Want to overclock my Q9550...where to begin?

[mcoomer]

You would think that at 45 I would have outgrown video games but I've recently started playing with flight simulators again and my PC is lacking. I thought about simply buying new gear and building new PC but in the interest of marital bliss I'd like to see what I can get out of my current setup. Besides, sleeping on the couch isn't much fun anymore.

Here's my PC:
Motherboard: Asus Maximus Formula II
CPU: Intel Q9550
Memory: 4G Crucial Ballistix PC2-6400 (4 X 1G)
HDD: Seagate ST3250410AS (X2)
OS: Windows 7 Pro (64-bit)
GPU: nVidia GTX260
Case: full size ATX tower

I'm running the factory Intel cooler on the CPU and even a short run on Prime 95 pushes the core temps up to 80C so I'll need to start there I suppose. I've got lots of room in the case so fitting a new cooler or moving to a liquid cooler shouldn't be a problem. I want to bump my video card to something newer as well. I've also considered replacing the memory to get to 8G now that I'm running a 64-bit OS. Finally, I think I'm going to get new hard drives. Those Barracudas are only 250G drives, spinning at 7200RMP. At the very least I want a drive or SSD dedicated to my games.

So, take a look and let me know what you would do as far as hardware to get this computer ready for overclocking. I'd like to put together a shopping list and figure out what this is going to cost me. Then the fun starts. In the meantime, I found the thread on overclocking quad core chips and will be digging through that and others to try and gain some knowledge. Appreciate any and all help though.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[wingman99]

I would go with air for a 24/7 overclocked rig it's less maintenance to.

 

[Fever]

80 seems high for stock, even with Intel's cooler. Try reseating the heat sink with a quality compound and blasting all the dust out with an air compressor. That could lower your temps by 10-15 degrees alone. A quality heat sink would be a good investment too. I have a Corsair H100 that kept my Q9650 overclocked at 4250 MHz very cool, and now does a great job on Intel's latest and greatest. Try to get something that will work on multiple platforms, as you'll save the cost of a good heat sink on your next upgrade.

Which flight Sims are you playing?

 

[mcoomer]

Zalman CPS10X Extreme installed. Running Prime right now and temp for Core 0 is at 51C and the fan is sitting in the low RPM range. I suppose I'll let it run for a bit and see whether the temp creeps up. Anyway, I think my temp problem is resolved. Back to the guide to figure out the next step.

Mike

 

[mcoomer]

Went into bios and set a few things per the C2D/C2Q overclock thread. After that I started playing with FSB and the multiplier. Initially set to 8 X 400 but wasn't stable so I moved to 7.5 X400 and that was good. Started to move vCore down but that setup never froze so I've moved to 7.5 X 427 and everything is still running smoothly. I'm running Prime, temp is 57 on Core 0, and I'm slowly moving vCore down to see where it begins to fail. Anything else I should be keeping an eye on? Where do I go from here?

Mike

 

[mcoomer]

OK...I see other screenshots that are easy to read but mine looks rather bad. What am I doing wrong. I pasted the capture into Paint and cropped it to size. Another method to produce something that is easy to read??