Overclocking a q9450 with evga 750i

[nitenichiryu1]

I know there are two threads about overclocking the q9450, but one is more about a "posting overclocks" and the other would be more like me hijacking the thread (I think =P), so i decided to start this one.

first off, my set up is as follows:

q9450
tuniq
evga 750i
8800gts 512
gskill ddr2 1000
corsair 620hx
vista 64 sp1

I told myself that I'd just do a "modest" overclock, so right now I have it running at 3.0ghz 8x375 with vcore at 1.225v (but i get a drop usually to 1.184v or 1.2v in cpu-z) and ram at 1.9 (timings at 5 5 5 15). i have the SPP volts and nf200 volts at auto the highest temps get at load is about 48 degrees and idle is around 33 to 36 degrees.

I'm interested in stability and longevity of my chip, but i felt that with low voltages (nearly stock) and low temps, i can still achieve that stability/longevity.

My question is, should I try to squeeze more out of the cpu? I tried 3.2ghz 8x400 with volts up to 1.25 and ram at 2.0 and my temps stayed pretty much the same, but prime95 failed overnight.

I did bonehead move and tried to pump it to 3.4 with more vcore while keeping my ram timings the same, but i ended up getting a BSOD before i got into vista. So naturally I had to reset the CMOS and start again.

What do you guys think? Any help appreciated.

 

[TC91]

is 3ghz fast enough for you? if it does everything you want at that speed i would just keep it there for now. unless of course you have a ton of money to spend on another chip if you push it really hard. IMO you could probably try for 3.2ghz with a 1600fsb which is equivalent to the q9750 with pretty reasonable voltages (i would keep them @ 1.35v or lower for a 45nm chip).

 

[nitenichiryu1]

Yeah, good point. I should've played around with voltages a bit more when i tried for 3.2. it wouldn't run stable at 1.25, but I didn't try any further. the vdroop owns me too, of course.

 

[TC91]

just curious, did you get the FTW version of the 750i?

 

[nitenichiryu1]

Yup. That's the one.

Any other feedback would be great.

 

[nitenichiryu1]

So i tried for 3.2ghz 8x400 at 1.26 volts, but i still couldn't get it prime stable. Should I feed it more just for a 3.2ghz OC or maybe something else is up? prime fails within 5 minutes.

I admit I'm still a beginner at overclocking, so maybe there is something else I'm not doing right. Of course I could just have a bad chip...

With my gskill ddr2 1000 ram should i be running it asynchronous with the divider at 1000? i have it at 750 right now for the 1:1 at 3ghz. As always I appreciate any and all help.

 

[SolMiester]

Hi, n00b here OC'ing the Quads, dont you have to give the NB abit more juice too?. Prime memory test gives the NB a thrashing, which if not increased with your RAM volts, may explain the fail.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: SolMiester
Hi, n00b here OC'ing the Quads, dont you have to give the NB abit more juice too?. Prime memory test gives the NB a thrashing, which if not increased with your RAM volts, may explain the fail.

Yeah, the majority of the time, you'll have to give either the northbridge or the VTT a bump, and sometimes both, depending in how far you're wanting to overclock. Just don't give the VTT much of a boost; it can and will damage your processor.

 

[nitenichiryu1]

Aah, yes. Thanks for the swift replies. I read that article about the VTT here at Anandtech, but I think a part of the problem is that I need to familiarize myself with the terms/abbreviations and my motherboard. my 750i's system voltages in the bios are in this order:

cpu core
cpu fsb
memory
nforce spp
nf200 voltage level

and the rest the gtlvref lanes 0 through 4

I'm guessing some of the terminology is a bit different. I'm familiar with the CPU core, but the CPU fsb, spp (NB probably?), and nf200 i'm not too sure of as far as the terms go. Thanks again!

 

[nitenichiryu1]

bump

 

[TC91]

are you also running 4 sticks of ram? if you are then you may need an extra +0.1v on the nforce spp and maybe the nf200. the cpu fsb setting i would only bump by 0.1v if needed, but i believe the 750i FTW advertises to support 1600fsb which would give you 3.2ghz on the cpu. im pretty sure the cpu should do 3.2ghz with vcore ~ 1.3v. its also probably best to unlink your ram at first, try to keep them at near stock setttings. if running 4 sticks, then you almost certaintly have to run a 2T command rate if you plan to run your ram at faster than 800mhz and likely 0.1v extra on the ram (try to keep ram @ 2.2v at the very max).

