Overclocking Q9450 on a Gigabyte X48-DQ6

[Bopper]

Heya. I will be overclocking my new pc as soon as I have it assembled (hopefully later this week). I have read all the guides and done research and am fairly confident. There are however a few things I am still unsure about and would like to get some feedback beforehand to ease my overclocking experience. I will first post my components below:

Antec 1200 Case (I may add a side fan to help cool those nuclear 4870's)
Corsair 1000W PSU
Intel Q9450 (2.66ghz 45nm)
Mushkin 2 x 2Gb, Redline PC2-8000,Dual kit, DDR2 1000MHz (5-5-5-12)
Gigabyte X48-DQ6 motherboard
Ati Radeon 4870 X 2 in Crossfire
Thermaltake 120 Extreme (TRUE black edition) with a Noctua NF P12 fan

I will be using the thermal paste (new Chill Factor 2) that comes with the heatsink, I am sure that will suffice? I will also lap the surfaces of both the heatsink and cpu's internal heatsink (from reviews it seems it CAN take 7 degrees off core temps).

From what I have heard I can reach 3.6 ghz (450X8) on 1.4 volts. I will probably use this config for 3DMark 2006 then bring it back to 3.5 ghz (438X8) as I want to stay below that 1.4 volt line just for peace of mind.

My questions are:

1) Do I leave the memory ratio to 1:1? I am still a bit unclear as to what that would make my memory speed. On 450 FSB on the cpu my memory would then be 1117 since I am increasing the cpu FSB by 117?

2) What else, if anything, should I do to my memory?

3) Is there anything else I am overlooking?

 

[dagger]

1) 4x450mhz (or 1600) fsb means your ram is running on 2x450-900mhz fsb. It'll be underclocked at 1:1, which means it should work fine. 1000mhz ddr2 is overclocked 800mhz sticks, and as a rule, does not overclock further. Underclock shouldn't be a problem though.

There are better thermal pastes, but I'm sure that one should do fine.

As for vcore, 1.4v is not healthy for q9450. Remember, 45nm quads don't tolerates voltage as well as 65nm quads. Intel's recommended vcore range for q9450 is 0.85-1.3625.
http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLAWR
Compared to q6600's 0.85-1.5v.
http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLACR
Aside from lower multiplier, this is the reason why so many overclockers initally shunned 45nm quads. For 3.6ghz, it takes 1.45v on typical q6600, which is higher, but within recommended range. Q9450's 1.4v is lower, but higher than its range. It's not high enough to be considered dangerous, but try not to go so high unless you really need it.

 

[Bopper]

Great, thanks for the info! I am happy with 3.4 ghz or so, I am guessing I shouldn't have a problem getting that with 1.35 or 1.36 volts.

Can I do anything else to the RAM such as play around with the timings or should I just leave it be?

 

[Lupiron]

Bah, humbug! How about running Core Temp or Real temp, and listing the VID of your processor?

It's usually a wise idea to know what the STARTING voltage is, before trying to decide what voltage you will need to attain a certain speed!

So take a peek with one of those tools, and we'll find out after you do!

Come on, 1.1000! Nothing near 1.2500! (In other words, the lower the better! So keep your circuits crossed!)

--Lupi