Intel Core 2 Quad - Q9450 for $300 @ Microcenter

[billw]

I think it's a pretty good deal if you're not into the Q6600 for overclocking.

http://www.microcenter.com/sin...tml?product_id=0287628

I just picked one up at the store. It seems to be cheaper than ebay.

 

[Big Lar]

Nice price on the chip. Thanks

Larry

 

[beergeek]

Originally posted by: billw
I think it's a pretty good deal if you're not into the Q6600 for overclocking.

I'm wasn't aware of this - the Q6600 will overclock well and the Q9450 won't? I was looking at the 9450 because it has twice as much cache, and because it should run cooler. I'm not interested in extreme overclocking, but I was assuming you could push it to 3 or 3.2GHz without much trouble on moderate cooling (I was planning to use an AC F7P). Do the FSB speed or multiplier cause problems with this?

 

[mikepaul]

I got a Q9450 from them last month. My ASUS P5W DH Deluxe has BIOS issues. The latest 2704 version is unstable at Auto and doesn't let you pick a decent vCore. I guess they aren't letting Auto give it ENOUGH voltage and EIST isn't available to be turned on or off to make sure that's not the issue. One other issue is temperature reporting: search for Q9450 enough and a trend to high reported temps will show up. Some say even the new BIOS versions aren't getting things right. I hope that's why I get 58-53-56-53 at idle.

So I'm running at 2.32Ghz until they get around to another version. Not sure when that will be, even after getting a reply from Tech Support...

 

[dajeepster]

Originally posted by: mikepaul
I got a Q9450 from them last month. My ASUS P5W DH Deluxe has BIOS issues. The latest 2704 version is unstable at Auto and doesn't let you pick a decent vCore. I guess they aren't letting Auto give it ENOUGH voltage and EIST isn't available to be turned on or off to make sure that's not the issue. One other issue is temperature reporting: search for Q9450 enough and a trend to high reported temps will show up. Some say even the new BIOS versions aren't getting things right. I hope that's why I get 58-53-56-53 at idle.

So I'm running at 2.32Ghz until they get around to another version. Not sure when that will be, even after getting a reply from Tech Support...

I'm running a q6600 OC to 3.0GHz on air with the 2704 bios and its been stable for me so far. I haven't had any problems with it yet... i'll let you know in a couple of days when I come back into town whether it's still ok. I've only been running it for a couple of days... seti is currently running 24/7 on it.

 

[billw]

Originally posted by: beergeek

Originally posted by: billw
I think it's a pretty good deal if you're not into the Q6600 for overclocking.

I'm wasn't aware of this - the Q6600 will overclock well and the Q9450 won't? I was looking at the 9450 because it has twice as much cache, and because it should run cooler. I'm not interested in extreme overclocking, but I was assuming you could push it to 3 or 3.2GHz without much trouble on moderate cooling (I was planning to use an AC F7P). Do the FSB speed or multiplier cause problems with this?

From what i've read, the q6600 is easier to overclock because of the lower fsb and higher multiplier. I could be way off though.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Smoking price, I think that's lower than OEM reselling price. Now to wait for Microcenter to have a fire sale on e7200.

 

[Aisengard]

Will the Q9450 be below this price, say, around July? I'm guessing not...what else is coming out to compete with it?

 

[miguel421]

that price is off the hook. tag says $399.99 and it rings $299.99

 

[waxking1]

These good deals are killing me. In for one. Thanks OP, I guess.

 

[bryanW1995]

Originally posted by: Aisengard
Will the Q9450 be below this price, say, around July? I'm guessing not...what else is coming out to compete with it?

uh, phenom 9850be ultra extreme brownout edition?

nehalem.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
uh, phenom 9850be ultra extreme brownout edition?

LOL, you mean the 185W version or 215W version of the chip?

 

[HumblePie]

crap I bought the OEM version about a month ago from them for $350 + the $50 instore GC. I wonder if I could still swap out....

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: dajeepster

Originally posted by: mikepaul
I got a Q9450 from them last month. My ASUS P5W DH Deluxe has BIOS issues. The latest 2704 version is unstable at Auto and doesn't let you pick a decent vCore. I guess they aren't letting Auto give it ENOUGH voltage and EIST isn't available to be turned on or off to make sure that's not the issue. One other issue is temperature reporting: search for Q9450 enough and a trend to high reported temps will show up. Some say even the new BIOS versions aren't getting things right. I hope that's why I get 58-53-56-53 at idle.

So I'm running at 2.32Ghz until they get around to another version. Not sure when that will be, even after getting a reply from Tech Support...

I'm running a q6600 OC to 3.0GHz on air with the 2704 bios and its been stable for me so far. I haven't had any problems with it yet... i'll let you know in a couple of days when I come back into town whether it's still ok. I've only been running it for a couple of days... seti is currently running 24/7 on it.

Did you run Prime or something to test if it's returning bad numbers? That's what you were supposed to do in order to determine if it's OK, rather than send bad data to a DC project...

