Overclocking 775's

Vegetable · February 23, 2015

I'm running a q6600 3ghz right now. It does ok but I want to upgrade. My mobo can handle any 775 cpu I would be interested in, so that's not an issue. I was curious to whether I should get a qx6850 and overclock it to hell, or buy a q9650 and overclock it to hell. I know the qx6850 has an unlocked multiplier so it would be much easier, but the 9650 is lower TDP, heat output, and overall newer and more efficient. I would expect a higher clock on the qx6850, but it will be much hotter and possibly even slower if the clock isn't at least 300mhz higher.

A comparison of them both at stock:

http://www.game-debate.com/cpu/index.php?pid=278&pid2=18&compare=core-2-extreme-qx6850-3-0ghz-vs-core-2-quad-q9650-3-0ghz

Ryan Leech · February 23, 2015

With your G41 motherboard you won't be able to get too much extra speed out of the Q9650. I would recommend the QX6850 because it isn't dependent upon the northbridge. You should be able to reach 4GHz on the QX6850 with decent cooling on the CPU and VRM.