Well, stayed up late last night to find out what the Q9550 can do. So popped her right in and it booted right up to 2.83GHz. VID is 1.250v default. Was hoping to get one with 2.125v, but 1.250v it is.
Being the lazy oc'er that I am, just used ET6 and bumped up to its max suggested oc of 3.6GHz (450x8). Booted all the way up to XP but of course voltages were way up there so went back to the BIOS and re-adjusted the voltages and DDR settings. Back in to XP and no glitches, nothing. Ran IBT for 10 passes and works fine. I initially gave it 1.30v to have enough juice to work with. Gave the RAM 1.9v too. Not much drama here.
Went back into the bios, upped multi to 8.5 for 3.830GHz and kept it at 1.3v. Still works fine. IBT 10 passes also passed. At this point, my DDR800 G.Skills are already running at DDR900 so it's getting quite a workout. OCCT ran fine for 30mins with no errors when I decided to stop it so I can keep playing.
Back to the bios again and this time went to 475x8.5. Posted but when it got to XP, bsod. So I thought the cpu must need more juice. Bumped vcore a couple notches, booted to XP but re-booted again. This time, I think now it's the RAM so I gave it 2.0v as it's now running at DDR950 spec. Now it went all the way into XP and was able to complete IBT 10 passes successfully again. Tried OCCT but came back with errors after 14mins. Upped the RAM to 2.04v and re-ran OCCT for 30mins and no errors. vcore at this point is at 1.325v I think while CPU-Z says 1.296v with LLC enabled.
Not declaring it absolutely stable yet as I have yet to do more thorough testing with my apps and some more extended Orthos and OCCT tests.
Did Super PI Mod v1.5 runs up to 32M (32M == 13m30s) and all completed successfully. Prime95 ran for 5hrs 40mins without complaining. Left it running Memtest to see if any errors come up. There was a point where OCCT crashed so am not sure yet what caused it so more testing needed.
Bottom line, I'm extremely satisfied with the Q9550. Even if at the end I just settle for 3.830GHz (450x8.5) so i can get the vcore lower than 1.3v and easier on the system, the current setup is 35% faster fsb wise than my E5200 setup. With the bonus of having enough cores to handle video editing/encoding tasks easier.
Gaming-wise, it wasn't affected much. FPS was very slightly higher and more consistent in Crysis.
With all these, temps were hitting 36-39C on idle and 54-56C on load (RealTemp) or 59-61C (CoreTemp/HWMonitor). Of course IBT was able to heat it up real good up to 65C (RealTemp). I'm expecting temps to further settle once the AS5 has broken in.
I'm really just shooting for 3.83GHz so will start lowering voltages while keeping it stable. I don't think the extra 45fsb and 208Mhz will make that much difference in whatever app I use. Bonus would be less heat and power consumption.
Some of the important settings that I copied off of someone else's posts from my research on UD3P and Q9550:
CPU Vcore [ 1.25000 ]...................[ 1.3250 ]
CPU Termination [ 1.20 ]...................[ 1.30 ]
CPU PLL [ 1.50 ]...................[ 1.50 ]
CPU Reference [ 0.760 ]...................[ 0.863 ]
MCH Core [ 1.100 ]...................[ 1.30 ]
MCH Reference [ 0.760 ]...................[ 0.863 ]
MCH/DRAM Refernce [ 0.900 ]...................[ 0.950 ]
ICH I/O [ 1.500 ]...................[ 1.500 ]
ICH Core [ 1.100 ]...................[ 1.100 ]
DRAM Voltage [ 1.800 ]...................[ 2.04 ]
DRAM Termination [ 0.900 ]...................[ 0.950 ]
Being the lazy oc'er that I am, just used ET6 and bumped up to its max suggested oc of 3.6GHz (450x8). Booted all the way up to XP but of course voltages were way up there so went back to the BIOS and re-adjusted the voltages and DDR settings. Back in to XP and no glitches, nothing. Ran IBT for 10 passes and works fine. I initially gave it 1.30v to have enough juice to work with. Gave the RAM 1.9v too. Not much drama here.
Went back into the bios, upped multi to 8.5 for 3.830GHz and kept it at 1.3v. Still works fine. IBT 10 passes also passed. At this point, my DDR800 G.Skills are already running at DDR900 so it's getting quite a workout. OCCT ran fine for 30mins with no errors when I decided to stop it so I can keep playing.
Back to the bios again and this time went to 475x8.5. Posted but when it got to XP, bsod. So I thought the cpu must need more juice. Bumped vcore a couple notches, booted to XP but re-booted again. This time, I think now it's the RAM so I gave it 2.0v as it's now running at DDR950 spec. Now it went all the way into XP and was able to complete IBT 10 passes successfully again. Tried OCCT but came back with errors after 14mins. Upped the RAM to 2.04v and re-ran OCCT for 30mins and no errors. vcore at this point is at 1.325v I think while CPU-Z says 1.296v with LLC enabled.
Not declaring it absolutely stable yet as I have yet to do more thorough testing with my apps and some more extended Orthos and OCCT tests.
Did Super PI Mod v1.5 runs up to 32M (32M == 13m30s) and all completed successfully. Prime95 ran for 5hrs 40mins without complaining. Left it running Memtest to see if any errors come up. There was a point where OCCT crashed so am not sure yet what caused it so more testing needed.
Bottom line, I'm extremely satisfied with the Q9550. Even if at the end I just settle for 3.830GHz (450x8.5) so i can get the vcore lower than 1.3v and easier on the system, the current setup is 35% faster fsb wise than my E5200 setup. With the bonus of having enough cores to handle video editing/encoding tasks easier.
Gaming-wise, it wasn't affected much. FPS was very slightly higher and more consistent in Crysis.
With all these, temps were hitting 36-39C on idle and 54-56C on load (RealTemp) or 59-61C (CoreTemp/HWMonitor). Of course IBT was able to heat it up real good up to 65C (RealTemp). I'm expecting temps to further settle once the AS5 has broken in.
I'm really just shooting for 3.83GHz so will start lowering voltages while keeping it stable. I don't think the extra 45fsb and 208Mhz will make that much difference in whatever app I use. Bonus would be less heat and power consumption.
Some of the important settings that I copied off of someone else's posts from my research on UD3P and Q9550:
CPU Vcore [ 1.25000 ]...................[ 1.3250 ]
CPU Termination [ 1.20 ]...................[ 1.30 ]
CPU PLL [ 1.50 ]...................[ 1.50 ]
CPU Reference [ 0.760 ]...................[ 0.863 ]
MCH Core [ 1.100 ]...................[ 1.30 ]
MCH Reference [ 0.760 ]...................[ 0.863 ]
MCH/DRAM Refernce [ 0.900 ]...................[ 0.950 ]
ICH I/O [ 1.500 ]...................[ 1.500 ]
ICH Core [ 1.100 ]...................[ 1.100 ]
DRAM Voltage [ 1.800 ]...................[ 2.04 ]
DRAM Termination [ 0.900 ]...................[ 0.950 ]
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