Hello out there.It seems I have been around the world reading reviews, benchmarks and forum posts everywhere and I am still confused, skeptical and tired. I have settled on this processor but I cannot settle in on a MB and Ram model and speed. It seems there are many who have purchased some of the newer MB offerings from Asus, but not without Ram issues. I thought I had found an answer but then found others had problems. The chipset options are driving me crazy. For every positive post there were 2 negatives. I think the newer MB's seem to be going through a number of issues and I believe in time they will work it out. I personally do not wish to be part of the beta team for the MB or Ram manufacturers. I want to buy a proven MB and preferrably 1066 Ram that is known to work with this CPU. I am not interested in SLI or crossfire so I think this should narrow the focus. I understand this CPU has very good potential to go to 4ghz without any fancy cooling. Is this true, not sure. There have been a couple of postings about going to 4ghz with no problems and not using any fancy cooling. I really want the quad core and believe it will prove to be useful moving forward. So any help from you guys with MB, Ram and cooling solutions, who are using this CPU would be very much appreciated.Thanks and looking forward to talking with you.RegardsBob

Bump - Anyone?

Hi Bob,That CPU can overclock well over 4GHz provided that the rest of the hardware can keep up with it (namely, the north bridge). Cooling is actually not that big of a deal because that chip doesn't really get that hot with its 45nm process. It's much cooler than my older AMD FX chip and hardly breaks 55C under normal use, and all maxed out with Prime95 multi-threaded will get up between 56C and 66C indicated - I figure a cozy 62 - hard to tell without a good thermocouple.I have mine running at 4GHz/55C with water cooling for daily use in FSX. I don't think you need water cooling for the chip. A good air cooler would do just as well. I had my water cooling setup from an older rig, so for me it was simply a hardware upgrade in the same case. I find that the limiting factor in terms of overclocking the 9650 is not the CPU. It is to get the north bridge (X38) to behave with 4Gb of memory enabled in an O/C setup. In normal circumstances, that MCH can easily cook an omelet even with the very generous heatsink in the Gigabyte setup. Purist argue that it's not set correctly on the chip, etc... That's true, but unless you're into the ultra-high squeeze every MHz out, probably not worth the effort.I've gone up to 4.1GHz stable max with 4Gbs. With 2Gbs of memory only, I was able to easily reach 4.7GHz but I really want the 4Gbs in Vista. My board is a Gigabyte X38-DQ6, the DDR2 model (there is a DDR3 model also). The max boot FSB on my board is 510MHz, at 10X = 5.1GHz (that requires 1.6V core), and is definitely not for my long haul in the ether.I've bumped up the voltage to 1.45V (1.5V set in the Bios) to remain stable over long flights, and my normal configuration is 4GHz at 1066 memory (Corsair matched-pair DDR2-1066). At 4GHz, easily passes every torture test thrown at it.I'm pleased with the hardware setup considering that +1GHz over stock isn't a bad deal for the effort (400MHz FSB, 10X multiplier). I just found that overclocking with 4x1Gb of memory hits a stone wall. Most articles on the subject seem to point that 4GHz is easy on air - I can't agree more based on my own experience.It's possible to get much higher on that board and that CPU, but I'm just not comfortable going very high voltages. In terms of cooling, I'd think your middle-range air cooler would do just fine if you're not OK with the default heat-sink. If anything, I'd make sure you invest in good case wide cooling. I think that getting the heat out of your video card will probably serve you a lot more with that chip. Of course, if I would go with air, I'd probably pick a ThermalRight cooler - you do need a large vertical clearance to fit in the case.Hope this helps,Etienne

>Hello out there.>>It seems I have been around the world reading reviews,>benchmarks and forum posts everywhere and I am still confused,>skeptical and tired. I have settled on this processor but I>cannot settle in on a MB and Ram model and speed. It seems>there are many who have purchased some of the newer MB>offerings from Asus, but not without Ram issues.Get the ASUS Maximus Extreme: DDR3, No RAM issues.(Yeah, DDR3 is more expensive, but it shines when OC

Thanks to everyone for the help. I will churn over the recommendations and check to see what's in my wallet. :-lol ThanksBob

