Q9300 Mild Overclock Recommendation

[cheinonen]

I'm building a new system, and trying to stay quiet but still doing a moderate overclock. I'll probably do a Q9300 over the 9450 to save a bit of money, and will be running 2x 2GB of DDR800, so how far past a 400 MHz bus I can get I'm not sure of. It's more important this stays quiet than overclock faster, so would an AF7 or a Xigmatek 1283 (with fan on low) work well for that? I shouldn't need any more cooling than that for this moderate OC, right? Will an GA-P35-DR3R handle this fine, and eventually handle 4x 2GB of DDR800 fine with the small overclock? Or would you buy the Q9450 instead of the Q9300?

 

[GuitarDaddy]

There shouldn't be any noticable difference in temps Q9300 vs. Q9450 given the same clockspeed. So if you would be satisfied at 3ghz 400x7.5 then I see no need for the Q9450 or a better cooler, because I'm pretty certain thats attainable withe the Q9300 and the coolers you listed.

If you want to go over 3ghz with the Q9300 or Q9450 I would recommend a better cooler like a Tuniq or TRUE, because even the Q9450 at 400x8 3.2ghz will be pushing the limits of the coolers you listed

 

[nevbie]

Well I'm getting that xigmatek with my q9450. At least you shouldn't need better than that for a mild overclock. Of course some cheaper HSF might do it aswell. Personally I'd say going from DDR667 to DDR800 is an acceptable "mild" overclock by itself (with 1:1 ratio), and you shouldn't worry about how far past 400 you're going to get.. take it as a bonus then, and remember that you'll pay for it with higher temperatures.

Or perhaps you should start overclocking only if you notice that some program you use requires more CPU power than you get from the default FSB setting?

4x2gb and mobo compatibility is the most important problem here though. I'd carefully plan that part. Are you sure that you will need 8gb? I'm not sure how well various operation systems will utilize that.

Oh and I would buy q9450, but it completely depends on what you are going to do with the PC if *you* should buy that.