• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Core 2 system...**EDIT** GOT Q9650

B

badnewcastle

Golden Member

**EDIT**Alright, I got the Q9650! See my last post...
Do you think I would see any noticable gains from upgrading to the q9650? Would you do it?

It's dropped in price a lot making it much more affordable now and I can spend the $322, I don't know if I would notice much of a difference.

Before you ask... specs are in sig and here's what I do:

Gaming... more gaming...
Picture Editing
Work (Oracle, Office)
Internet
Little bit of Video editing (may start doing more of this)
 
I think so. I went from an e6750 to what I have now and I definitely noticed it. I'd grab a quad now if I could.
 
Just a general few rule of thumb when I look at CPU upgrades.

1. Does the new CPU have a faster FSB that I would use for CPU and memory?
2. Is it a newer architecture and how would that benefit me e..g lower power heat output.
3. If your software can take advantage of more cores then that a plus but I prefer the fastest GHZ over cores processor .
 
Originally posted by: techmanc
Just a general few rule of thumb when I look at CPU upgrades.

1. Does the new CPU have a faster FSB that I would use for CPU and memory?
Click to expand...
Irrelevant, especially as you're overclocking.

2. Is it a newer architecture and how would that benefit me e..g lower power heat output.
Click to expand...
Sort of - 45nm vs 65nm for nice power reduction & more work/cycle.

3. If your software can take advantage of more cores then that a plus but I prefer the fastest GHZ over cores processor.
Click to expand...
Some games do already (SupCom, GTA4, UT3) and the list will continue to grow. Depending on the program you're using video work can really benefit from four vs two cores.

Games these days are designed for use on the consoles - which are multicore - so this trend will accelerate if anything. And a newer quad should OC even better than your e6750 so you'll probably end up with four cores clocked higher than your current two.
 
Originally posted by: nyker96
from dual to quad? of course you will feel the differences. esp if you do any encoding.
Click to expand...

I just love these wide open statements with and actually proof but guess 4 of anything is better 2. It does help sell computer upgrades tho 😉
 
Originally posted by: techmanc
Originally posted by: nyker96
from dual to quad? of course you will feel the differences. esp if you do any encoding.
Click to expand...

I just love these wide open statements with and actually proof but guess 4 of anything is better 2. It does help sell computer upgrades tho 😉
Click to expand...

Encoding is parallelizable; almost all programs support multiple cores (as in 4+) now.
 
not meant to hijack thread but do you think there will be a price drop in the Q9550 or the Q9650 anytime soon ?? to like sub $220-275. ?
 
I went from a s939 X2 4200+ at 2.45Ghz to my current CPU at stock and the difference was incredible. Encoding video and music was a snap. I know that's kind of a jump but i had a nice OC and 4GB of low latency ram. Overclocking my quad, I achieved amazing performance.
 
Originally posted by: Kraeoss
not meant to hijack thread but do you think there will be a price drop in the Q9550 or the Q9650 anytime soon ?? to like sub $220-275. ?
Click to expand...

No. I base this on the fact that the Q9650 just dropped over $200 recently.
 
The rest of your main rig looks great. With some good cooling you should be able to take your q9650 over 4ghz. That would translate into a blazing fast gaming rig with your gtx285. the quad will come in handy for the photos and videos and possibly work apps. It will also be great for games like gtaiv, fc2, supcom, fsx, wic and many more.

If i was buying a quad cpu, it would be a qx9650, i7965ee, q9650, q6600, PHII 945be, or better - so great choice on the cpu.
 
With the Q9650 I haven't pushed it too much... but I'm able to get it @ 3.6 GHz without changing anything in the Bios except the FSB. I'm going to go home and start playing with it.

I could get it to post @ 3.8, again only changing the FSB. BSOD during while OS was loading.
 
Ok, here's what I found... so far the GTL tweaking seems to be the most important... Haven't been able to get 450 FSB on the board at all...

I can get fsb 445 to work and below is what I have set everything too... I don't know if the vCore is high or not but it seems lowering the NB Voltage and playing with the GTL's helps the most. So far it is prime stable. What temperature is too high? I hit 70c on 1 core... do you think that is too high?

CPU Voltage: 1.38
CPU GTL Voltage Reference(0/2): 0.665x
CPU GTL Voltage Reference(1/3): 0.68x
CPU PLL Voltage: 1.48
FSB Termination Voltage: 1.26
DRAM Voltage: 2.02 (2.1 recommended by ram accounting for MB overvolt)
NB Voltage: 1.28
NB GTL Reference: 0.67x
SB Voltage: Auto
PCIE SATA Voltage: Auto

Load-Line Calibration: Enabled
CPU Spread Spectrum: Disabled
PCIE Spread Spectrum: Disabled
CPU Clock Skew: 100
NB Clock Skew: 200
 
Originally posted by: LongTimePCUser
Does the Q9650 system feel faster than your core 2 system?
Was it worth the extra money?
Click to expand...

