap quad = inferior to expensive quad. Hopefully that's not going to kill.

Anyway, try the Big Typhoon (non-VX version) coupled with a really high speed fan. I've gotten good results with that cooler. At least better than with TRUE... for some weird reason.

I have 2 big Typhoons on quads, and while I like them, they can't touch a TRUE.

 

[runawayprisoner]

I'm going to try my luck with the next Q9450... and see if the results would be different.

 

[imported_BigJim]

Originally posted by: themattman
Unfortunately it turned out that my motherboard doesn't like certain DDR2-1066 sticks, so I decided to order a set of mushkin DDR2-800 sticks to make sure it isn't a problem with the motherboard. I can only stare at my Q9450 and the TRUE attached to it

I had trouble with a certain DDR2-1066 sticks last night. 4x 1GB of Transcend aXeRAM 1066. But this other forum was super helpful and now they work great. http://forums.techpowerup.com/...ead.php?t=55352&page=5

Here's the punchline: DIMM +0.3 = 2.1, MCH +1.5 = 1.4, and timings (as seen in cpu-z SPD) = 5-6-6-15. The DIMMs are hot but not enough to burn. I should arrange a more direct fan. The NB with the mobo silent pipe is only warm. CPU cores are 50 C; passed OCCT 2hrs. GA-P35-DS3P.

Though, all my aXeRAM worked no problem with only 2 sticks, my problem was more 4 sticks. You might try bumping your DIMM voltage to 2.1 or whatever your mystery sticks say they can tolerate. Confirm voltage in Everest, confirm timings in cpu-z.

http://www.hardwarezone.com/ar...php?id=2521&cid=2&pg=1 sort of interesting though for some reason they didn't test OC!

According to this article, the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro gives the TRUE a run for its money. At less than half the price. Only at very high overclocks does the TRUE edge ahead. Though, these tests were done on the x6800 which is a 65nm dual core. http://www.anandtech.com/casec...howdoc.aspx?i=3210&p=6

"The Freezer 7 Pro turns in an outstanding performance under load at stock speeds. CoreTemp results are 35C, which is one of the best air-cooling results tested so far at AnandTech... If you do not plan to push overclocking to the extreme, the Freezer 7 Pro is an outstanding choice. The stock performance at idle and load is among the best we have tested - matching or coming in a bit better than the Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme."

The Alpine 7 is also recommended as a sub-$15 alternative to the Intel Retail HSF.

 

[runawayprisoner]

If you're going above 3.6GHz, the ACF7 Pro would be lethal. Actually, TRUE or an equivalence is recommended for speeds above 3.6GHz... honest.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: runawayprisoner

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
wow, that's very impressive. You definitely have the best chip that I've seen or heard of thus far.

And... I'm getting another one this week. If the results are the same, I'd go out and scream that the ASUS P5E-VM HDMI is the best motherboard to get for Q9450.

hey, have you read the AT article about vdroop? They went into great detail about the reasons for vdroop, it's a very good read.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Foxery

I want a cookie for having gleefully melted my CPU and come out with it still running!

Heres 2.

1. for learning from your mistakes.

2. for not killing your cpu!

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: BigJim

Originally posted by: themattman
Unfortunately it turned out that my motherboard doesn't like certain DDR2-1066 sticks, so I decided to order a set of mushkin DDR2-800 sticks to make sure it isn't a problem with the motherboard. I can only stare at my Q9450 and the TRUE attached to it

I had trouble with a certain DDR2-1066 sticks last night. 4x 1GB of Transcend aXeRAM 1066. But this other forum was super helpful and now they work great. http://forums.techpowerup.com/...ead.php?t=55352&page=5

Here's the punchline: DIMM +0.3 = 2.1, MCH +1.5 = 1.4, and timings (as seen in cpu-z SPD) = 5-6-6-15. The DIMMs are hot but not enough to burn. I should arrange a more direct fan. The NB with the mobo silent pipe is only warm. CPU cores are 50 C; passed OCCT 2hrs. GA-P35-DS3P.

Though, all my aXeRAM worked no problem with only 2 sticks, my problem was more 4 sticks. You might try bumping your DIMM voltage to 2.1 or whatever your mystery sticks say they can tolerate. Confirm voltage in Everest, confirm timings in cpu-z.

http://www.hardwarezone.com/ar...php?id=2521&cid=2&pg=1 sort of interesting though for some reason they didn't test OC!

According to this article, the Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro gives the TRUE a run for its money. At less than half the price. Only at very high overclocks does the TRUE edge ahead. Though, these tests were done on the x6800 which is a 65nm dual core. http://www.anandtech.com/casec...howdoc.aspx?i=3210&p=6

"The Freezer 7 Pro turns in an outstanding performance under load at stock speeds. CoreTemp results are 35C, which is one of the best air-cooling results tested so far at AnandTech... If you do not plan to push overclocking to the extreme, the Freezer 7 Pro is an outstanding choice. The stock performance at idle and load is among the best we have tested - matching or coming in a bit better than the Thermalright Ultra 120 eXtreme."

