Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9770 Review :: Setup and Compatibility

The QX9770 CPU is a Socket LGA-775 CPU and should work easily in any motherboard that supports the 1600MHz FSB. One issue I’ve always had with Intel CPUs is that they often require a new motherboard even though the interface is the same. The 925X chipset launched in 2004 can’t support this new CPU due to the various changes made to the process, the FSB, and the memory support not being there.

QX9770 Specs

The ASUS P5E3 Deluxe board used in this review was reviewed a couple of months ago by myself. This board has support for all of the latest technologies including DDR3 memory, Crossfire support, FSB 1600 and Intel’s 45 nanometer processors. Installation was a snap. Open the lever insert the QX9770 aligning the notches with the Socket, close the top lower the lever and the CPU is installed. After applying a bit of thermal paste and attaching the CPU heat sink, installation was complete.

DDR3 memory support is currently limited to 1333MHz officially by Intel for their X48 chipset. Memory speed has improved over time as there is DDR3-2000 memory on the market. NVIDIA chipsets support DDR3-2000 memory when the EPP Profiles are enabled in the BIOS, but the default memory speed is 1333MHz for their chipsets as well. Intel has a specification called Xtreme Memory Profile that offers similar features allowing higher memory profiles to be used with higher speed memory.

Overclocking of the 3.2GHz QX9770 was pretty high. In testing, we were able to get the QX9770 to over 4.202GHz on air cooling, an impressive feat considering it is the fastest Intel multi-core CPU available at the time this article was written. 4.2GHz is a 33% overclock. There are faster single core CPUs but the QX9770 is the fastest of the current multiple core CPUs on the market.

Overclock

The second board I tested compatibility with on the QX9770 was an ASUS P5K Deluxe motherboard based upon the Intel X38 chipset. This board ran the QX9770 CPU without issues after overclocking the FSB of the board to 1600MHz. The other boards I have tested include an nForce 780i SLI board that worked and an ASUS Blitz Formula that both worked without issue. The EVGA nForce 780i SLI board was another board that I tried out with the new CPU. This board is based upon last year’s NVIDIA 780i chipset and is pretty popular among people that want to SLI NVIDIA video cards. The QX9770 works without problems on this board at the rated 3.2GHz speed.