My QX with retail HSF runs on air to 4.3GHz, and that's with 8 GB of ram installed, totally stable. I lucked out with 4 matched modules of 800 that have faster than rated timings, hence I am able to get latencies of 59.5ns, and memory read bandwidth of 8400mb/sec. Now these are not huge scores, but they are decent, especially in the context of 8gb of ram installed. I will use the 8gb for audio production on Vista 64 . . . eventually! I have the case cover off and fresh air blowing directly on the entire mainboard, CPU, ram, GPU, etc. If I switch from plain air, to air conditioning, I will run idle temps of around 18C, to full load temps of 48 or 50 at 4.3Ghz. Without A/C, it's about 38/58. With NO supplemental cooling except for retail HSF, scores are 44/62 or so at 4.0Ghz. FSX runs great at 4.0Ghz so I haven't pushed it. Also, my machine runs, on air, and stock vCore of 1.25. After that I have to ramp up vCore quite abruptly. I have never tested to see how much more this guy with o'c over 4.3GHz. There is alot of debate going on in the DDR2 v DDR3 threads. It's worth a read. Nick N makes pretty compelling arguments for using the fastest memory subsystem, optimally tuned to the rest of the rig, using the best DDR3 you can find, for FSX. Seems to be saying everything just runs better, as defined by smoothness, texture loading speed and smoothness, and as a result, image quality. He is saying FSX's built-in algorithm for reducing load in the background in order to allow for frames is best overridden by a faster memory subsystem. This, in effect, brings out better visuals, that would have been sacrificed to maintain a certain minimum performance criteria in a lesser memory system. Since I have nothing to compare to first hand, it seems my slower DDR2-800 memory doesn't seem to be having much trouble handling FSX and producing great IQ. NoelQX9650 w/ Retail HSF|8GB Muskin PC-6400|ASUS P5E|EVGA 8800GT @700|Seagate SATA 2 x 4|Seagate Cheetah 15K.x|XP Pro|Vista 64--soon to be installed

Thanks Noel,Quite impressive. As stated in my initial message of this thread, I found it very difficult at first to widdle through and find the information that was really meaningful, and what was nothing more that splitting hairs. It requires alot of reading and note taking in order to determine what may or may not be an exaggeration or personal preference. Don't buy this, buy this one, or save your money for the next generation. DDR3 or DDR2, 800mhz or 1600mhz memory. I am so fricken worn out, I gave up on finding the Holy Grail. As stated previously, I am not a hardware tweaker. Oh sure I can put together a system, but all this overclocking stuff was something I finally decided I was not going to do. Oh sure, I overclocked my Asus a8n-sli with the FX-57 by going into the Bios and selecting 10% overclock. That is about as much as I am really interested in doing. Maybe it's my age as I would rather pay someone to put one together so I can just fly. But honestly, initially I was planning on learning the overclocking trade. I was going to be able to beat memory into submission and keep the CPU cool with air. I was ready to do this. Then, I finally realized that I have the money to have someone else do it. After all, what I really want to do is Fly. So that is what I am doing. I am buying a system from a local system builder. I took their recommendations on what does make a difference, and what doesnt. I was very lucky to talk to a guy who turned out to be an avid FSX fan. He had his own system and new all about the best addons, cfg tweaks and I was able to visit him and see it run first hand. I could not believe what FSX was capable of doing. I paid about $2100 and got what I believe to be a great system. It should be here next week and I am going to enjoy flying rather that squeezing the s#%t out of the Bios. I want to thank everyone who chimed in as their comments and recommendations were incredibly helpful and most of all educational.Kind RegardsBob

That's great Bob. You will enjoy this! So far, I'm feeling ok about my *sluggish* memory subsystem. It is all soooo relative. After reading about this issue I began to believe I could not expect excellent visuals, smoothness & complexity with this memory. I am very pleasantly happy to discover it's pretty darn decent. So, the urgency of losing my mainboard and memory is not so urgent. I have an older brother who lost roughly half of his retirement savings due to a side effect of the mortgage meltdown, who always did a system upgrade when I did, so we could compute together (FS, Tiger Woods, etc.) He's feeling too poor to upgrade, but when he decides I will offer my mainboard and memory and upgrade to the highest end when that happens. Partly cuz he'll need a good deal, and partly because I think Nick's arguments make sense, even if perf is very good now.