Hello,
I have built a system but its running not as good as I expected. I hope its just the CPU. I have;
Video Card - EVGA 8800GTS (512)
RAM - 2GB DDR2 800mhz CL4 (Running at CL5 now though)
Motherboard - Asus maximus formula X38
Powersupply - 620 watt Corsair
Hard drive - 160GB hitachi
CPU - 1.8GHZ Pentium Dual core (E2160)
O/S - Vista Ultimate 64bit

I played Lord of the rings online and it was slowing down alot on high settings. I wanted to get a Q9450 but its not out yet so I got this CPU for now until it comes out. I really hope its the CPU because eveything else in my system seems fine to me. I did try to overclock it with the Asus software to 2.1 GHZ but it was hitting 57C in games. That was after 10 minutes so i'm guessing it would go alot highier. I know overclocking from the BIOS is much better but I don't have the time to learn. I will when I get the Q9450 though so then it will be worth overclocking. Please tell me its my CPU slowing the game down.

Yes it's a CPU bottleneck.

With your current rig setup your hardware should be well up to the task of ~40% oc. 57C is sod all say 70ish then yeah thats hot, but run orthos for 5-10 mins ans that'll get her fired up to max temp.

It'll be good oc practice for your upgrade, just don't use software to o/c. The BIOS is always the best place to start clocking from. It doesn't take much thought and once you start it's hard to stop anyway. It's like a mild addiction.. i go away from this comp for a while then think when i get back hmmm maybe i could tighten the RAM a bit or think i can get an extra 1+ on my FSB without putting anymore vcore. I know it sounds geeky even for a Computer forum, but the sense of achievement after a successful o/c is imo better than the escape of sailors on the 2nd or 3rd time .

I want to do it but i'm a bit unsure, just incase I set something too high and damaged anything.

Vcore is safe to 1.5v
Ram is safe with a 0.2v increase on default
Max Temp cpu 70-75
Max Temp NB 60-75

The only way i've knackered an overclock via self learning is
1) updating the BIOS
2) blowing the NB

The trick is to only make one change at a time so when you panic and it all goes wrong you can rem what it was you last changed. When you mess about you'll catch on quick about certain problems .ie when there's a lack of vcore or the ram isn't setup correctly. The guides on this forum are good read through a few times before doing anything just to give you a cursory background on what your doing.

P.S if you blow summit it smells nah you'll be hard touched to blow anything...

Bad combination. NEVER OVERCLOCK THROUGH WINDOWS/SOFTWARE!next you need a better cooler to Overclock. The E2160/2180 can easily hit 3Ghz. Also makesure the HSF is mounted properly.

I hope I don't. My case doesn't really have very good cooling. Its a cheap case but I added a 120mm fan (2000RPM) to the back to reduce heat. Will add some more fans soon. I'll read up on overclocking soon. Thanks for the help.

i think shadow meant for you to get a better heatsink for your cpu as the stock intel heatsinks suck the ####

and you would need a better heatsink for your Q9450 any way as quads tend to run hotter than duals

some thing like a thermalright ultra 120 extreme or any other decent tower cooler should do the trick

Yeah I will get a better heatsink fan soon. My south bridge is running at like 45C when i'm hardly doing anything!