What is the diffrence between Q9450 and Q9550?

Right so I have been pondering of going quad for a good while, I guess more so 'cus I want a new toy. Now obviously if the cash was there I'd snatch a 920 D0 put it on a gigabyte/evga board but the cash is not there atm

So I'm thinking Q9550, but today I saw a Q9450 bargain priced, a real steal so I was thinking whats the diff between the two.

From what I can see the only diffrence is the multiple 8.5 vs 8.0?

Is the Q9450 on same E0 stepping as the Q9550 or are they diffrent there aswell?

8x500 = 4.0 ghz so 2000 FSB to reach 4.0 ghz..quite high but could be doable.

8.5x471 = 4003.5mhz, 29x4 = 116 FSB in diffrence(1884 FSB vs 2000 )..not a whole lot. I mean ~50 bucks for a 2ndhand Q9450 E0 ( if there is any? ) sound to me like a bargain.

Would be nice to hear some other people who pondered this before.

 

Q9450
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_2/Intel-Core 2 Quad Q9450 EU80569PJ067N (BX80569Q9450).html

and
Q9550
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_2/Intel-Core 2 Quad Q9550 EU80569PJ073N (BX80569Q9550).html

No difference but clock speed ^^

 

Ok, thats good news. Do you know anything about the steppings, or a way to find out ?

Guess I could google Q9450 E0 stepping and see what I find

Then I again if I google "mars attacks earth" I will get hits aswell, so not sure how reliably any 'random forum' info is in this case :wanker:

/edit

Well the word on the net seems to be there is no E0 Q9450 only C1 and it was EOL pritty early in the production to leave room for the Q9550 and QX quads.

Anyone who know for sure?

 

i doubt you would hit 4ghz with Q9450, more like 3.8ghz and even then you would need voltages above 1.36v ..

Other than that both are fast cpus, q9550 would be a bit better choice though..

 

Yeah the difference is pretty much the multi as you've written. Always hated the way Intel charge a bucket load of cash for an extra .5 multi, always thought that was BS.

But anyway, if your goal is to achieve 4Ghz it'll be a whole lot easier on the 9550 due to that extra multi. Now if you know your mobo is good for 500Mhz FSB on a quad then get the 9450. Don't know much about your mobo tbh but i've always thought that hitting 2000Mhz System Bus to not be an easy task.

Not sure on the Vcore requirements of running either chip really, hitting 4Ghz on a 9450 may require more Vcore than hitting the same freq on a 9550, not to mention other mobo voltages to achieve that higher system bus.

I think 3.6Ghz-3.8Ghz is a much more attainable goal for the 9450, and lets be honest, it doesn't really need to be much faster than that really.

 

Hmm, all true.

Hard to predict how this mobo will perform with a quad init, booted on 2120 FSB with the E85 @ 5 ghz, obviously not stable, and too much voltage but atleast booted and ran cpu-z ..

/edit

I suppose a Q9450 at 4.0 is out of the question without running synched high end ddr2 ram. Hitting 3.6 on the Q9450 would prolly be reasonable and 3.8-4.0 with a Q9550.

 

Perhaps do some googling on your mobo with the 9x50 seris of CPU's might come across results from some1 whos already had a play around.

But yeah 3.6Ghz for the Q9450 should be easy, as is 4Ghz on the Q9550

Gonna be working on mine again soon, see if i can hit that 2000Mhz System Bus nice and stable

 

Hehe, I don't mean the 780i in general when I say this board, but I mean MY board

I have changed this board 4 times until I got one that I liked the performance of and that didn't have overly high static noises comming off the NB fan caps.

I know alot of people ran Q66s and Q95 Q96s on the 780i chipset with decent results many hitting above 4 ghz. The issue for me will be the chip in perticular, how volt hungry it is and if the mobo indeed can run as high fsb with a quad as it does with a duo.

 

if you wan 4ghz+ get a q9550, 9650. If you wanna settle for less than 4ghz get the 9450.

