How to overclock q9450 with rampage formula?

[blogz101]

Hi guys im quite new in overclocking and willing to learn. I want to know how to overclock my system.
CPU: Intel Q9450
Motherboard: Asus Rampage Formula x48
RAM: OCZ Reaper PC2-8500 1066MHz

I just want to overclock it around 3.3-3.4GHz hope you guys can guide me on what to tweak thanks

 

[xeizo]

I have my Q9450 running Prime95v256-stable @ 3.5GHz with a lesser P35-DS3R-board, settings:

vcore: 1.375V -> drop to 1.28V under 100% load, w a better board you can set a lower vcore as drop will be lower
fsb: +0.2V over default
mch:+0.2V over defailt
pcie: +0.1V over default, locked att 100MHz
fsb: 438MHz(default multiplier x8)
memory multiplier: x2.5(4:5-ratio) -> 1095MHz
vdimm: 2.1V

I have C1E, TM2 and EIST all enabled to save energy.

I use a Thermalright Ultra-120-Extreme to cool the cpu. It needs more lapping and I need some arctic silver as I was out of mine and had to use cheaper thermal paste I had at home. So, clocks may improve. It is stable above 3.6GHz as well, but right now it gets to hot on one of the cores at that frequency so I can´t use higher than 3.5GHz for 24/7, something more lapping and better thermal paste may fix.

I also have 3 low speed 120-mm fans blowing in the case, one from the side of the case blowing at the motherboards northbridge, which is almost necessary at 100% load as the northbridge heat up much. And one additional 120mm fan on the cpu-cooler, for a total of four fans. All fans are controlled by the motherboards automatic fan control which works well, near absolute silent during normal Windows operation and speeds up nicely during load ie in Prime or heavy gaming.

Your results may vary according to numerous factors, but I think it will be no problem for you to aproximately duplicate my clock, as long as you have a good cpu cooler and decent airflow in the case

 

[DSF]

There's a good guide stickied at the top of the forum. I'd start there before just plugging in xeizo's settings.

Plugging in settings without knowing what they do is how people break expensive things.

 

[xeizo]

That's true, it's much safer to have knowledge. I hope blogz101 will read up on the subject. In the meantime, the most crucial thing is to monitor temps and to verify stability. If booth things are ok at all time, the risk is small.

To monitor cputemp use RealTemp, and for other sensors onboard use ie hwmonitor or everest. Check actual vcore with cpuz.

For stability testing; Prime 95 v25.6, OCCT, TAT and the 3DMarks are good choices, if all of them are 100% stable without temps raising too much(ie max 65-70C @ 100% load on the hottest core in RealTemp) I would say it is pretty stable.

edit. to be _very_ safe, be sure to unplug any harddrive with important stuff on it before starting to find a stable overclock: to remove the risk of corrupting a filesystem and destroying important data you might have.