I wanted to buy a good processor initially, somethin like a qx9650, but was then warned off that as overkill and only if you wanted to break a record

Therefore I'm thinking about things like the Q9550 for me.

First off, I have NO IDEA about OverClocking. Just had to put that out there. So is there anywhere where I can 'learn' overclocking, because I don't want to end up torching my processor, or underworking it? This would be great as I could kind of reassure myself that I wouldn't end up with my case on fire and would really push me to actually get the build done, instead of it being something in the back of my head...

Secondly, what do you guys realistically think that I could safely get this thing up to? Normally it runs @ 2.83GHz with 1333MHz FSB. I wouldn't be running water, just lots of air: I would get something like the cosmos S, fill it with fans, and get the big zalman cpu fan.

I want to keep this system for a while, and am very tentative when it comes to potentially wrecking pricey equipment, so please nothing too outlandish!

Thanks very much for anything you can provide to help me!

The Yorkfields haven't been overclocking as well as we hoped. If you want some high clocks, get the E8400 or E8500. The Yorkfields all have low multipliers and people are running into FSB walls pretty early on most of them. If you want a quad and some pretty good clocks, I'd think about hanging with the Q6600 instead, it'll get about as far (assuming you don't get a bum chip) and costs less.

As for where you'd learn about overclocking, just read. hardforum and anandtech both have good guides, I'm not familiar with the guides of other forums like ocforums, extremeoverclocking, etc. After reading their guides, I'd swing over to xtremesystems and take a look at what people are trying and what kind of numbers they're pulling (in addition to reading the overclocking forums of the other sites).

With regards to the heatsink, I'd suggest going with either the Zerotherm NV120 or Xigmatek S1283. They're priced better and perform better.

As for how far we think you can get it, my guess is around 3.6-3.8 GHz if you get lucky.

If this is a build thread as well, let me ask a few questions:
What's your budget?
What's this going to be used for?
What size is your monitor?
Are you overclocking?
What components are you carrying over from another system and what components are you planning on buying?
How long do you intend to keep this system?
When are you buying?

Budget: up to £300 for the CPU
Use: High-end gaming
Monitor: 24" 19 x 12
Overclocking?: hopefully
Components: Buying all fresh (laptop before)
Usage Length: 2 years of really hardcore usage, then off to uni, so gaming for probably as long as i can with this, upgrading along the way
Buying: End of this summer

Thanks very much by the way Gwai Lo. Very Helpful

Yep, no problem.

Okay, since you're not buying till the end of the summer, come back in August or September and post in the other hardware sub forum, but with the full budget for the entire system and include all of that information.

Intel is doing cuts and changes to their product line in Q3. Nvidia and AMD are doing product line refreshments in two weeks. Eaglelake (Intel's new mainstream chipset) should be launching this summer. Power supply and aftermarket cooling companies are always rolling out new things. Wait till the week of buying and then assemble a list.

Great. Thanks very much

Q6600 is what im using and it OC'd pretty easy, technically first OC for me...asus' "AI Overclock" doesn't count, and the only other one was on an old P2, OC'd by Jumpers

So did you just pick up bits and pieces of info around the net or what? The thing is, I'm struggling to find a comprehensive guide that covers everything. The ones that gwai lo suggested were good, but is there anything that is like an "overclocking for dummies" kinda thing?

I was thinking about the Q6600, but the q4550/5500 apparently run cooler and need less volts, so i figured that that was something that would help me to not screw up

I think you mean the Q9450 and the Q9550. Not trying to be rude, I just want to have it clarified so you don't waste your time searching for something that doesn't exist.

I would suggest the Q9450 over the Q6600 and the Q9550 and not just because that's what I'm putting in mine. First off, the Q9550 comes only clocked a little bit higher than the Q9450 (a hundred or two mhz I think). You said you will be overclocking so you will be able to easily cover that gap between the Q9450 and the Q9550 while saving yourself a couple bucks.

