Overclocking Intel’s Q9550s with Cooler Master Hyper N520 . . . Part One of “Quad Core vs Dual Core” Shootout

Test Configuration

Featured Hardware

Cooler Master Hyper N520 installed and cooling Q9550S

Intel Q9550S right at home

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 (reference 3.33 GHz, Overclocked to 3.99 Ghz and 4.25 Ghz ).
• Intel Core 2 Quad EQ9550S (reference 2.83 GHz, Overclocked to 3.4 Ghz, 3.6 Ghz and 3.99 Ghz )
• ASUS P5e-Deluxe (Intel X48 chipset, latest BIOS. PCIe 2.0 specification; crossfire 16x+16x).
• 4 GB DDR2-PC8500 RAM (2×2 GB, dual-channel at up to 1066 Mhz).
• Nvidia GeForce GTX280 (1 GB, nVidia reference clocks) by BFGTech
• ATi Radeon 4870 (1GB, reference clocks) by ASUS
• ATi Radeon 4870X2 (2 GB, reference clocks) by VisionTek
• SupremeFX-II audio (ASUS P5e Deluxe daughter-card)
• 2 – Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 Hard Drives [setup identically, except for the graphics cards]
• Cooler Master Hyper N520 universal CPU cooler

Test Configuration – Software

• ATi Catalyst 8.12hotfix, highest quality mip-mapping set in the driver; Catalyst AI set to “advanced”
• nVidia Geforce 182.22, high quality driver setting, all optimizations off, LOD clamp enabled.
• Windows Vista 32-bit SP31; very latest updates
• DirectX November 2008.
• All games patched to their latest versions.
• Core Temp 0.94.4

Test Configuration – Settings

• as noted, vsync off in the driver to “application decide” and never in game.
• 4xAA only enabled in-game; all settings at maximum 16xAF applied in game [or in CP except as noted; No AA/AF for Crysis and No AA for UT3]
• All results show average, minimum and maximum frame rates
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Vista32, all DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths