Seeing as how I entered the PC enthusiast scene in 1997/1998, it is still a very odd feeling to find multicore Xeon processors selling at $300 and being reviewed for overclocking potential in a casual gaming station.

Opteron 165 represent! Yes, I beat Dissonance by 100mhz (2.5ghz)! Haha.

It's too bad the Xeon didn't overclock more, but great article.

Is it just me, or are the images stretched?

retail E8x00 chips are coming with a similarly slimline HSF guys. which of course is promptly thrown in the parts bin and a Scythe Infinity is installed in its place. :P

My, the .epee... speed freaks will eat this up

I have my x3350 running at 3.6ghz right now, and I hit the same wall at 425ish bus speed. This is because of the VTT and GTL settings need to be adjusted, bumping the VTT to 1.3v @ 95-95-108 GTL's I was able to do 450*8 with low voltage on the chip (1.3vCore), but my NB is in the 1.55range. These chips love high speeds, and do it at low voltage, but you have to use a nice board with VTT and GTL adjustments to be able to push them. I would try to get to 475*8, but the VTT absolute max from intel datasheet is 1.45v for 45nm's, so I may just stay where I am.

The duals do not have this problem, most of the time you can leave vtt at 1.1, but since the quads use the fsb to talk between the 2 sets of dual cores, the GTL's are very critical if you want a high fsb. Also, I am running a DFI x48, and as it turns out, if you want to overclock one of these chips the P35's handle the quads slightly better.

I am afraid your Xeon CPU cooler theory leaks water.

Purchased today new shipment in Australia Boxed quad-core Desktop Q9450 SLAWR.

Inside exact same low profile cooler.

Maybe it has more to do with 45nm power consumption generally which doesn't require the large cooler.

Thanks for running showing the power consumption and temperature. While I have always overclocked my processors a little bit, This past year (while I was in school) I've forced my Opteron 170 (2Ghz) to run at 1Ghz. I just don't need that much power for writing essays and surfing the 'net.

My next processor purchase will most likely be bought on the power consumption/performance concept instead of the usual price/performance.

Seeing the difference in power consumption is very nice to see.

Toldya in the recent 'deals' post that the multi would hold this thing back. I'd be as willing to bet it was a mobo limitation or setting as much as the CPU itself holding back the oc.

Your overclocking results now have me all paranoid as well. I took the Q9450 to 3.2GHz/1600FSB with no effort, but haven't been able to go higher due to memory limits (P35 = memory runs at least 1/2 of FSB speed, so 1600=DDR2-800).

Now I'm starting to wonder if there's anything more to be had. Buying 1066 to replace my 800 and finding it was a waste would be painful.

Greetings!

Regarding temperatures, the value that matters is the Core temperature, not the CPU temperature.

Think about it, ambient temperature would have to be 5-10ºC for the idle to be reported as 20ºC.

This was a cool little article. Next time can we see a similar article overclocking the nearest equivalent Opteron?

i love these kinds of quick-hit pieces.

can i request another one-pager, where you attempt undervolting the same proc and show the results from that? :)

Intel marks every processor with its unique operating voltage. According to their processor finder, the Q9300's VID range is 0.85 V - 1.3625 V.

http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLAWE

Sadly, the SLAWF X3320's details don't seem to have been added in. When they are, expect to find it at

http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SLAWF

(The sSpec is as per the markings on the processor pictured in the article.)

I would be very surprised if there wasn't a large degree of overlap between their VID ranges.

So what are the chances of someday hitting 4.21jiggawatts on a Q9450? New Bios? Chipset? This one is sad because the X3110 sounds SOO much more fun to play with.

FWIW, I got that HSF but minus the copper core with my E8400. I doubt it could have done much.

Also, I haven't had a 6MB quad to check against, but judging by how much the 12MB on my Q9450 helps versus the 8MB on my Q6600, I'd strongly encourage everyone to drop a few dollars more and get a less-FSB-starved quad.