Q9550 OC

[smackababy]

So, I'm not done tweaking yet, but I've hit a stable 3.7GHz. I hear there is a wall, but I haven't pushed harder. I was wondering if my temps are good or bad. I am running around 37, 33, 30, 30 idle and 59,52,52,50 after an hour of prime95. I think I can still lower the vcore, but my CPU-Z is showing 1.216v. I am thinking of trying for higher clocks, as I think I can hit 3.7GHz on stock voltages.

Sorry for the wall of text and thanks in advance.

 

[n7]

What wall?

You're fall from any walls, whether CPU or FSB or board-related.
Only possibility is a RAM limitation, & that'd only be the case with crappy RAM or really bad luck with 8 GB like i got with my UD3P.

Your temps are great; i'd aim for 4+ GHz

 

[Zapper48]

Go for it. Temps look good volts too.

 

[TidusZ]

Don't let people say that it only goes to 4 either. By the sounds of it you got a good chip, so keep on going.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

You definitely will get hotter reading results at 4Ghz but the rest looks good.

 

[KingstonU]

Those are great temps and voltage, I assume you are E0 stepping. With my C1 I had a hard time getting 3.7 stable. Are you using RealTemp to measure? It's known as the most accurate for 45nm quads.

 

[TidusZ]

Realtemp shows 5c higher than coretemp for me, so I don't really trust it. Mind you if its right, then all the better.

 

[F1shF4t]

Originally posted by: smackababy
So, I'm not done tweaking yet, but I've hit a stable 3.7GHz. I hear there is a wall, but I haven't pushed harder. I was wondering if my temps are good or bad. I am running around 37, 33, 30, 30 idle and 59,52,52,50 after an hour of prime95. I think I can still lower the vcore, but my CPU-Z is showing 1.216v. I am thinking of trying for higher clocks, as I think I can hit 3.7GHz on stock voltages.

Sorry for the wall of text and thanks in advance.

Thats a good overclock but I would test it using Linpack in 64bit if your running a 64bit os.
The temps will be 10C+ higher than what you get with prime 95.

As long as you can keep your temps below 80C while running linpack your fine. So go higher you should still have some headroom.

In comparison my quad will do 3.85ghz but will get to 86C, at current settings it gets to 77C and I'm more comfortable running it at that. Prime 95 only loads it to 65C, massive difference between that and 77C :Q

 

[smackababy]

Realtemp and coretemp show same for me. Yes, I have the EO stepping. I was joking about the "wall". I just keep reading about all these guys not able to get over 3.7GHz.

 

[TidusZ]

my 4.25 never goes above 70c in prime and occt, but goes past 80c in less than a minute with linpack. I've been running 24/7 since Christmas and playing tons and tons of games, including crysis warhead. I don't think linpack has any basis on the real world. Linpack is like a virus that tries to overheat your computer, and in fact, it would make a very good virus in that capacity. I wouldn't bother with it for stability testing though, that's my personal opinion, and its not gonna change. My last pc was similar and it is still running 24/7 for 1.5 years, like a champ, e4300 @3.15.

 

[F1shF4t]

Originally posted by: TidusZ
my 4.25 never goes above 70c in prime and occt, but goes past 80c in less than a minute with linpack. I've been running 24/7 since Christmas and playing tons and tons of games, including crysis warhead. I don't think linpack has any basis on the real world. Linpack is like a virus that tries to overheat your computer, and in fact, it would make a very good virus in that capacity. I wouldn't bother with it for stability testing though, that's my personal opinion, and its not gonna change. My last pc was similar and it is still running 24/7 for 1.5 years, like a champ, e4300 @3.15.

On that thought why you bother running prime 95? No game will ever stress the cpu that much so why bother?

Nothing is 100% stable, what you are doing is trying to test under extreme conditions that?s its unlikely to get an error under normal use. Linpack just gives you more certainty over a shorter period of time than what Prime 95 does.

Plus 30 min of linpack is enough to say that it?s over 24+ hours of prime stable. So why would I run Prime for 24 hours? (The real reason here is that you want to keep your nice overclock, using linpack as a test it would cause overheating using the TRUE120 )

 

[TidusZ]

Well, why not get a few hair dryers and direct them at your heatsink, and then run linpack? I mean, it could certainly happen right? Linpack is not comparable to anything except for linpack, and frankly I don't care if my computer is linpack stable, I care if its stable for everything else. My cpu was windows stable and otherwise stable at close to 4.4ghz, but prime would find errors at anything above 4.25. If I wanted to make my cpu linpack stable I'd have to drop to 3.7 or less, which would be a pretty stupid move, as the past 2 months of using the pc at this clock would show. You're the guy running your 9550 @3.61 though, so I guess if the loss in mhz is worth being able to enjoy linpack for long periods of time, then all the power to you. I think I might just have to go down to 3.2ghz and be 3 hairdryer+linpack stable.

You ask why I run p95 when games wont stress it that much, so I gotta ask, why run linpack when nothing known to man will heat it up that much. When Linpack > Diablo 3 I'll underclock.

 

[n7]

LOLz TidusZ...

Not everyone has to use the same programs for stability testing, but i'm going to explain the same thing i always do when people start claiming that a stresstesting program is "too stressful" :laugh:

Fact: your CPU @ stock will stably run LinPack.
If you can't do it OCed, your OC isn't the same level of stability as you'd have at stock.

To most of us, that means it's not really stable.
It's that simple.


BTW, your Q9550 won't shut off due to overheating till around ~95C, so you actually can likely still run IBT or LinX & pass.