The Alpine 7 is also recommended as a sub-$15 alternative to the Intel Retail HSF.

aigomorla and markfw900 are the quad kings here, and I've never heard either of them recommend an arctic cooling cpu hsf for a quad, certainly not one that you want really good oc's on. Up to 3.0 or 3.2 even you might be ok, heck my zalman 9700 will probably get me to 3.0 or 3.2 ok, but if you want a seriously high OC then you should spring for a tuniq, a thermalright ultra 120 extreme or one of those new noctua coolers that AT wrote about the other day.

EDIT: what I'm trying to say is that a QUAD generates a LOT MORE heat than a dualie, and a cooler like the AC7 has its weakness exposed quickly by a quad.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: Foxery
Well, you were right after all. I love making a fool of myself, which is why I do it so damned often.

The noise from the new HSF was annoying, and fluctuating a lot, so I yanked it and put my old, larger one in with some Arctic Silver 5. Temperatures reported in RealTemp are now reasonable; 47C idle, 65C load at stock settings. Now trying 3100mhz and it's 75C on core0+2, 70C on core 1+3, which is still terrible, but not deadly.

I want a cookie for having gleefully melted my CPU and come out with it still running!

Not sure what was going wrong with the cooler before, but I suppose I'll have to pick up an Arctic or Xigmatek now to get serious with this CPU. Boo, this was supposed to be a cheap quad!!

ok, so there's a beta 17 bios for the ip35-e? What does it fix? Did your ip35-e run ok right out of the box with the Q9300? Man, this is getting more and more difficult to decide what to do...

 

[runawayprisoner]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995

Originally posted by: runawayprisoner

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
wow, that's very impressive. You definitely have the best chip that I've seen or heard of thus far.

And... I'm getting another one this week. If the results are the same, I'd go out and scream that the ASUS P5E-VM HDMI is the best motherboard to get for Q9450.

hey, have you read the AT article about vdroop? They went into great detail about the reasons for vdroop, it's a very good read.

I read that one. In fact, I did some experiments... only to find out that.

1) vDroop is tolerable during small overclocking margins... as in, you're not doing extreme clocks that require too high a vCore (really close to max vCore), but if you are, then vDroop will kill you...
2) IF you adjust the VTT (FSB Termination Voltage) to the right value, coupled with some GTL tweaks, you can eliminate the threat of vDroop, as well as maintaining your load line stability. Of course that will put your motherboard chipsets under a lot of stress due to the unusually high voltages, so you need to make sure your board is adequately cooled... everywhere. (Hint: NB and SB are not the only chips on the board)
3) I am still not sure about this part... but it seems as if... the cases where Q9450 CPUs overclock like heck is specific to each board. Meaning? Some boards are better for this CPU than others... regardless of chipset.

I forgot to mention that prior to selling my X3350 rig, I put the CPU into a GA-73PVM-S2H motherboard. Cheap little thing, I know... but it did 3.2GHz out of the CPU easily with stock volts. Actually, vCore is the only thing you can change on that board, which amazed me to no end. That's why I'm going to get another Q9450 (Q9450, not X3350), and I'm going to see if it's true... that some motherboards just do better than others.

 

[bka4u2c]

Well, just bumping up my FSB to 400 and keping my default Vcore of 1.23. Passed OCCT and got a good score in 3DMARKO6. Looks like this will be my 24/7 OC. After I get my NB active cooling installed and a fan on the PWM I see how high I can get.

By the way Coretemp report a VID of 1.10 but this motherboard defaults to 1.23

 

[runawayprisoner]

Yeah. You need to manually undervolt the CPU. Mine ran 3.2GHz at 1.14v without any problem.

 

[bka4u2c]

Originally posted by: runawayprisoner
Yeah. You need to manually undervolt the CPU. Mine ran 3.2GHz at 1.14v without any problem.

Good tip, thanks. I'll lower it until Windows becomes flaky. This might also be a good start to see how far FSB will go on this voltage.

 

[runawayprisoner]

No prob. Mine defaulted to 1.2250v, too... for some reason. Jeebus, that voltage was enough for 3.6GHz! Too bad 3.80GHz required 1.304v, though.

 

[Foxery]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
ok, so there's a beta 17 bios for the ip35-e? What does it fix? Did your ip35-e run ok right out of the box with the Q9300? Man, this is getting more and more difficult to decide what to do...

There's a sticky in the Abit Forum: BIOS Section where a member hosts all recent betas; however, they almost never have release notes. No one knows what's in 17b02.

I flashed my BIOS with my old chip before the new one came. New-in-box boards are highly unlikely too boot up without doing this first.

As a point of interest, my board defaulted to 1.1625 volts VCore, and has no settings lower than this while the Q9300 is plugged in.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: runawayprisoner
No prob. Mine defaulted to 1.2250v, too... for some reason. Jeebus, that voltage was enough for 3.6GHz! Too bad 3.80GHz required 1.304v, though.

can i ask how your testing your overclocks? What stress program are you using?

windows bootable and prime stable are two completely different things on chips.

