Q9650 vs. QX9650 and Overclocking

I know the difference between the Q and QX 9650's is a locked vs. unlocked multiplier, and the unlocked makes it easier to OC.  If I use the nVidia 790i Ultra motherboard and liquid cooling, what speeds could I expect to OC a Q9650 to?  A QX9650?

Overclocking causes more heartache than it is worth, I have yet to see more than a handful of happy over clocked users. Most of them end up with random freezes, restarts, oddball system issues... until they set components to their rated speed and suddenly, magically, the problems go away.

If you want a stable, trouble free system, buy the best proc you can afford speed wise and do not overclock.

Simple,  easy and guaranteed to please.

Dave

I am not talking just DS, I am talking everywhere. All the OC forums, from Overclockers Club to the nVidia forums, there are multitudes of problems expressed with overclocks.

Now go through the same forums and look at issues with hardware running at spec, there are almost none. That pretty much speaks for itself.

Now just take DS... in the forums all the complaints I have seen barring a few shipping disasters and incorrect hardware mistakes that happen very rarely, and look at all the other problems, a quick review by my count shows that about 60% of the issues thrown out on these forums come down to hardware issues on over clocked machines.

Some are bad memory or bad motherboards, but those end results always seem to show up on overclocked machines that were ordered.

I am not saying that DSO is a terrible place, far from it, they are great guys, but I think in my experience hanging out on these forrums for the past 7 months or so the happiest people are the customers who ordered PCs with no overclock. Less errors, less problems, less emergencies, less unexplained garbage that happens.

YMMV but for my 1000+ bucks, I would rather know it works then hope like hell I get the golden goose.

Dave


Edited by Kliebor2 - 13 Nov 2008 at 2:54pm

I have to agree with DST4ME on this one. This was another deciding factor in choosing DS. They are one of the few companies out there that will overclock your hardware, and WARRANTY it!

I know how many people I have helped config a PC for and I know which of them come back complaining, PG1 for example but he was taken care of also.

As Alex has says many times, happy people don't tend to post people with problem do, so if you are going by that, then there is a flaw right there

which is more likely:

A. after many years of OCing, hundred of thousands of people, not one has realized that everybody's PC is freezing due to over clock.

B. OC with right settings/temp, has absolutely nothing to do with PCs freezing, which is why nobody has noticed it after all these years.

If your theory were correct, 90% of the people with OC from DS should be here complaining, they are not. they couldn't be a part of BBB or have the - Outside Link Removed - they do.

2 + 2 has to equal 4.

Edited by DST4ME - 13 Nov 2008 at 5:15pm

Originally posted by Kliebor2 If it has to go back even once, I would rather sink 600 in up front, shipping back at my expense is 240 bucks for Fedex... so there goes your cost savings

I live a few miles from DS (in San Jose) so I can just drive it back.

Shipping is coverd by ds for the first 30 days only

Just to clarify:

That is great news Alex, its great to know that you guys are not just sitting on your butts and instead are being pro active to try and catch other companies flawed products

I felt very comfortable with my money going to DS before but now you just made it even more comfortable

Knowing how well DS test there rigs makes feel much better about my system I ordered overclocked.

Well looks like they have done it for many others, XP for example has a very nice q9550 oced on air, and that is just one, there are many other customers with oc on air, not sure what happened with yours but lets have Alex comment on it before we say DS can't do it

So in other words.. in the first 30 days of you getting your system if you end up sending it back its (shipping) covered, and by the time it gets back you have another 30 days window (from the date of the delivery) to find a problem/issue with it to be eligible for free-shipping back to back.