These are hard to find CPU's are they not?Well yesterday I went into my local MicroCenter store and low and behold they had a dozen of these bad boys. And for $299 yet!!!If you live near a MicroCenter give them a call and see if they have them in stock. They are ONLY selling these in-store so they are NOT available online.This is by far the best price right now on these, and they didn't say how long this price will last. They have them listed normally for $399 at the store.Anyway, just thought I'd throw this out there for those looking for a new CPU.If you don't know about it, the Q9450 is a Quad Core 2.66Ghz on the newer 45nm chip. It also boasts 12MB of on-die cache. It is, if you have the right motherboard easy to overclock and there are reports of people getting these bad boys up to 4Ghz.But even at stock, this is the best quad out there since the very popular Q6600

Q9450: 8

I've read several reviews of people getting this thing stable on a X38 or X48 chipset at or very near 4Ghz, so yes it is possible. Just do some searching and you'll see.

>I've read several reviews of people getting this thing stable>on a X38 or X48 chipset at or very near 4Ghz, so yes it is>possible. Just do some searching and you'll see.Dont get me wrong I'm sure its true, people do amazing things with hardware.In my experience for the average person a 500MHz FSB is nearly impossible,with common off the shelf components.It generates a lot of heat and is very hard to get stable, but that's the fun of it :)

Yes, you are definitely right about overclocking creating heat. But, people seem to be overlooking the fact that these new 45nm chips use less juice, so they generate less heat. So, for overclockers, it is becoming easier and easier to overclock to unbelievable levels simply because your processor is not creating as much heat anymore.I definitely say that these things could hit the 4 GHz level, and I am sure they can hit the 3.5 Ghz area with ease.

Exactally. Those that have been successful have been using the newer intel chipsets.For me, this will be my last upgrade for my 2 yr old Abit IN9-32 Max (680i Chipset) motherboard. It will 'work' with this CPU, but OCing is almost impossible...maybe a little bit, but just the fact that it is supported makes me happy. Now I can probably screetch out a total of 5 yrs on this system instead of the usual 3-4.