Windows stable: Look at vcore-
http://i125.photobucket.com/al.../p73/aigomorla/OMG.jpg
But no way in hell she'll hold prime at that voltage. She's completely windows stable but not prime stable.

Prime Stable: 10hours. I recomend no less then 7hours tho.
http://i125.photobucket.com/al...orla/Clipboard01-1.jpg


As you can see it takes a considerable amount of more voltage to get the thing to prime stable. <also yes i know the clock is different, but the voltage required for both 4.2 and 4.0 for prime stable was the same. This is why i keep it at 420-425

 

[ArchAngel777]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Originally posted by: runawayprisoner
No prob. Mine defaulted to 1.2250v, too... for some reason. Jeebus, that voltage was enough for 3.6GHz! Too bad 3.80GHz required 1.304v, though.

can i ask how your testing your overclocks? What stress program are you using?

windows bootable and prime stable are two completely different things on chips.

Windows stable: Look at vcore-
http://i125.photobucket.com/al.../p73/aigomorla/OMG.jpg
But no way in hell she'll hold prime at that voltage. She's completely windows stable but not prime stable.

Prime Stable: 10hours. I recomend no less then 7hours tho.
http://i125.photobucket.com/al...orla/Clipboard01-1.jpg


As you can see it takes a considerable amount of more voltage to get the thing to prime stable. <also yes i know the clock is different, but the voltage required for both 4.2 and 4.0 for prime stable was the same. This is why i keep it at 420-425

Yep, booting to windows is not a good test of stability. However, running a quad core application can be a good indicator. Asside from the people that crunch numbers all day, you will never strain your system anywhere near the level that Prime 95 will. So, if you can load up your favorite games, encode some movies, and it runs solid, that should be sufficient. I have a machine that has never given me a random error, or requires a reboot because something failed as a result of my settings. I know for a fact it cannot handle prime, because the board has some sort of bug with it (IP35-E = crap for high end type stuff) but because I don't fold all day, I have no worries. I can loop 3DMark @ 640 x 480 for hours and hours, I can loop lost planet at low settings @ 320 x 240 for hours up on hours (which uses all 4 cores, rather well I might add) and no issues. So, again, stability is a user preference. To each their own.

Edit ** Just noticed from those pics Aigo, that core 1 and 2 are 9-10 degrees lower than 0 and 3!!! That is a huge delta, especially since all four are under load.

 

[imported_ST]

Contemplating a purchase of a Q9450 myself or the Q9300....what's the performance and power delta between the 2?

It seems Q9450 folks are running good overclocks!

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: ArchAngel777


Edit ** Just noticed from those pics Aigo, that core 1 and 2 are 9-10 degrees lower than 0 and 3!!! That is a huge delta, especially since all four are under load.

*sigh* i know.

i need a remount. Only thing is im waiting for an RMA from Diamond on my dead HD3870 b4 i fix that.

If i was to fix it now, i would have to fix it again when i got the card. And draining and bleeding is 2 things that isnt fun in h2o cooling.

 

[Markfw]

Originally posted by: ST
Contemplating a purchase of a Q9450 myself or the Q9300....what's the performance and power delta between the 2?

It seems Q9450 folks are running good overclocks!

Most that I have seen are 3.4-3.6 (like mine)... And that requires good motherboard, memory and the like. With a 9300, you need even more of all of the above, but to the low multiplier.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: Foxery

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
ok, so there's a beta 17 bios for the ip35-e? What does it fix? Did your ip35-e run ok right out of the box with the Q9300? Man, this is getting more and more difficult to decide what to do...

There's a sticky in the Abit Forum: BIOS Section where a member hosts all recent betas; however, they almost never have release notes. No one knows what's in 17b02.

I flashed my BIOS with my old chip before the new one came. New-in-box boards are highly unlikely too boot up without doing this first.

As a point of interest, my board defaulted to 1.1625 volts VCore, and has no settings lower than this while the Q9300 is plugged in.

yeah, that's an annoying abit strategy. My ip 35 pro won't do less than 1.25v on my Q9450 and wouldn't do less than 1.35v on my e6750!!!

I broke down today and got on that microcenter deal for $300 for a Q9450. I figured that the thermals were so good on my X3350 that it would be worth the extra $100 over the Q6600 to put that in the ip35-e instead. Plus I run seti 24/7 so I'll save a few bucks a month in power consumption, too.

drat, I knew i should have flashed the ip35 e before selling the e6750. I'll just have to go recon my cousin's e6600 for a few minutes while he's not looking...

 

[Foxery]

I keep forgetting... here's a side by side comparison of the Q9300's Retail HSF next to my E6750 Retail HSF. Pardon the low quality camera.

Side view
Looking at the bases

Is the retail 9450's HSF this shitty, too?

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Foxery


Is the retail 9450's HSF this shitty, too?

ahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Oh no looks like they dropping wolfdale sinks on them. Gah, those intel sinks were not great to begin with.