 

[nitenichiryu1]

I'm running 2x2 4gb ram, so only 2 sticks. Would i still need to bump up the voltage that way? I'm also wondering if a bios flash is necessary. This board has had 2 bios updates already, but the updates don't apply to me... unless i should get them anyway.

I will try some of the voltage changes tonight, though. Again, thanks for the advice!

 

[nitenichiryu1]

Ok, so today I tried 8x400 for 3.2 and when I ran prime, worker thread 2 ALWAYS fails first. I bumped the voltage up the vcore to 1.28 and i even tried linking and unlinking ram to see if that yielded any results. Temperatures are fine and only go up to 47c max on real temp and 57c max on coretemp.

I have my spp at 1.4v right now, and putting it to 1.5 goes into the "red" zone in the bios. Is there something else i should be trying?

 

[TC91]

i would try bumping up the cpu voltage slightly higher to 1.29 or 1.3v and check if that helps.

 

[nitenichiryu1]

Sigh. worker thread #2 on prime fails first every time, but the others still go. And this is at 1.3v in the vcore... Maybe I just don't have a good chip D=. It just feels like i'm doing something wrong since q9300s and q9450s are getting 3.2 and up with ease; even on this board.

 

[nitenichiryu1]

So I bumped up my cpu VTT and now I seem to be able to run relatively stable at 3.2ghz with a 1.25vcore in the bios. My next question, however, is what is a SAFE VTT? Thanks!

 

[TC91]

a VTT of 1.3-1.35v should be pretty safe, try not to go over 1.35v if you want to keep the cpu for a while.

 

[nitenichiryu1]

Indeed i do want to keep it for a while. Thanks!

 

[Lothos]

I got this combination last night and have been getting pretty descent with overclocking.

Specs

EVGA 750I Motherboard
Q9450 Intel
Corsair DDR2 800 Memory (6GB total) 4, 4, 4, 12 at 2.1 volts
MSI 9600 GT
Nvidia SLI certified case
S1283 CPU Cooler
4 Intake Fans
3 Outake fans (including the one built into the power supply)
600 Watt power supply

First I have to say WOW the Q9450 is a monster overclocking and I believe the only thing stopping it from going higher is I need to go water cooling.

Note, remove the AUTO control on the CPU fan and have it manually set to 100% all the time. I changed the stock fan on the S1283 which ran at 1300RPM to an 1800RPM fan.

Stable overclock on air flow and keeping temp of CPU core below 63C (Max CPU Load)

CPU Voltage 1.3000
FSB Voltage 1.3000
Memory Voltage 2.2 volts 5, 5, 5, 18 Unlinked to FSB at 1015 MHz
Clock Ratio Locked at 8x (tried unlock but not stable)
FSB 450 MHz
PCI-e 102 MHz
Cached Bios in Memory

GPU 770 Mhz
Shader locked to GPU
GPU Memory 1025 Mhz (2050)

with this I got it up to 3.6GHz completely stable the PCI-e increase from 100 to 102 actually netted me almost a 100 point increase on 3DMark06 score.

Now I did push the processor to 3.7GHz and got it stable but it was running at 65C (Max CPU Load).

CPU Voltage 1.325000
FSB Voltage 1.35000
Memory Voltage 2.2 volts 5, 5, 5, 18 Unlinked to FSB at 1015 MHz
Clock Ratio Locked at 8x (tried unlock but not stable)
FSB 463 MHz
PCI-e 102 MHz
Cached Bios in Memory

GPU 770 Mhz
Shader locked to GPU
GPU Memory 1025 Mhz (2050)

I could take this thing higher but the temps are making me nervous now, besides 3.6GHz on air cooled and keeping it at 63C when all 4 cores are at max load I think is very nice.

