QX9650 Not showing 3.0GHz (but not speedstep i think)

This may be a bit of a newbie question.

In the system properties control panel the cpu is showing as X9650 @ 3.00GHz, then underneath 2.67GHz.

If i look at zcpu or similar is reports normal speed as 2GHz, which i assume is the speed step on idle. But when i load the CPUS (after effects processing), the clock speed goes to 2.6GHz and no further, i can't seem to reach 3.00Ghz.

So what should i be looking at to sort out what's going on?

EasyTune says the same thing too. The bus is 1333Mhz, FSB 333Mhz and muliplier is 6.00 at idle and 8.00 at load (and it says 6-9 in brackets beside it). Is it because the multiplier is going to 8 and not 9?

any directions or pointers would be really helpful

cheers
paul

run prime95 and cpu-z and it should be 3ghz.

I have a QX9650 and the default multiplier setting on the GA-X48-DQ6 is 8, I don't know what mainboard your running. It should step down to 2Ghz, then to 3Ghz under load. Look at overclocking this unit, mine is running at 4.2Ghz.

Well I have a stock cooler and it's exceptional and will run the cpu at 100% load all day and the temp will never exceed 60c, having said that it's in a cosmos S case with a 200mm side fan, 120mm rear and top fans as well as a 120mm attached to the hard drive cage.

The p45 ds4 is compatible with DES advance, which is gigabytes energy saving feature, I suggest you dynamically overclock your cpu, which basically means rather than shooting from 2Ghz to 3Ghz it will steadily climb and well past 3Ghz. Don't be afraid the overclock to 4.2 or beyond if you can, what you need to do is observe the maximum temps given by the manufacturers for the cpu, in our case for the QX9650 is 64c. People have had this chip alot higher but I don't like seeing mine go over 60c.

I can't give you any firm overclock settings as you have a different board and really it's something you have to trial with errors until you find your best stable clock. I have had mine as high as 4.41Ghz but I was having to put alot more electricity through the northbridge and ran out of headroom with my RAM. For me to go higher I would need better ram and more fans or watercooling, which I'm not going to bother with. I LOVE my computer.