Hitting the Wall - Any ideas?

[GavX]

Sadly my Core2Quad is showing its age now, and I really want to get the last bit of juice of my system before my planned Core i7 (maybe i9 if I am rich after xmas).

My current Q9450 can hit 3.8Ghz (480x8 @1.45v), and ~17.5k in 3DMark06, but was wondering if you lot knew any tricks I could try to get the last oomph out my system.

I am not clued up on RAM overclocking at all, but would loosening my timings from 5-5-5 @1066 to say 6-6-6 or 7-7-7 @1150 (my next RAM FSB strap) help majorly? With my current FSB of 480 I have to calm the RAM down to 900Mhz or so as 1150Mhz seemed crazy and thought tighter timings would be better than higher freq, would this tasty 250Mhz extra get me closer to my 20k in 3DMark?

And any other tricks to go balls to the wall for CPU overclocking?

I have hit as high a FSB as I think I can, but looking for any tricks.

Yet to play with VTT as I hear it kills CPUs like nothing else, and I would at least like to sell my Q9450 when I am done

C'mon, lets give Red October its last Huzzah

Spec is as follows:

Q9450

ASUS Maximus Formula

4Gb PC8500 RAM

Radeon HD4870

Velociraptor

TJ07 with full watercooling

 

[Ham]

Tbh you've probably hit your safe ceiling. But if you want some fun just slap and extra .1v through it, more if needed.

VTT tweaking will help too and don't be too affraid. It's only a real danger if run for hours at high settings (or if your really unlucky...).

 

[GavX]

Really unlucky?

November 2007- Feb 2008: 5 more motherboards went to silicon heaven with me, bad Enermax PSU.

May 2008: Case caught fire

April 2009: 7900GS blew up

June 2008: Coolermaster PSU blew up

November 2008: Samsung F1 Boot Sector collapsed

Most of them wen't really *my* fault...