 

Or pick up a second hand QX9650 on ebay, they go for around as much as a 9550 new and have that unlocked multiplier.

 

my qx9650 is voltage hungry 1.45v for 4ghz. I recommend getting a new chip.the unlocked multi is nice but I settled on the 9muli for best performance

 

^+1

New E0 Q9550/9650 is the way to go. Both QX9650 and Q9450's are older C0/C1 stepping chips.

 

I don't think 95 or 9650's are worth the price from a nicely overclocked E8500.

Could almost get a motherboard and i5 750 for the price of a new 9650.

 

I just don't want to make a new tread for my question since i'm a proud owner of 3.800mhz q9450 rock solid and easily done with all voltages set to auto now... My cuestion is will these motherboard (LANPARTY UT X48-T2R)http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136049 BE AN IMPRUBEMENT bandwith wise for my XFX 5870 and my GTX260 (For PHYSICS) considering i'm running them whith a P5K right now ...........Any Imput will be apreciated considering my plan of crossfiring in the near future and moving to a 30 inch display ..........Thanks

 

It would be an improvement, yes. X38 and X48 boards run dual PCI-e 2.0 x16

Also, I'd recommend looking at your voltages and manually setting them to as low as is possible to be stable, I hear leaving it on auto can put it a good deal overvolted when overclocked.

 

Thans RENO For your input ........Much apreciated read some reviews about this board an they are negative overcloking wise but i'll take my chances..........And To THE ORIGINAL POSTER, Bro go Quad you will never regreat it either one will be your pride for a while so go acording to your budget

 

QXXX will never reach 500FSB without some kind of drastic cooling.

If you have a E8400 @4.4GHz I'd hold onto that until you can afford a P55 or X58 setup, unless you could sell or trade it easily, then I'd tell you to grab a Q9550 E0.

 

The diffrence is a multipler one.

To be honest though, the Q9550 is way too expensive to justify it. I'd be content with the Q9400 @ 3.2GHz +, although the Q9450 is nice and all, it all comes down to price.

 

Thanks for all the responses guys, really appriciate it!

My idea was to get a real cheap bargain Q9450 or a Q9550 and sell my E8500 wich should cover almost my upgrade loss since it is a guaranteed 4ghz cpu and I have ran it on 4.7ghz and currently running it on 4.4 ghz. And I know for a fact if your mobo can take 500 fsb and your mem is OK with that then this cpu can bench at 4.7 ghz with adequate cooling so I mean it has alot of things going for it in a sale/auction.

I'm doing this both b/c I have mastered the E85 I can't do anything with it at this stage, and also 'cus more and more games seems to enjoy the quad optimizations. Obviously I have always thought about going X58 but I'm not so sure if I will go for any more dual gpu setups ( and to be honest this is where X58 shines ). Also, if I do go X58 in 6 months time I'm thinking a Quad would have a higher resell value then a C2D would have, even though I might not get a recipt for the 2ndhand quad I buy.

Atm I'm looking at a Q9450 @ 100 dollars and I expect it to not go over 130 wich is my max bid pritty much and a Q9550 wich the dude wants 220 dollars for but I think I can haggle him down to 180 dollars.

If I sold my E85 on same auctionsite (judging from ongoing and past auctions ) I think I would get 120-150 dollars for it, almost covering the upgrade cost. Bit of a hassle selling and buying but could work out pritty nicely.

I been looking at Ebay some but doesn't seem like you americans are willing to ship to europe, and the european ebay is just useless, the germans want like 350 euros for a Q9550 etc wich is pure lolz. Sucks I can't abuse the exchange course online, all this fancy talk about global economies and then I can't even trade smoothly :/

 

Well, I recently purchased a Q9450 and as far as I see I´m pretty satisfied with it. I run it at 3.8Ghz with so low volts 1.32V or so for 24/7. But reaching 4Ghz is a no go for me, I´ve tried tons of configs but it seems a fsb wall going past 480Fsb on my mobo.

Good luck!