[Intrepid]

I'm planning on purchasing a Q9450 (I get a special deal on Intel CPUs), and running it at 1.6GHz FSB on an x48 board (those are spected to run at that speed natively) with RAM also rated to that speed. I believe this means an FSB overclock of x1.2 and a new chip speed of about 3.2GHz.

1: Is this feasible/wise?

2: If yes to the first, what is a good motherboard to accomplish this goal?

3: If yes to the first, what is the known heat output of this chip at that FSB? Is the voltage going to need to be raised on chip to reach that target? What kind of cooling is reccomended?

I would like to use air cooling if possible, my case is well ventelated with 120mm fans and side vents. I do plan on replacing it with something even more thermaly efficient in the near future, having a top blowhole will be nice as heat tends to get trapped up there behind the optical drives.

Any advice is well appriciated, I will post resutls for benchmarking and thermal data if/when I get this running.

[Badbonji]

I am not so familiar with those motherboards,so I wouldn't know. But that overclock should be easily achievable. I am running mine at 1800Mhz FSB (3.6Ghz) on a 780i which is usually harder to overclock on I believe. You should be able to reach 3.6Ghz on a decent board.

If you want a case with a top fan go with the antec 900, it has a 200mm one and room for 4 x 120mm fans on the case. (comes with 3)

[mdamda]

1. 3.2ghz is moderately easy from what I've been seeing in forums. Honestly, X48s might be an overkill, dual LAN and all. For non super-enthusiast purposes, I'm starting to believe even my X38 is an overkill for my setup (probably shoulda gone P35). I reckon a P45 would go easier on the wallet while providing over 95% performance/overclocking headroom.

2. If I were you, I'd probably go with the P45s in general. Something from gigabyte/asus/msi/dfi ARE PROBABLY worth looking at --> (I'm not sure about any particular board).

3. No idea, though a decent cooling solution may be required (something along the lines of a xigmatek or a TRUE120)

[BLOOP!]

If you have a set goal of 3.2GHz, thats 1600 (400 FSB) and ram at 400 MHz 1:1. Pretty much all of the current boards are capable of those. The P45's are out, I recommend the P5Q's, if you ask for which specific model it'll all depend on your budget.

DDR2-800 is perfect for your goal. But if you can afford 1066 get one so you can have more oc'ing headroom

[bkny10555]

i want one

[Intrepid]

Actually I plan on getting DDR3 1600MHz to match the board. An x48 is overkill now, but in 4 years it won't be, and I don't often upgrade. I DO do CAD work, video encoding, and occationaly I put in a game or two. I'm shooting for a 1600MHz system but 1600MHz CPUs are just ridiculously overpriced, but I can afford the board and RAM, so just an overclock of the CPU is needed, and it looks like the Q9450 can do those speeds just fine. As for dual LAN, I do have a use for it, when I am messing with ethernet to serial devices I want that extra port, its also nice to be able to suddenly change your MAC address.

[Evilsizer]

hitting 400mhz fsb on that cpu wont be a problem. not sure why you want ot use ddr3-1600 depending on the cas timings of the ram. the bandwidth will be lower then ddr2-800 cas4 or just barly higher. It isnt worth the cost difference to go DDR3 right now. for boards and what your doing X48 is way overpriced and overkill. the Asus P5Q or P5Q-Pro aka p45 based will do just fine. dont consider using the onboard nic cards, that use cpu power in order to work. your better off with some older addin pci cards or usb wireless nics.