OC'ing Q9450

[Daveee]

Hello lads, im new to this forum just signed up there. I have a Q9450 and i want to overclock it. Only thing is that i dont no where to go from once i get into BIOS, can anyone help please? Also what would be a safe ghz to overclock to? I have 3 fans on my pc and a normal heatsink, i dont really no what else to add? Really just want to overclock it for my games to run better, thanks for any help!

 

[n7]

Hey, welcome to the forums.

Please list your system specs if you'd like more help.

 

[Daveee]

Hey, welcome to the forums.

Please list your system specs if you'd like more help.

Hi, thanks! I have DDR2 4gb of ram, 480.0 frequency, MS-7519 mobo microstar international. chipset is intel P45/P43/G45/G43, a radeon hd4850, Q9450 CPU, and a 750 watt PSU. Also Vista ultimate 64bit. Anything else or is that enough? Thanks

 

[n7]

Not familiar with that motherboard, but the concept for OCing is the same for most systems.

You'll want to set your RAM ratio to 1:1, which means for a Q9450 @ stock, that would be DDR2-667.
Make sure it's set to its rated voltage & timings.
This keeps the RAM from potentially holding anything back initially.

I'd suggest disabling C1E/EIST in your CPU features for now.

Then increase FSB gradually, testing for stability as you go.
Obviously you'll eventually need to increase vcore at some point along the way.
Unless temps get too hot, i'd say start @ 1.25-1.3v for CPU voltage.

Once you reach higher FSBs (usually 400+, depending on mobo), you'll likely need to increase MCH/NB voltage & VTT voltage to maintain stability.

Some tools to check for stability:

Prime 95 (use small ffts to test CPU; large to test mobo/RAM; blend for overall system)
32-bit version
ftp://mersenne.org/gimps/p95v2511.zip
64-bit version
ftp://mersenne.org/gimps/p64v2511.zip

LinX
Set to all RAM for performing a very heavy stresstest for the CPU & RAM
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=201670

HCI Memtest
Don't worry too much about this right now; it's primarily for testing RAM stability, but also stresses the MCH/NB heavily.
http://hcidesign.com/memtest/MemTest.zip

Memtest86+ v4.00
Burn to bootable disc & run for memory error checking
http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

CPU-Z
Tells you CPU/RAM speed; vital tool for any overclocker
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

RealTemp
Tells you CPU temps/CPU VID/etc
http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/SysInfo/Real_Temp/

 

[betasub]

Kudos to n7 for a very helpful post. OP should re-post with proper specs (e.g. chipset from CPU-z) and voltage settings (from BIOS and a monitoring program e.g. SpeedFan), to get more specific advice on his overclock.