Q: Was this CPU overclocked?
A: Yes, initially I was able to run it at 2.3GHz (stock voltage.) The CPU ran this way for about 8 months. But as the summer months came, I found that running 2 intensive programs would cause the CPU-fan to spin faster (and noticeably louder.) After the first crash, I dropped down to 2.2GHz. THIS IS NOT A GUARANTEE OF OVERCLOCKING. (You may be able to better +or+ worse, depending on your components, and whether you're willing to risk overvolting the CPU. I did not overvolt the CPU, and I always enabled the 'Cool And Quiet' feature.) The real reason I'm dumping this CPU is that I found a lot of software (games) just doesn't work properly with a dual-core CPU. For example, Neverwinter Nights would exhibit stuttering problems (speedup followed by slowdown). A few others would actually crash to desktop (until the developer released a patch.) Other general Windows problems can be fixed through various Windows/XP 'hotfixes' put out by Microsoft. One problem had no solution -- the NVidia Nforce4 USB2 controller would simply hang the system, no matter what speed I ran. I had to buy a PCI USB2 card. This general behavior occured with 2 other X2/3800+'s at my workplace (purchased at the same time, on different Nforce4 motherboards), so I'm confident this CPU for sale is not damaged/defective. If you do research on the web, you will find my criticisms come up pretty often (and some apply to Intel dual-core CPUs, as well.) One thing I did not try, was to disable Cool and Quiet, and disable power-management under Windows. This actually fixes a lot of problems, and overclocking-users tend to do this. I did not, because this system was required to run 24hrs/7days (most of the time, idle), so I made power-reduction a priority over everything else.
will the dual core cpu not run single core games well?
