Overclocking Q9300 on Asus P5N-D

[Khaz45]

Hey guys

This is my first post (woo!), so I'll try and make it short.

I have over the last year been trying to overclock my q9300 to 3GHz stable, this process has taken me a year. It sounds pathetic but I have found it soo difficult as its quite a rare combination and the board suffers from vdroop.

I now finally have it stable @ 3Gghz with the following bios settings:

Vcore: 1.35625 (about 1.29-1.3 with vdroop)
Dimm: 2.19
HT: 1.5
NB:1.5

FSB at 1600 with memory at 800 linked and synced.

My question therefore is does anyone think I could push it any further? As in games like BF2142 where only 1 core is used it makes a big difference.

Thanks in advance

[Desertmonk]

Had a look on the trusty old overclock.net forum at the Q9300 club (they have these odd clubs where you post your OC & setting etc. Actually really useful to have a list of 30 results for the same CPU you are trying to OC)

and people seem to be favouring very low vcores, mostly around the 1.25v mark, yielding on average 3.3 ish GHz. Top OC on 1.35v is 3.6GHz. Based on the fact it's an OC'ing community and most have top notch OC'ing boards (e.g. P45 UD3) I'd say you've done quite well on your 750i :) however you're vcore even after considering vdroop seems to be capable of around 3.2 - 3.4GHz.

You'd need an FSB of 444 for 3.33Ghz, which is quite a bit on top of what you already have. Do you happen to know the max FSB?

if not put the CPU multi on 5 and simply increase the FSB by 10MHz each time and keep goign till it'll go no higher. Then you know that your MOBO is fine up to *** MHz FSB, meaning you can easily see whether your CPU is the limiting factor.

[Khaz45]

Hey Desertmonk

Thanks for the reply.

Yeah I've got alot of ideas from the q9300 club forum, I even went as far as reading through every post. I only managed to find one person with the same setup there. The thing which actually got it stable was upping the memory voltage to 2.2. I did have it on 3250, FSB 1733 I think but applications would crash and occassionally blue screen. I was thinking on giving up with this board as it annoyys me so much (i.e 2 sata ports can only be used in sli) and maybe going for an Asus striker but that seems like a stupid investment into a dead socket.

I would be very happy with 3250 mhz, How do i find out the max fsb would that be in the manual or say in the bios?

[Brad]

Your only 1.29v core anyway so you have abit to go yet. Whats intel say max 1.36v?

[TheMadDutchDude]

Brad, he is still pushing 1.35v through it. It's just that the voltage is dropping because the PWMs aren't quite up to keeping a nice, stable supply. I wouldn't go much higher to be honest.

[Brad]

Ah sorry i read vdroop as vdrop.

[Khaz45]

Thanks for the post guys.

Hey I think it actually is Vdrop, from Cpu Z it flucutates 1.28- 1.3. But tbh i don't wanna push the voltage any higher, temps are ok as I'm running one of the new boxed corsair water cooling units, which I must say helped my temps. With an artic freezer pro prime 95 could go up to 76 C, by which point I would stop it. Now it doesn't go over 61 C.

I actually think my memory might be the weak link now, I may try lowering the vcore too, but im reluctant to touch it as its working.

[Brad]

Well if its vdrop then your fine to stick more voltage though.

[UKGouki]

why not look at the p5n-d club on oc.net i got my q6600 @ 3.6ghz stable with 1.375v 1.4ht 1.4nb southbridge on auto but like you i had to increase my vram voltage to 2.110 im currently on 3.0ghz 24/7 rock solid stable @ stock vcore :D

also on the first page of the p5n-d club is a nice tute for the 2hd pencil mod to help stop vdroop :D

as for sli problems and sata cables why not do what i did and get Right angle'd sata connectors they work a treat xD

[Desertmonk]

"find max FSB/CPU/RAM" is different for every single combination of components etc so it's something you have to work out yourself by following a proccess.


E.g. to find out the highest stable FSB you would:

put CPU multi on 5 (this underclocks the CPU so if it crashes we know it's not because of the CPU)
prefferably unlink or underclock the RAM (most OCs fail far too early because they are limited by RAM because people don't know they have to underclock or unlink it. but yes by underclocking or unlinking the RAM, when it crashes you know it's not the RAM)
use the max vcore you are happy with. we can worry about power savings later once you know the "max" of all your components.

[Khaz45]

why not look at the p5n-d club on oc.net i got my q6600 @ 3.6ghz stable with 1.375v 1.4ht 1.4nb southbridge on auto but like you i had to increase my vram voltage to 2.110 im currently on 3.0ghz 24/7 rock solid stable @ stock vcore :D

also on the first page of the p5n-d club is a nice tute for the 2hd pencil mod to help stop vdroop :D

as for sli problems and sata cables why not do what i did and get Right angle'd sata connectors they work a treat xD

Hey, i;ve looked at the P5N-D club, I couldn't find anyone with my processor tho. I hqave heard of the pencil mod, but I don't really want to do that. As to the sata cable problem. The board only has 4 sata ports, when in sli with a large card eg 275, all ports are blocked, so only a max of 2 right angles can be used. I fixed this by getting a raid card, but not running it in raid.

