Q9450: Anybody got one, if so how high can you take it?

[Kaos Kid]

I've got a Q9450, and am wondering if it is worth getting a better board than I have now (GA-P35-DS3L v2), perhaps a P45 that can handle DDR3. If you have a Q9450, please share your successes with overclocking and tell me what board you are using to achieve your success. I know it is too much to ask of a mATX board, most of the best OCers are ATX boards so if you have a great little mATX board that can take advantage of the Q9450 let me know (but I will still consider reasonably priced ATX boards). I do know of the GA-G31M-ES2L that should be better than what I have now (even though it is ICH7 instead of ICH9) but I am also open to any others, especially those that will use DDR3. Thanks!

[kenc51]

You should be good up to <3Ghz

After that the motherboard will prolly be limiting you.

[Kaos Kid]

Hmmm I guess I'm getting lucky with that board, with all the settings in the bios on auto, it idles itself at 2Ghz then when running Prime95 takes itself up to 3.264Ghz (408fsbx8) and my OCZ Reaper DDR2-800 up to DDR2-979. By manually OCing I can get up to around 420>425fsb max and close to DDR2-1020 before I get instability. This is with a stock hs/f, but it is also in my cold basement so it starts off cool. I've noticed the bios managed OC never takes the cores past the very low 80's, but once I raise fsb much past 410 manually (with bumping voltages in bios) then temps rise quickly and core temps get up closer to Tjmax so the hs/f may have a bit to do with it but I can't tell whether the fsb limitation is in the cpu or the board since the errors at the highest fsb still start coming in the mid to upper 80s core temps, well below Tjmax listed in CoreTemp (100C). I guess the reason I'm asking is that I don't want to invest $30-$40 in a decent hs/f and another $50-75 in older tech just to get maybe a few hundred more Mhz, so I was hoping someone already had real-world figures that would show this Q9450 hitting the high 3's to make it worth my while to try to take it to the limit. Perhaps that is too much to ask because of the low multiplier (8), I've seen people talk of taking the upper end Q9xxx's up to the high 3s>4Ghz but they also have higher multipliers. Should I be happy with what I've got, or strive for more?


ps
thats a trick question, no matter what I'm never really happy