Questions about possible R1 QX9300 upgrade

I have an M17x R1, and I'm probably going to have it for another couple of years or more. I am overall very pleased with my R1, and besides the throttling issues that are correctable with throttlestop and some problems related to drivers on ATI's end of things, I cannot complain about it. It seems like the 4870's will probably keep me happy for a good while, but I'm already seeing limitations with my CPU. It's a decent CPU and it overclocks very nicely, but I'm definitely going to be wanting a quad-core in the future.

I've been looking around on ebay at QX9300's and noticed that there is some pretty big variation in price and noticed that there are "refurbished" OEM pieces for around 500 sometimes.

I have a couple of questions regarding these CPU's that I'm hoping some of you would be willing to answer:

1. Should I avoid a refurbished one? I'm honestly not even sure how one would refurbish a CPU, it seems like they could do little more than test it and make sure it works ok. It might also be that refurbished would be my only option whenever I'm able to purchase, I just want to make sure it won't be an issue.

2. Throttling. I am fully aware of the throttling issues that arise from overclocking these things. My CPU even throttles if I am not using throttlestop, but throttlestop completely eliminates any throttling for me. I understand that at some point, you simply cannot pull more power from the standard 240w adapter, so my question is; What are the OC limits of these things? Will i experience issues with power cutting out if I overclock too much, or will I be able to overclock all I want assuming I have throttlestop enabled?

Also, do you guys think the QX9300 will be readily available for a while, or should I think about grabbing one ASAP?

I've read through the OC threads and other threads, but I've had a hard time gathering the information I'm looking for, and hoping one or a few of you would be nice enough to lay it out for me.

 

From doing some reading on the subject, 'refurbished' is more like a returned CPU that someone wasn't happy with. I ran mine at 3.06Ghz all of the time with no problems, and this is before I had heard of ThrottleStop. You may even be able to run yours at 3.33Ghz all of the time. Depends on the chip. It'a an awesome CPU, and compared to what you're running now, you'll be blown away. Are you looking at the refurbs on the Alienware store at ebay? If so, you are probably safe with one of them. If you have the money, don't wait.

 

I am using a late ES QX9300, very happy with mine, and a far cry better than the stock CPU I had

 

I also have a R1 too, I have the q9000 overclocked to 2.24. You can look for the q9200 running at 2.4 stock. On ebay they are selling for $258, the one with the temp sensor. I believe those are the last ES chips before retial but q9200's never went to retial. That ES cpu is a extreme cpu so it can overclock pretty nicely. The qx9300 is about twice the price but sometimes they fall under $380-$400.