Overclocking my Q9550 - Guidance and advice needed

[FEEDTHEADDICTION]

Hi all,

 

Situation:

 

I am pretty much new to overclocking.

Although I have read a fair amount of forum posts and articles on the subject, from the basics to GTL guides, I still don't feel too confident in my OCing skills.

Nonetheless, I could not help myself but to fool around in my bios and started tweaking to the best of my abilities.

 

I am in dire need of serious feedback on what I am doing wrong/right/not doing at all in my overclocking adventure!

 

Here is my system:

Striker II extreme (Bios 1202)

Q9550

Core contact freezer

4GB ddr3 1333 9 9 9 24 2T

EVGA 9800gx2

corsair tx750w

 

This is how I am currently proceeding with my overclock:

 

1- Fix up bios before tweaking (disabling power saving, configuring boot, drives, disabling spread spec, ect.)

2- Configure my memory manualy according to factory specs (9 9 9 24), dont touch advanced settings (the guide says for now, but doesnt get into optimizing these settings)

3- Set memory voltage to factory spec

 

at this point, I am too sure if what I am doing is right

 

also note: my bios has quite a few additional/differently named settings

 

4- Set my fsb, first in linked where I can (sync 1:1 5:4 3:2 and unlinked) and then unlinked for additionnal hp.

 

5- Step by step, I set higher clock, reboot, check temps, volts. Does windows boot? stable in prime95?

 

6- When Im happy with clock speed, I go back and readjust Vcore from lower to larger, till system is stable enough to prime

 

At this point, I am not certain enough to change any other settings, but I feel the following is what I am supposed to do, I am just not sure how to pick the right values

 

7- Adjust Vtt and GTL cpu refs for a 67% ratio (intel gives 1.20v as standard vtt, but I imagine i have to play with this value for more stable overclock, how do i figure out what vtt to set? what exactly is vtt? how do i optimize vtt) From there, how do i figure out all 4 GTL refs to get that ratio? calculations? table? where!!??

 

NB: I read that my board almost requires tweaking of these values to gives optimal results

 

9- People talk about loosening their memory, or going off factory settings for freq/v/latencies????? (please comment)

 

10- Anything else I should know about, I should be doing?

 

Also, I was checking out "winter wars" overclocking comp, and noticed a guy got his q9550 to 4.2+ with air, although I am not planning on going that high, I have a little question on this feat: His Vcore must be well over 1.41 intel recommended max vcore; does the fact that temps are still OK make it ok to go over the limit? even if cpu is nice and cool, can overvoltage still fry it or is temp a pre requisite to owning ur cpu?

 

Thanks for your feedback all!!

[AR-fatality]

looks like u know enough about ocing....now push that Q9550 too atleast 425~450FSB which should take u to 3.8Ghz....remember to check ur core temps after ocing at idle and under load.