Will Q9650 overclock be limited by 6400 RAM?

[themaidenmaniac]

Hi guys, just made an impulse buy last night on a decently priced q9650 (wanting a bit more power than the q6600 could offer). However, I only have 6400 RAM at the moment, 4GB of patriot (2x2GB). This last xmas was a fairly expensive price, about £130 (which was then good at the time).

Im pretty sure this will only get to me 3.6ghz if im thinking correctly, when i really want to hit the 4 mark if possible with the new chip when it arrives. I wasnt banking on a ram upgrade just yet, but sounds like im going to have to to hit those higher clocks if im thinking right.

Chip arrives tomorrow, so any tips appreciated! Mobo is IP35-E.

Cheers,

Kev

[Hawker1986]

Well if you drop your RAM multiplier down all the way (and my maths is right) youll need 445FSB to hit 4Ghz giving your RAM a speed of 890Mhz, to be honest if you have a decent kit you should be able to hit that speed on most 800Mhz kits with a safe voltage increase. Stick your RAM voltage to 2V (or the highest rated if thats more) and see if you can make it . I would try that before buying anything new.

Hawker

[Webby]

Hawkers maths is indeed correct to achieve 4GHz you will need a FSB of 445 with the memory set to a 1:1 divider this will mean the memory is running at 890Mhz which decent 800MHz memory should be able to achieve (my old corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 C4 would do 998MHz )

Easiest way to find out will be to test the memory with the Q6600, set the divider to 2:1 and the FSB to 223 see if it boots and is stable. Alternatively leave the divider at 1:1 set the FSB to 445 and reduce the multiplier on the CPU to 6 (this may not work as the chip may not be stable at this FSB) or you can set the divider to anything in between as long as the final memory speed is 890Mhz and the CPU is stable.

[badass]

Hi guys, just made an impulse buy last night on a decently priced q9650 (wanting a bit more power than the q6600 could offer). However, I only have 6400 RAM at the moment, 4GB of patriot (2x2GB). This last xmas was a fairly expensive price, about £130 (which was then good at the time).

Im pretty sure this will only get to me 3.6ghz if im thinking correctly, when i really want to hit the 4 mark if possible with the new chip when it arrives. I wasnt banking on a ram upgrade just yet, but sounds like im going to have to to hit those higher clocks if im thinking right.

Chip arrives tomorrow, so any tips appreciated! Mobo is IP35-E.

Cheers,

Kev

Yep - You'll be limited to 3.6 GHz because of the RAM.
However, apart from internet willy waving, do you really think you'll notice a difference between 3.6 GHz and 4 GHz?

[Webby]

Badass, only limited to 3.6Ghz if the memory will not overclock.

Otherwise through that analogy his CPU will be limited to 3GHz because that is its stock setting.

Admittedly memory does on the whole not clock as well as Intel's current CPUs so don't expect a 50% boost in speed but 25% is normally easily achieved with slackening timings or boosting the voltage a bit or it may just run faster at its stock settings. But as with all things overclocking your mileage will vary.

As to noticing a difference between 3.6GHz and 4Ghz really all depends on what your doing, general day to day web browsing no you wont notice a difference constantly encoding large video files or Folding for Team Hexus for F@H then yes you probably will.

[themaidenmaniac]

Hi guys, thanks for the advice. Chip goes in today and i shall have a fiddle. I briefly tried an overclock of the ram (895mhz) last night- didnt boot at all when i tried, running the ram at stock timings and 2.2V. Im going to try some slightly lower settings, but im pretty sure this ram is very por for overclocking.

There may be a chance i cant make 4ghz anyway with the chip, who knows. If it can be done i shall flog this patriot stuff and get some new 8500 stuff which should be a breeze, no?

[themaidenmaniac]

Just pulled the trigger on some 6400 crucial ballistix. On ebuyer at the moment they have them for £37 for 2 x 2GB which is awesome. They reckon you can overclock them to 1000mhz all told.

[GeorgeStorm]

Great choice, while you amy not have needed it, they are a great set, (im about to buy atleast two sets of it, one for a friend, one for me, and maybe another just coz they are such good value at that price),
they use D9 micron ICs, (as far as i know, the old ones did, i think they still do), which means that thety will definately not limit your overclock....

Just me...

[themaidenmaniac]

Great choice, while you amy not have needed it, they are a great set, (im about to buy atleast two sets of it, one for a friend, one for me, and maybe another just coz they are such good value at that price),
they use D9 micron ICs, (as far as i know, the old ones did, i think they still do), which means that thety will definately not limit your overclock....

Just me...

good to hear george. I managed to hit 840mhz @ 2.4V tonight with this patriot stuff, fricking appauling tbh! Good riddance to it i must say. Even Aria budget RAM at £30 now will get you 925mhz lol

[GeorgeStorm]

Is that all you got?
Wow, im amazed, Patriot have some relaly good stuff, I would have expected more, I reckon you got unlucky, what cas were you going for?
I got 1100 (cas6 admittedfly) with £30 OCZ Platinum! (first time overclock, and not stable, just to see how high it could go, that was around 2.5, maybe 2.6v, )
But that crucial does look awesome, and im gonna buy me 1/2 sets either tonight or tomorrow,

Just me.....

[themaidenmaniac]

I do wonder if this memory needs some ultravoltage or something, My IP35 will give it 3V max- the stock voltage is actually 2.2V for this stuff which is higher than the norm, so maybe it is going to need a little more than i thought. Either way its going now, so probably not much point in messing around too much! timings are 5-5-5-12 btw haha... safe to say this stuff will be going in a non overclocked build sometime.

Say i tried to give this 2.7V, how would one know when the memory was coming to its frying point? Its not like there are temp sensors like on a cpu/gpu right? I'll just hope it refuses to boot or artifcats me out first

Im looking forward to trying 500mhz FSB with the q9650 and crucial ballistix in a bid to hit the allusive 4.5ghz on air mark next week.

[GeorgeStorm]

Good luck with that, if I were you, see how fast you can get on cas5, then 6, and go up to 2.6v or so, the RAM should survive, if y ou only test to see how fast it can go,

If you get the crucial before me, (wont order till tomorrow), uyoull have to give me some results,

Just me...........