 

[TheDoc9]

The Q9450 will overclock without issue on an x48 or 780i board. Since you have to have a proc that boots the board to update the bios you're taking a chance pairing these new chips with an older board P35, ect.

 

[beergeek]

Originally posted by: TheDoc9
The Q9450 will overclock without issue on an x48 or 780i board. Since you have to have a proc that boots the board to update the bios you're taking a chance pairing these new chips with an older board P35, ect.

I'm currently planning to use a GA-P35-DS3, and I see that the bios you need still shows as beta. I'm not too concerned about the need for an older proc to allow the upgrade, but I would hope by now that the bios would be out of beta (they released the first version of it over 4 months ago...)

Anyone have experience with how solid the Giga beta P35 firmware is?

 

[FatLeprechaun]

For games is this slower than the E8400 or E8500?

 

[beergeek]

Originally posted by: FatLeprechaun
For games is this slower than the E8400 or E8500?

My understanding is that no current games really take advantage of more than 2 cores, and the 8400 starts out at a higher clock speed and should probably overclock better (and is a lot cheaper), so for pure gaming of current generation games, the 8400 is likely a better choice. (That assumes you could max out either CPU in a game...)

At some point, leading edge games will start making use of the additional cores (as video processing and transcoding do now), so over the longer haul, the quad may provide more performance, but it isn't clear how far off that point is...

 

[hans007]

too bad its in store only. this price is honestly ridiculously cheap, but i bet they have like 2 in stock per store.... would be tough to have to drive all that way if they didnt have one when you got there (nearest store to me is 40 miles)

newegg and zipzoomfly dont even list this anymore and its $445 on ewiz.

 

[Aisengard]

Originally posted by: hans007
too bad its in store only. this price is honestly ridiculously cheap, but i bet they have like 2 in stock per store.... would be tough to have to drive all that way if they didnt have one when you got there (nearest store to me is 40 miles)

newegg and zipzoomfly dont even list this anymore and its $445 on ewiz.

What? It's not in-store only.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: Aisengard

Originally posted by: hans007
too bad its in store only. this price is honestly ridiculously cheap, but i bet they have like 2 in stock per store.... would be tough to have to drive all that way if they didnt have one when you got there (nearest store to me is 40 miles)

newegg and zipzoomfly dont even list this anymore and its $445 on ewiz.

What? It's not in-store only.

well i went to the website, and clicked add to my bag, and it says its in store only.

 

[Aisengard]

Originally posted by: hans007

Originally posted by: Aisengard

Originally posted by: hans007
too bad its in store only. this price is honestly ridiculously cheap, but i bet they have like 2 in stock per store.... would be tough to have to drive all that way if they didnt have one when you got there (nearest store to me is 40 miles)

newegg and zipzoomfly dont even list this anymore and its $445 on ewiz.

What? It's not in-store only.

well i went to the website, and clicked add to my bag, and it says its in store only.

Ah, you're right. My apologies.

I have yet to get an email from these people. They felt free to create a pending charge on my credit card though. Should I head over to their Boston/Cambridge location?

 

[jdogg707]

Mine shipped today, should receive it tomorrow.

 

[bryanW1995]

I got my q9450 the last time they had this $299 deal. I currently have it at 3.4 on a zalman, hoping for 3.6 or so once I put the tuniq on it.

 

[dajeepster]

Originally posted by: Throckmorton

Originally posted by: dajeepster

Originally posted by: mikepaul
I got a Q9450 from them last month. My ASUS P5W DH Deluxe has BIOS issues. The latest 2704 version is unstable at Auto and doesn't let you pick a decent vCore. I guess they aren't letting Auto give it ENOUGH voltage and EIST isn't available to be turned on or off to make sure that's not the issue. One other issue is temperature reporting: search for Q9450 enough and a trend to high reported temps will show up. Some say even the new BIOS versions aren't getting things right. I hope that's why I get 58-53-56-53 at idle.

So I'm running at 2.32Ghz until they get around to another version. Not sure when that will be, even after getting a reply from Tech Support...

I'm running a q6600 OC to 3.0GHz on air with the 2704 bios and its been stable for me so far. I haven't had any problems with it yet... i'll let you know in a couple of days when I come back into town whether it's still ok. I've only been running it for a couple of days... seti is currently running 24/7 on it.

Did you run Prime or something to test if it's returning bad numbers? That's what you were supposed to do in order to determine if it's OK, rather than send bad data to a DC project...

seti has yet to complain about any of my numbers and seti runs 24/7... I only reboot when there's an windows update, or a new driver install. and then there is the occasional power outages in my apartment complex every few months.
I've only OC'd the cpu... everything else on the board is kept as close to stock as possible. I keep my ram at stock since there is no ecc on the ram... but the cpu does have ecc cache, so I just do a mild overclock, and my temps never go above 50C under full load with an ambient room temp of 23C... but if the ambient room temp goes up, so does my cpu temp. I also run my computers off of back-ups and I have a couple smart-ups in there.