Overclock Q9550 to 4.0GHz

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GamerOfFreedom

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May 4, 2010
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Hi I am thinking of overclocking my newly bought Q9550 to 4.0GHZ on a ASUS P5Q Deluxe and 2x2 GB of Corsair Dominator 1066 5-5-5-15

I have some numbers from another thread with this CPU and motherboard but my memory is different

FSB Frequency: 471
FSB Strap to North Bridge: 333
DRAM Frequency: DDR2-943Mhz (underclocked for now)
DRAM CLK Skews: All Auto
DRAM Timing Control: manually set to 5-5-5-15
DRAM Static Read Control: Disabled
DRAM Read Training: Disabled
MEM. OC Charger: Disabled

CPU Voltage: 1.3825 (1.37v real load)
CPU GTL Voltage Reference(0/2): 0.630x
CPU GTL Voltage Reference(1/3): 0.680x
CPU PLL Voltage: 1.54
FSB Termination Voltage: 1.40
DRAM Voltage: 2.20
NB Voltage: 1.40
NB GTL Reference: 0.660x

Anything i should change before i start?
 
Is this a joke thread?

Do you really think you'll get that Corsair Dominator 1066 @ 5-5-5-15, to run a 471 FSB, that's 471 x 4 = 1884, well good luck!

Anything i should change before i start?
Click to expand...

Yes, the mental mindset that those settings will work 4 you.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/240001-29-howto-overclock-quads-duals-guide

The Q9550 is not the easiest CPU on the planet to overclock, it takes some serious overclocking guide studying to gain the knowledge you need to successfully overclock it, even if the guy has identical hardware to you in every respect, his settings still probably wouldn't work for you, because of the manufacturing differences and quality of the silicon base, no two hardware products are exactly identical.

His settings could even damage your hardware, you do not even know if those setting were just a one shot fluke, or if they were 100% stable, which I seriously doubt, there's a long road of trial and error to attain a solid Q9550 overclock, its not just a matter of using someone elses settings.

My Q9550 was an overclocking adventure, I learned a heck of a lot with that CPU, do yourself a favor and invest the time into learning what all those settings do and interact with each other, then your end result overclocking the Q9550 will lot more gratifying.

Also you need some serious cooling if you think you're going to get to 4G with the Q9550!



 
How dare you talk to me like that. Just because you know alot about OCing dosent mean that everybody does i have never overclocked in my life!
 


That's my whole point.

Learn First > Then Do !!!
 


Of course I have!

Have you ever heard the term, A lesson learned the hard way?

That's just not a good approach to overclocking when you can loose your entire investment, you may not think so, but I'm trying to help you here.
 
I know i just raged abit at your first post. Off coure i dont want to loose my brand new yet to be installed Q9550.

I have a Corsair H50 all in one CPU cooler
 
The key is to make small steps. Certainly learn by doing, but try 3ghz first, then maybe 3.4ghz and work up to 4ghz. It takes a while to get the settings just right, on my i5 I found it fairly easy to hit 3.6ghz, but then to get 3.8ghz stable it has taken hours of fine tuning voltages and testing each time I make a slight change. I got it stable last night tho, so now I might try to join the 4ghz club in the next few days. Making such a big jump from 2.6 to 4ghz is really a bad idea, especially for a beginner and also by just trying to copy someone else's settings. Use them as guidelines but like 4ryan6 said, all components are a little different from inherent inaccuracies in manufacturing so no two systems will perform quite the same at similar settings.
 
@ Wolfram23, Good Advice on the small steps!

@ GamerOfFreedom

I would start by familiarizing myself with your exact motherboard BIOS settings, some of the core 2 quad guides, may or may not cover all the features your particular motherboard may or may not have, when you run into differences of what the guide says and you don't have those settings available to you.

That's when more direct questions here will help to advance your efforts, but as Wolfram says, start out taking small steps and increase as you get stable at certain levels, and make notes on your progress and definitely record your settings when you're say 100% stable at 3.0, 3.2, 3.4, 3.6, etc. so if you need to drop back you'll have those setting you can quickly set to fall back on.

Edit Note; The Operating system you use for your trial and error booting and rebooting, is a valid factor WinXP is a lot more forgiving in a failed overclock setting than Win Vista is, I'm not sure about Win7, I've run both Win7 32bit and 64bit versions, but was not overclocking using either.
 
4ryan6 that's one hell of an attitude you've got there big man :) certainly in that first post. 😱

Got my Q9550 running stable at 3.99ghz with a 470fsb that's tested with orthos @ 24hrs and occt running for the full hour cycle at a 1.325V in bios to the chip with 1.26 to the northbridge.

Set memory multiplier to 2.0D which is running my ocz ddr2 1066mhz ram at 940, it's on a gigabyte ga-ep45-ud3r board.

temps idle sitting at 50 going up to 65-70 under load, but the ambient temp in this room atm is 27 with it being summer, thats with a Akasa AK-965BL HS! Need to open some windows! lol I was thinking about going for one of these, as they would be upgradable to i3, i5 & i7 sockets - http://www.ebuyer.com/product/177411 meant to be the bee's knees from the reviews.