3D Mark 06 score was 12768

I am wondering if their is anyway to increase that PCI-e more, as soon as I hit 103 or higher it BSOD.

Hope this helps you figure out whats the best setup for your MB.

 

[WT]

Another 750FTW owner here, and I was going with the Q9450 as well, but gave up on it after comparing it to the Q6700 and seeing that the 9450 didn't offer enough to justify the extra $$. My 6700 is running at 3.33ghz with the only changes to the BIOS being disabling C1E and setting the FSB from 1067 to 1333.

I'm sure I can go higher, but the board doesn't cooperate with any of the monitoring software out there. Speedfan and RealTemp both show an 83c system temp and 6.35v on the +12 rail. Its a known BIOS issue that eVGA hasn't fixed yet, so I hesitate to push it any further.

These quads run HOT !!! My e6600 ran 10c cooler than the 6700 chip. Best of luck with the 9450. I would have gone with it had I not wanted to also buy a 4870 with this upgrade, which drained away any extra fundage.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Lothos
I got this combination last night and have been getting pretty descent with overclocking.

Specs

EVGA 750I Motherboard
Q9450 Intel
Corsair DDR2 800 Memory (6GB total) 4, 4, 4, 12 at 2.1 volts
MSI 9600 GT
Nvidia SLI certified case
S1283 CPU Cooler
4 Intake Fans
3 Outake fans (including the one built into the power supply)
600 Watt power supply

They make SLI-certified cases now?

 

[Lothos]

This is the case

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811119103


Also I realized that the temperatures I was pulling in on the Q9450 are wrong. Aparantly after doing some research RealTemp is the only one providing accurate temperatues on that processore. So actaully my CPU was running cooler. What I did find out though was even though 3DMark06 was running stable when playing EverQuest my PC crashed several times. The CPU needed more voltage so the voltages I posted earlier for the CPU need to be increased by 0.250000 to make it stable.

At 3.7 GHz I never broke 60C

 

[Lothos]

Ok, I gave up trying to get 3.8GHz to work but I concentrated on getting 3.7GHz to work and stable.

I increased the voltage on the FSB to 1.4 and each of the pathways I increased to +50mv, this seems to have stabalized it.

I been using Prime95 to test it and thread 2 always errors out for some damm reason with a rounding error where it was expecting something less than 0.4 but got something like 0.47xxxxx.

THe other threads all held frim and never errored out. Is this acceptable for stability?

My other question is when I ran Prime95 for maximum heat test I hit 65C. I am not sure if that would be considered still safe.

Any help is appreciated?

 

[triangle321]

Lothos do you think that your 6gb makes the difference in overclocking. I am asking because I have been in the process of setting up a similar setup and am debating on sticking with 4gb of the corsair ram or going with 8 seeing as they dont sell it unless its in a combination package.

 

[Lothos]

Originally posted by: triangle321
Lothos do you think that your 6gb makes the difference in overclocking. I am asking because I have been in the process of setting up a similar setup and am debating on sticking with 4gb of the corsair ram or going with 8 seeing as they dont sell it unless its in a combination package.

Looks like I got 3.7 stable on the EVGA 750i motherboard but I can't take it higher cause I reached hte limits of the motheboard.

CPU Voltage 1.4 (vdropp 1.33 - 1.37)
FSB Voltage 1.4
Northbridge Votlage 1.55
South Bridge voltage 1.35
Memory Voltage 2.1
Memory settings 5-4-4-12 Sync and Linked at 925Mhz
Rated FSB 1851Mhz
FSB 463 MHz
C1E Disabled
PCIE at 102MHz
GTL 0,2,3 = +0.65mv
GTL1 = +0.90mv

Seems to be completely stable and no more lockups. I can get 3.8GHz to boot into Vist and I can do things but it never passes Prime95. My guess is I need more NorthBridge voltage but 1.55 is max I can do. Temps are real low as you can see and everything is Aircooled.

As for the question about the memory make sure they have the same specs. In my case I have 2x1 by Corsair at 2.1 volts 4-4-4-12 and 2x2 by Corsair at 2.1 4-4-4-12. When I tried to use a different type it simply did not work and would not overclock.

Screenshot of Overclock