Noob looking to overclock Q9450

[Seraphic]

Well, noob in the sense that I've never overclocked before.
I've always run it at stock speeds and idle around 23c to 26c.
Would like to get it from stock 2.6ghz to 3.6ghz (which should be safe, right?).

CPU: Q9450
Motherboard: GA-X48-DQ6
PowerSupply: ABS Tagan BZ Series BZ800
Memory: 8GB G.SKILL DDR2 1066
HeatSink: Thermalright 120 Extreme (two fans - one on each side for push pull)
Case: Antec 900 (all fans installed max speed)

My cable management isn't the best, but it's because I just have so many cables from the six hard-drives to two video cards and other hardware cards that have drive bay cables.

So above are my system specs.
To be honest, really have not much of an idea on what settings to change in the BIOS.
Along with what settings are "safe" to change or how high is too high when increasing power settings.
Any help would be great.

 

[Deleted member 184142]

One, you did not say what cooler you have (*edit* I see you added the cooler). Two, idle temps mean nothing, its all about load core temps. Three, head over the to C2 over clocking guide, allot of good info there so you can start getting your feet wet.

 

[zero2dash]

I got my ES Q9450 to 3.6
8x 450fsb
Took 1.4 Vcc + 1.4 Vtt to get it Prime95 stable
(NB 1.36)

1.4 is above VID spec (1.3625) but general consensus is don't go above 1.45Vcc (vcore) and not above 1.4Vtt (VTT's) for 45nm cpus especially not for 24/7 use. (Mine's 24/7)

The 8x multi cripples the chip badly. UD3R can do well over 500 but I could not get it stable above 450fsb without going to 1.4. I won't go any higher so I quit there.

4 sticks of G.Skill 800 running at 900 (1:2 divider). 1.9vdimm, 5-5-5-15 2T.
With a TRUE push/pull with SFF21E's, temps are 36c idle, 60c load
Keep in mind though mine's an ES, you may not get that high on that voltage. I believe the VID of my cpu is 1.2v.