Obviously every board and chip will oc differently just trial and error, if it loads into windows then fails try upping the vcore i would suggest not exceeding 1.4V though!
 
My most impressive overclock was a P4 631 3GHz up to 5.2GHz stable - where it held for two years before the motherboard croaked.

Of course, getting it there also took around two years or so of small steps (up to 10MHz FSB at a time), with three cooling upgrades, a graphics card downgrade (8800GTS -> HD2600XT) to handle heat - and only a Core 2 chip could fully utilise the 8800 in any case - and two casing upgrades to support the last two cooling upgrades. The cooling upgrade was from stock heatsink -> upgraded Cooler Master heatsink -> CM Aquagate -> some bastardised custom WC setup involving an aquarium pump, car heater core, custom milled blocks, and so on. The custom loop also only came in after the Aquagate water block got replaced by a Zalman unit and the tubing upgraded.

All told, the machine held for two years with a 66% overclock. Forcing that 66% took a long time, a hard road of trial and error, tinkering, and learning about how to tweak liquid cooling systems. I have been overclocking since the early Pentium II days, but this was the first system I actually went so far as to use water cooling. It was also the first system I went over a 20% overclock with, also the first one that took me so long to overclock. The learning curve was incredibly steep, and this was after I had thought I knew all I needed to know about overclocking - turns out I did not.

A word on Vcore - the moment you start with upping that is when your cooling solution is going to get taxed. Plan accordingly, and start small.
 
Hey

I'm alright, busy going through a career change, otherwise pretty much normal. Figured it would make a fun change to spend some time up in hardware again.

How's your life treating you?
 



Pretty good so far, we're all struggling trying to survive in this economy today, its definitely the worst I can remember it being in my entire life.

So what are you career changing to?
 
Getting out of heavy industry and moving over to building management and access control. This economy is screwing industry around to the point where I am not sure if I will still be employed next week, so yeah. Work has slowed to a crawl, there's no new work coming in, and management is laying off more people every month.

So, time for a change...
 
"Do you really think you'll get that Corsair Dominator 1066 @ 5-5-5-15, to run a 471 FSB, that's 471 x 4 = 1884, well good luck!"

I dont understand that comment. It doesnt seem that far fetched of a goal.

Im running G.Skill 1066 @ 5-5-5-15 with a tRead of "5" at 2.08v with a 2.5B stap memory = 1080Mhz and an effective FSB of 1800Mhz ( 24/7 ) without any issues.

Heck, I had it at 1888Mhz FSB without any issues. Same settings just a higher vcore on the CPU.





 
Remember that with DDR memory, the effective memory speed is twice the raw FSB speed, while with the Intel P4/Core2 CPUs the effective bus speed is four times the raw FSB speed.

Example: assuming 200MHz FSB, also assuming 1:1 FSB:RAM ratio:
200 x 2 = 400MHz (RAM), 200 x 4 = 800MHz. So let's overclock that to 471: 471 x 2 = 942, x4 = 1884. If the RAM is rated at 1066 and the FSB is set to 471, with a 1:1 ratio the RAM will be at 942MHz, or 124MHz under rated spec.
 



Well put!!
 


I hope your new job turns out great for you!

I also hope this economy turns for the better soon too!

I'm also going to have to face facts and change what I'm doing to, the wife and I are just barely hanging on as it is.

Well enough economy gloom, I hope all your family is in good health!
 



Could you post a CPU-Z validation?

Then you could compare how DDR2 works to my DDR3 which has a wider bandwidth.
 
Hey, Mugz, arthurh. Haven't seen either of you in a while. Welcome back.

Unlike many, I'm doing pretty well. :) OTOH, I'm doing pretty well in Saudi Arabia. 🙁

Gamer, you are not going to be able to jump straight to 4.0 GHz. For one thing your memory settings won't let you. At stock settings, your memory clock should be 667 MHz for the FSB:RAM ratio of 1:1.

Here's a good starting point:
HOWTO: Overclock C2Q (Quads) and C2D (Duals) - Guide v1.6.1
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/240001-29-howto-overclock-quads-duals-guide

Next stop should be a guide for your particular motherboard. Google is your friend.

I have a Q9550 / C3 stepping. The best I was able to do was 3.6 GHz (passing a 24 hour Prime95 test run). System would boot at 3.8 GHz but it wasn't stable.

Like ryan said, it wasn't particularly easy past about 3.4 GHz. Compared to the Q9550, my Q6600 (oc'd to 3.6 GHz also) was the proverbial piece of cake.
----------
Overclocking since 1978 - Z80 (TRS-80) from 1.77 MHz to 2.01 MHz :)
 
Hey jsc,

Oh I've been around now and then. My wife and mother need a lot of taking care of now adays. Sometimes I don't get on here for more than a few minutes but its getting better.:)

Hope alls good your way.
 
Hi jsc

It has been a while, hasn't it? I've been dealing with severe boredom at work now for over a year, combined with being bored with the work I'm doing. No new challenges anymore.

Starting Monday next week I'm in the security industry, specifically building management and access control. Steep learning curve, which is how I like it...

Have a good one!
 
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