I put the voltage to 1.42 yesterday to try for 3250, i tried with memory synced, that failed. Also with memory unlinked at stock and then underclocked as well. As the the ram voltage is already at 2.23 I don't want to push it.

I'm thinking maybe I should just stop moaning and be happy that I got it this far.

[lechuck]

1.6 volts should be fine

[UKGouki]

1.6 volts should be fine

idiot glad you got banned intel reference max vcore on 65nm quads/duel cores 1.5v on 45nm it is 1.45v over that you invalidate your warrenty.

[TheMadDutchDude]

Apart from invalidating your warranty; you will fry the chip upon startup lol!

[system7]

I do think you are wasting your time here, Khaz45. NVidia chipsets always struggled with Wolfdales even at stock. Asus have much improved bios on their SLI boards recently, but even so, even Wolfdale dual-cores always traditionally struggled above about 350. And Quads have been traditionally pretty hopeless.

Our own Andrew Moore impressively got a Conroe Q6600 well above 400 MHz @4GHz with a fan on the North Bridge and much adjusting of newest bios on a 650i or 680i, but even he admitted the voltages were suicidal for 24/7. And if you can't use an OC 24/7, what's the point?

[Khaz45]

Hey guys.

Thanks for replies, (exluding lechuck) I did know not to put it above 1.45. So System7 do u think I've done all I can, I just don't wanna sell myself short. I might upgrade to an i7 come september could you reccomend a good board that I can get a beasty overclock on? I have seen the p6T SE but then i dunno if i should just bite the bullet and go for something like an asus rampage?

Thanks in advance.

P.s did he get banned for saying put it to 1.6? v

[system7]

Intel P45 chipsets are much better than NVidia chipsets overclocking at high FSB and with Quads. The trick to overclock NVidia boards is to get low FSB dual processor. Then they work well. In a way, Intel have been making overclocking more difficult recently on socket 775. The promised FSB 1600 CPU haven't materialised either. I think they want you to buy i7, but of course, a lot of savvy people have been looking at AMD instead.

For all that, a Quad above 3 GHz should handle most everything you throw at it. For DX10 gaming IMO there is little in the value stakes to better a cheapie E5200 or X2 AMD 550BE overclocked. This is because DX10 gaming single-threads the rendering which dominates framerates in gaming.

At some point you have to be content with what you have. i7 has its strengths, but current gaming is not really one of them.

lechuck got banned for boosting his post count with spam, as far as I can tell. This 50 post incentive has its drawbacks. I have got fed up with threads being trashed in this way.

[cje]

Steve is as usual, entirely right in what he says.

My Striker II Extreme has a nvidia 790i Ultra chipset. Has had great oc results with dual cores, but not so with quad cores. The nvidia chipsets are so flaky. I have reached the roof with 3ghz, but I can run 3ghz with the chip at stock 1.3 VID in the BIOS. So all good there. There are people who have clocked higher, but with watercooling, as this mobo would need to be cooled down sufficiently for any speed faster than what I have now.

I have ran it at 3.5ghz, but did not see much, if at all fps gain in day to day gaming. Sure benchies were higher, but it didn't feel any faster, and games benchies showed it too. My SLI setup is quite happy and content with the Q6600 @ 3ghz so I should be too.

Personally, I'd be happy with 3ghz, you'll find it will be plenty fast for day to day and gaming usage.

[UKGouki]

Steve is as usual, entirely right in what he says.

My Striker II Extreme has a nvidia 790i Ultra chipset. Has had great oc results with dual cores, but not so with quad cores. The nvidia chipsets are so flaky. I have reached the roof with 3ghz, but I can run 3ghz with the chip at stock 1.3 VID in the BIOS. So all good there. There are people who have clocked higher, but with watercooling, as this mobo would need to be cooled down sufficiently for any speed faster than what I have now.

I have ran it at 3.5ghz, but did not see much, if at all fps gain in day to day gaming. Sure benchies were higher, but it didn't feel any faster, and games benchies showed it too. My SLI setup is quite happy and content with the Q6600 @ 3ghz so I should be too.

Personally, I'd be happy with 3ghz, you'll find it will be plenty fast for day to day and gaming usage.

+1 mine @ 3.0ghz is monster in gaming i was running @3.6ghz but in real world usage and gaming hardly noticed a difference was only in things like super pi/pc mark/3dmark i noticed the difference.

it also produced slightly more ppd on folding @ home cpu client but other than that the higher clock wasnt really worth it im @ 3.0ghz on stock vid and my P5N-D with q6600 go is very happy at that speed :D

[Khaz45]

Hey. Ok I will be content with my results. I think I can probably shave some voltage off as I think it may have been the memory voltage that was originally limiting me. I think i might go for about 1.3 bios, so prob about 1.28 actual.

P.S how do i set up a signature rig thing?