It does feel faster and it's nicer in some games. Worth the $? Only because I had nothing here to spend it on at the time.

I just need to get it stable at 4ghz and it would be definate yes worth the $$.

I think I'm hitting a fsb wall. It's still not stable at 1.38v or 1.4v and I'm not going any higher. Seems like others are getting better results with less vcore.
 
Yeah, your vcore should be sufficient for 4.0ghz. Id say its those gtl relief values and stuff. maybe some other quad owners can chime in with expert ocing knowledge. afaik its a whole different ballgame ocing the quads. 440+mhz fsb is where it gets hairy.
 
Originally posted by: badnewcastle
Ok, here's what I found... so far the GTL tweaking seems to be the most important... Haven't been able to get 450 FSB on the board at all...

I can get fsb 445 to work and below is what I have set everything too... I don't know if the vCore is high or not but it seems lowering the NB Voltage and playing with the GTL's helps the most. So far it is prime stable. What temperature is too high? I hit 70c on 1 core... do you think that is too high?

CPU Voltage: 1.38
CPU GTL Voltage Reference(0/2): 0.665x
CPU GTL Voltage Reference(1/3): 0.68x
CPU PLL Voltage: 1.48
FSB Termination Voltage: 1.26
DRAM Voltage: 2.02 (2.1 recommended by ram accounting for MB overvolt)
NB Voltage: 1.28
NB GTL Reference: 0.67x
SB Voltage: Auto
PCIE SATA Voltage: Auto

Load-Line Calibration: Enabled
CPU Spread Spectrum: Disabled
PCIE Spread Spectrum: Disabled
CPU Clock Skew: 100
NB Clock Skew: 200
Click to expand...
Those settings look to be a good start, although right off I'd say those CPU GTL voltages should be set the same unless you're unstable and specifically tweak them to gain stability.

Here's the best guide I found for P5Q-E settings along with link references for underlying theory and methodology.

3rd post by Wicked @ ExtremeOverclocking.com

The other setting that seems to make a considerable difference in stability is messing with manual RAM timings, particularly tRFC, although I found the resulting performance drop to be significant in some games.

 
Originally posted by: badnewcastle
Ok, here's what I found... so far the GTL tweaking seems to be the most important... Haven't been able to get 450 FSB on the board at all...

I can get fsb 445 to work and below is what I have set everything too... I don't know if the vCore is high or not but it seems lowering the NB Voltage and playing with the GTL's helps the most. So far it is prime stable. What temperature is too high? I hit 70c on 1 core... do you think that is too high?

CPU Voltage: 1.38
CPU GTL Voltage Reference(0/2): 0.665x
CPU GTL Voltage Reference(1/3): 0.68x
CPU PLL Voltage: 1.48
FSB Termination Voltage: 1.26
DRAM Voltage: 2.02 (2.1 recommended by ram accounting for MB overvolt)
NB Voltage: 1.28
NB GTL Reference: 0.67x
SB Voltage: Auto
PCIE SATA Voltage: Auto

Load-Line Calibration: Enabled
CPU Spread Spectrum: Disabled
PCIE Spread Spectrum: Disabled
CPU Clock Skew: 100
NB Clock Skew: 200
Click to expand...

Mine is currently stable at 4Ghz @ FSB 450 (which is still a work in progress) on a Gigabyte UD3R. I haven't touched the GTL stuff yet. I don't even know what that skew stuff does.

VCore - 1.3125v
FSB Termination - 1.300v
NB - 1.300v
CPU PLL - 1.50v

Dropping the multiplier to 6x, I tested to see how far I could push the FSB. I got as far as 485 before stopping, my target is 475 OR stay at 450 with lower voltages. Skooching the FSB Termination (called CPU Termination on my board) helped bring both the NB and Vcore voltages down. I see all over the interwebiverse people saying not to go over 1.4v on 45nm quads so I'm definitely staying below that.
 
Thanks for your replies... Chizow and Elconejito.
I'm totally confused by the GTL's I really don't understand them and have just been playing around with them. I will set the CPU GTL's at the same and see if that does anything. Hopefully it will. It's a quad so I know it's not going to be easy to get stable but I'm having more problems then I would have wished...

Things I've noticed:

1.) FSB 445 won't load OS unless my Vcore is 1.328 or better. ***seems high compared to others on similar setups.
2.) Lower NB Voltage is better.
3.) Leaving everything on Auto seemed to work about as good as anything.
4.) I can only get 3.6Ghz stable with everything on Auto except FSB.
5.) Appears to be most stable at v1.38 but that drives temps waaaayyyy up!!!!! 76c on all 4 cores during linpak. But 1.328 seems just about as stable as 1.38.

I really hope this just needs some tweaking as I don't want to go up on vCore anymore then 1.38 and even that I don't want to run unless I have.
 