Second, the Q9450 over the Q6600 because of a couple reasons. The Q9450 has 12mbs of cache over the Q6600's 8mb. 4mb might not seem very big, but in the world of cache that's a nice boost. The Q9450 is also built on the 45nm technology and will run cooler like you said. Finally, people have been recommending the Q6600 because of the large overclocks you can get with it. That is true, but that doesn't mean that the Q9450 overclocks terrible because a lot of people I have talked to said they have got it to the 3.5-3.8ghz area pretty easily.

Gwai feel free to correct me in any spots, but I'm just trying to add in what I've learned so far.

Yeah sorry that's what I meant - typo

Completely agree with your processor recommendations - was leaning towards the q9450 anyway (though in all probability s'th new will be out by the time i buy). Mainly the 450 over the 550 because I only want to go to 3.6 and not higher (you can get 3.8 easily apparently out of the 550). That said, maybe the higher of the two would be good as I could kind of OC to futureproof if you see what I mean...

Thanks for the useful advice

If you have the money then sure go for the Q9550. It will allow you to possibly get where you want with your OC just a little bit easier then.

Nothing wrong with your spin on it, everyone is spinning it differently. It's pretty much purely opinion right now, no right answers, good choice either way...considering the entire playing field right now, anything with an Allendale core or higher would be a good choice.

I'll expand on what I said, although it may just be redundant assuming one reads far enough into the few words I said earlier, however it only applies right now. The Q9450 is currently priced around 70% higher than the Q6600. However, it has a lower multiplier (8 as opposed to the Q6600's 9) and pushing 450-500 FSB with a quad has not been any easier on the memory controllers. From reading around on XS and hardforum, the X38's are hitting walls around 420-430 FSB which are either overclock-ending walls or require significant bumps in voltage across the board. So, 3.6-3.8 GHz was really a high estimate from me, sub 3.5 appears closer to the mean. The same numbers would put the Q6600 at 3.8 GHz assuming you had a chip that could do the clocks and a method of cooling that can keep up. As we all know, 3-3.2+ GHz tends to cancel out just about any performance differences save SSE4, video editing, etc etc. So the Yorkfields have problems with the lower multipliers, the chips are probably not running into a thermal or wall on the chip. Some kind of combination between the motherboards not being able to push high FSB and the Yorkfields themselves is holding them back. On the other hand, the Q6600's don't have that problem, but they're simply running much warmer and not quite as overclockable as the Yorkfields...however both chips will get to the point where the performance difference isn't significant, merely the price.

Anyway, I wouldn't make any hard decisions still in light of this.

That is really disappointing. I can't wait that long (middle of July is the latest) so it looks like I will be stuck with the Q9450. What a waste to spend all that money for it to drop that radically in price. Will it be outdated that much (spec. wise) compared to those other ones listed?

Don't expect so, no new architecture introduced...and yeah crap happens. It's why we tell people to wait till the very last moment before buying and ignore anything out of your timeframe. It's difficult, I get buyer's remorse allll the time.

I guess I just wanted to put as much as I could into my first computer build to not only last a while, but to hold off Nehalem upgrading. I just don't see upgrading (to Nehalem) while in college for obvious reasons.

I leave for college early to mid August, so that's why I was going to wait until mid July to buy parts. The Q9450 has been dropping in price quite a bit on Newegg, so it will be entertaining to watch how low it will go before I buy.

Yep, I was in the same position as you before leaving for school. I wasn't in a rush and really wanted the rumored "Conroe" chips, ended up ordering a few days before leaving for school...but motherboard companies decided to lie about launch dates by three months and I ended up taking all of my components with me to school and had the system running two weeks into school. -_-

He he he, I don't know if I will be able to wait that long. The thing that I might hold off on the longest is the graphics card. The 9800 GTX will be way under $300 by then, but then ATI's new card (the $300 one) is supposed to smoke the 9800 GTX. I really dislike ATI after my last two card purchases from them, so that is what really worries me the most.

Would be great if the 9800GTX went down, because then I'd easily be able to manage a couple of those in SLI financially speaking (yes I do have 19 x 12 so I would see performance benefits, right?), which apparently beats the 9800gx2 by quite a bit Then again, it all depends on how good the GT280 is...