Overclocking Q8200 vs Q8300

[kingdom9214]

Hey guys, I'm still trying to finish my wife's med-end PC for BF3 ! I tried one of my Athlon X3 445 with her GTX 570 but was just to much CPU bottleneck. So I dug out a Q8200 out of my closet and threw its in my ABit IP35 Pro MB. So far its seem to help with the low GPU usage I was having with that X3. Skyrim & BF3 went up about 5-10fps with the Q8200 at 3ghz.

I know the Q8200 is pretty notorious for being one the worst OCing Core2Quad out there. I can't get the Chip past 3ghz without pushing the Vcore to 1.4. That just to high for me. So my buddy said he has a Q8300 just lying around that he would just trade for my Q8200. I just want to know is the Q8300 going to roughly OC any better ? I would like 3.2-3.4ghz !

Note I have a decent MB, Ram, Cooler, and PSU
ABit IP35 Pro
Gskill 1000mhz DDR2
Corsair TX750
V8 cpu cooler

 

[mavalpha]

You'll go from a 7x multiplier to a 7.5x, which won't help very much unfortunately. Those chips overclocked poorly because of the low multiplier, which meant you generally needed both a CPU and motherboard that could handle high FSB settings to really push them. So yes, it'll be a LITTLE easier with the extra half-multi, but you'll still be well over 400MHz FSB just to get 3.2GHz, which was a tall order for that generation.

 

[hotcrandel]

I remember that people had more trouble overclocking multipliers with ".5" or halves in them, they were less successful having big OC's.

 

[kingdom9214]

I'm just trying to squeeze every frame lol, on BF3 with the Q8200 at stock it was using about 55-70% of her GTX 570. At 3.0ghz its uses about 65-80%, so I figure with it at 3.4ghz it would be using 80-90% and stop bottle-necking the card.

I was just going to go buy a Q9550 or Q9650 but there like $250+ for that I'll just buy a 2500k lol

 

[drescherjm]

Q9650 but there like $250+

You can always get a used Q9550 for $125 to $150. Although at this point I would sell your current stuff and get an i5 2500k. You will probably end up spending $200 to $300 for the upgrade after selling your motherboard + ram + CPU and purchasing a new mobo + CPU + ram.

 

[cyclone3d]

You'll go from a 7x multiplier to a 7.5x, which won't help very much unfortunately. Those chips overclocked poorly because of the low multiplier, which meant you generally needed both a CPU and motherboard that could handle high FSB settings to really push them. So yes, it'll be a LITTLE easier with the extra half-multi, but you'll still be well over 400MHz FSB just to get 3.2GHz, which was a tall order for that generation.

The FSB limitation is more of a chipset / PLL limitatrion than it was for the chips.

My Q6600 worked fine at up to 480Mhz fsb on a Gigabyte P45 based motherboard.

The P35 based board would only get me to 3.6Ghz with that chip, while the P45 based board let me do 3.84Ghz.

 

[Jorona]

My system is about as far as you can go with a Q8200 without true liquid cooling, and even then its not much higher under water. You'll really be leaning on your P35. I'm running 475mhz FSB and I dunno if a P35 can do that without running too hot.

Edit: It looks like the IP35 only gets to about 450mhz stable with quads. So 3.15ghz is more then likely your ceiling. Also, your Q8200 sounds crappy, mine runs at 1.375v at 3.33ghz.