Originally posted by: techmanc
Originally posted by: nyker96
from dual to quad? of course you will feel the differences. esp if you do any encoding.
Click to expand...

I just love these wide open statements with and actually proof but guess 4 of anything is better 2. It does help sell computer upgrades tho 😉
Click to expand...

I use Adobe Premiere Elements, and going from 2 to 4 cores was HUGE.
 
Originally posted by: badnewcastle
Thanks for your replies... Chizow and Elconejito.
I'm totally confused by the GTL's I really don't understand them and have just been playing around with them. I will set the CPU GTL's at the same and see if that does anything. Hopefully it will. It's a quad so I know it's not going to be easy to get stable but I'm having more problems then I would have wished...

Things I've noticed:

1.) FSB 445 won't load OS unless my Vcore is 1.328 or better. ***seems high compared to others on similar setups.
2.) Lower NB Voltage is better.
3.) Leaving everything on Auto seemed to work about as good as anything.
4.) I can only get 3.6Ghz stable with everything on Auto except FSB.
5.) Appears to be most stable at v1.38 but that drives temps waaaayyyy up!!!!! 76c on all 4 cores during linpak. But 1.328 seems just about as stable as 1.38.

I really hope this just needs some tweaking as I don't want to go up on vCore anymore then 1.38 and even that I don't want to run unless I have.
Click to expand...
Np, if you want to learn a bit more about GTL, VTT and FSB holes, one of the links in that Wicked post does a great job, but its very technical:

Tech Repository

Fig. 5 and 6 are probably the most helpful visualization of what happens when you increase FSB speed. You can see GTLREF margins decrease as you increase FSB speed. As you can see in Fig 6, the GTLREF doesn't increase as you increase VTT, resulting in the lower GTLREF tolerances observed in Fig. 5. To offset the increase VTT voltage, tweaking the GTL reference voltage increases the GTLREF to match the increases in VTT increasing the GTLREF tolerances as you increase FSB speeds.

Personally I think you're trying to work with too many moving variables at once. I would try working with a solid 9x400 and 3.6GHz and then go upwards on the FSB from there, making as few adjustments as possible. As you can see from the above link, increasing FSB speed will result in decreased tolerances elsewhere, which you'll then need to adjust for. Other than that, I'd say your temps look pretty reasonable for the clockspeeds and voltages you're running, although I'm pretty sure those 9650 E0s tend to hit 3.8-4 GHz typically.
 
Originally posted by: chizow
Originally posted by: badnewcastle
Thanks for your replies... Chizow and Elconejito.
I'm totally confused by the GTL's I really don't understand them and have just been playing around with them. I will set the CPU GTL's at the same and see if that does anything. Hopefully it will. It's a quad so I know it's not going to be easy to get stable but I'm having more problems then I would have wished...

Things I've noticed:

1.) FSB 445 won't load OS unless my Vcore is 1.328 or better. ***seems high compared to others on similar setups.
2.) Lower NB Voltage is better.
3.) Leaving everything on Auto seemed to work about as good as anything.
4.) I can only get 3.6Ghz stable with everything on Auto except FSB.
5.) Appears to be most stable at v1.38 but that drives temps waaaayyyy up!!!!! 76c on all 4 cores during linpak. But 1.328 seems just about as stable as 1.38.

I really hope this just needs some tweaking as I don't want to go up on vCore anymore then 1.38 and even that I don't want to run unless I have.
Click to expand...
Np, if you want to learn a bit more about GTL, VTT and FSB holes, one of the links in that Wicked post does a great job, but its very technical:

Tech Repository

Fig. 5 and 6 are probably the most helpful visualization of what happens when you increase FSB speed. You can see GTLREF margins decrease as you increase FSB speed. As you can see in Fig 6, the GTLREF doesn't increase as you increase VTT, resulting in the lower GTLREF tolerances observed in Fig. 5. To offset the increase VTT voltage, tweaking the GTL reference voltage increases the GTLREF to match the increases in VTT increasing the GTLREF tolerances as you increase FSB speeds.

Personally I think you're trying to work with too many moving variables at once. I would try working with a solid 9x400 and 3.6GHz and then go upwards on the FSB from there, making as few adjustments as possible. As you can see from the above link, increasing FSB speed will result in decreased tolerances elsewhere, which you'll then need to adjust for. Other than that, I'd say your temps look pretty reasonable for the clockspeeds and voltages you're running, although I'm pretty sure those 9650 E0s tend to hit 3.8-4 GHz typically.
Click to expand...

Yeah... I'm going to go back and start working the FSB up from 400 to 450.. and find my hole and/or wall. But with GTL (0/1) and GTL (2/3), I think I have a problem there... 2 cores fail quickly and always before the other 2. It's usually 0/1 failing and while 2/3 pound away. So I think with some further GTL adjustments I'm going to get this thing nailed down.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top