hey guys, i recently came through an ad on a swedish hardware forum here, with a guy selling his unopened core 2 quad Q9650 with reciept for a unbelievable amount of $160 dollars!

i checked intels homepage, and its en E0 stepping, and it seemed to only come in 1 stepping..

my cpu cooler is a Scythe kama kross.. what do u guys recon i could get that processor up to without tinkering with the voltage?
also, anyone know how the normal idle/load temps are on it? Cant wait to get home and try it out

the older q6600 will be put on my other rig in my profile (ga-p31-ds3, 4gb ram, ati 4850), but im not expecting to get a high oc on it, a 2.7-2.8ghz would be sufficient on it


still cant believe i got it in mint condition, and for that price! this will make me hold out longer before considering an i5, i mean the q9650 still holds its own..

Very nice deal and nice chip. You should be able to overclock that past 4.0ghz. Wanna trade? lol.

Capt,

Congrats on your new Q9650. Great cpu. let us know how far you can work that thing up to.....

The Q9650 is the best non extreme C2D quad you can buy, especially for overclocking. Most other chips clock well but the Q9650 is the top dawg....I have read so many posts about my Q9450 that it hit a clock wall of around 3.4Ghz some are lucky (LIKE ME) that get it passed this...having said that I have UBER cooling and well setup machine that would help.

Really nice chip mate.....

hehe sweet, i really felt like this money was well spent.. plus now i put the older quad in the other chip, and surprisingly that ga-p31-ds3 i have in the rig easily got the computer up to 3.0ghz without tinkering with the vcore

now i got, well according to me, 2 super computers to play on
feels so good that all these rigs have been put together with hard work from my own money over time

-GA-EP35-DS3
-Q9650 @stock
2x2gb Samsung pc6400 generic memory 5-5-5-18
MSI 8800gts oc edition @752mhz
500gb WD 7200 16mb cache
samsung syncmaster 22" 2ms
NZXT ZERO with 8x120mm fans http://www.sysopt.com/img/2006/10/nzxt_zero1.jpg
Scythe Kama Kross cpu cooler

http://www.mypicx.com/uploadimg/1601972979_10092009_1.jpg
____
-GA-P31-DS3
Q6600@ 333x9 stock voltage stable
2x2gb kingston pc6400 generic memory
Visiontek ATI HD4850 512mb @ stock speeds
200gb seagate sata + 320gb Westerndigital IDE
Asus 22" lcd 5ms 1680x1050
Aplus case http://www.pcstation.pt/images/aplus%20XClio%20II_4.jpg
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 pro cpu cooler
____
plus my 3rd backup rig
Asus M2v-MX pci-e am2
amd x2 3800+ @ 2.0ghz
2x1gb corsair XMS2 DHX 5-5-5-18 pc6400
MSI OC edition 8600GT 256mb
Dell 19" monitor (stays in basement when not used)
generic case with 120mm sidefan
Stock CPU cooler

Q9650 is one awesome chip.I loved mine.It was smoking fast and it overclocked like crazy.I wish i had kept it now for my backup machine.



Here a cpuz validation shot from mine.This was at 1.225v
http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=529997

one question though..

i noticed around pc forums people were talkin about setting affinity (processor tasking) to certain programs, like perhaps their msn or itunes in one etc etc.. do i need to do that with windows 7? or does windows 7 take care of that for me?


i know XP isnt multicore optimized, do i need to set affinity in there too? are there any performance increase in doing this?

You can check to see.But its almost always set for my programs

one more thing guys... my friend has an old motherboard asus p5l 1394 its called, with a bios update i could pretty much add any midrange core2duo..

now, i need to know, what is a decent upgrade from my friends old p4 630 3.0ghz processor?

at eBay i found a really cheap for like 20 dollars an e2140 1.6ghz processor.. what do u think about that one as an upgrade? whats the minimum to where he will notice any performance? his computer is soooo slow with his p4 cause its really waaaay too hot and he lives in a warm room and needs somethin thats pretty cold.. if u know what i mean?

Question for you...Why is your 4850 not in your main gaming PC?

"why is ure 4850 not in ure main rigg?"

well, because i feel im not getting better performance off of it compared to my 8800gts.. i have to say though, side by side AF looks nicer when turned on for the 4850.. but raw performance i notice i get better fps, most likely because its overclocked compared to the stock mhz the 4850 has..

also, the ati card is hot! im on 60 on idle and thats with a 250mm fan pushing in air from the side vent.. its the reference design heatsink, totally thinkin of puttin on a accelero 2 on it though