Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 Overclock?

[abhay6547]

Hey I was just wondering how far I can overclock my Core 2 Quad q9300 @ 2.5GHz. I'm running a stock-ish cooler (not the one that came with the cpu but definitely not fancy water cooling or other fans). I've got a 525W power supply and a GTX 550ti if it helps. I was thinking of boosting the clock speeds to 3GHz but I don't know yet... Can anyone help me?

 

PS The clock speeds show 2000MHz but that's because of EIST/C1E

 

EDIT I OC'd it to 3GHz and it was fine for a while but then it BSOD'd, and I couldnt catch the error code. What should I do next? I'm not too sure the bsod was from the OC anyway..

[NinjaStyle013]

Just keep going up and up till its unstable or the temperature is too hot unload load.

[91wow]

I would not try 3GHZ on a C2Q because you have to up the voltage, my Q8200, sucks for OCing and i only got it to 3.2 because I'm on water with good fans, YOU NEED A GOOD COOLER. buy a hyper 212 evo if all else, it will be better than a small heatsink or a none stacked one. if nothing else buy a H60 or H80I since they are fairly cheap and you should be able to up the voltage pretty easy. Also you might want to try changing the FSB speed a bit and also try with slower or less ram when over clocking C2Q if you are on 780I boards or 760I's.

[Ashratt]

The problem with the q9300 is that the default FSB is already pretty high @ 333 and the multiplier is either 6 or 7.5. 

I managed to get mine to 3Ghz with 7.5 x 400 and that was the maximum FSB of my asus p5kpl-c/1600 (and only very few people were able to get more than 400mhz)

The q9300 isn't nearly as good of an overclocker as for example the q6600 so don't expect too much but 3ghz should be doable with a decent board.

Just keep an eye on the temps

 

edit: forgot to mention iirc (was some time ago) i did no voltage modifications

[abhay6547]

Alright so it seems I should try 3GHz and see if its stable, if not I should probably keep lowering it, thanks