Selling my beloved Q9450

To a geek – it’s like a classic automobile – something not everyone on the block has.  Something out of production. Yet, a chip that reached 4.2 on water and corrupted my RAID Controller. Ran for nearly a year @ 3.8 with a 1999mhz FSB – stable as can be!

(sniff)

Upgraded to Core i7 920 almost 2 weeks ago and the performance gains are unbelievable.  Stock for Stock clocks gain you an average of 25% more CPU power at the same frequencies.  Both chips come at 2.66ghz.  Q9450 holds 12mb L2 cache.  i7 920 hold 8mb L2 Cache. 

Geek Up!

New PC Eye Candy v.1

And then came along Corei7. (Codename Bloomfield)

I waited for the 1366 socket version. The reward was AMAZING.

On a P6T Motherboard running Mushkin XP3 1600 DDR3, I run @ 4.17 stable on Prime95 and all Burn-in tests. (woot to that)

I could go higher – (4.4-ish) if i had a better cooling solution, currently CoolIT’s Domino ALC. (29c-31c idled) (45c-50c nominal load) (70c-75c 8 thread full burn for 8 hours) Keeping in mind the chip will turn off the motherboard at 90C. It did not get any higher on Prime95’s 8 all-around test.

During my intense work scenarios using Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash, Media Player, MSN Messenger, IE, Firefox, Dreamweaver and more – all at the same time I only reach temps of 38-42. MAX.

Game scenarios.. we’ll see.

Temp fluctuations are due to room temperature.. new furnace… basement… winter… you get it… geek.

My Old PC…

Almost a year ago I had just acquired the Q9450 QuadCore chip & was seeing what it could do.  Pretty impressive.  Turned out that 4.0 was actually usable in almost every windows task.  Prime95 saw it BSOD… However I ran it for the rest of the year at a stable 3.8ghz

Instead of the air cooler, i picked up a CoolIT Domino ALC which kept it at an amazing 28C on idle and no more than 45 on full loads. Not bad at all for a 1+ ghz o/c.

Who cares about voltage. It was stable.

BUT – THEN… I upgraded the ENTIRE system. ENTIRELY.

Real Geek Stuff

A short time ago i schpeeled about how bringing your work home with you was essential in the foregoing development of blah blah blah. Uhh.. heheh.. yup.

Domino A.L.C.

Not bad for a < 100 dollar water cooler.  Truth be told i scraped the default heat compound off – lapped the heatsink a tad – and applied AS5 heat compound and @ 3.8ghz its a stable 25 degrees celcius on zero load.  3000rpm mini-rad fan.