Overclock q9550 with arctic 7 pro

[Ricky C]

Hi, I have finally gotten around to getting myself a decent heatsink (artic 7 freezer pro) for my signature rig and am now looking to OC it.

 

Ideally i want to get it to just over 3ghz once oc'd (to put it inline with the q9650).

 

The only i problem i have is that i have never OC'd my system before, so have no idea what settings I need to enter for the ram, ideally I would prefer for it to be kept at stock speeds.

[Ricky C]

sorry to bump this, but im still totaly stuck.

[aaron6581230]

Ideally, what you want to do at first is keep your RAM at stock (800Mhz I presume) so you should be looking at your RAM frequency ratio and base clock. Firstly, look in your bios and set your cpu voltage to whatever it is at stock (only if you don't want to leave it on auto like me). Then, increase your cpu base clock by increments of either 5 or 10Mhz, booting into windows and testing for about an hour or 2 with a program like prime95 each time. Watch your RAM ratio and make sure it doesn't go over 400Mhz (800Mhz effective). Lets say your base clock is 400Mhz, then your ratio shouldn't be more than 1:1 (which will end up having the memory be 800Mhz effective). Keep going up until it becomes unstable. At that point, add a bit more voltage (I would say around 1.36v max for 24/7 use. If it is still unstable, then back off your cpu base clock by a bit and test for stability for around 12-24 hours to make sure it is fully stable. Keep lowering your base clock until it is stable.

[aaron6581230]

Oh and 1 thing; watch your cpu temperature with something like coretemp. Make sure it doesn't go over 60 degrees celcius at load