Gigabyte EX58-UD5/Extreme Discussion Thread

**dinos22** · 05-17-2009, 11:19 PM

Bus Frequency testing (QPI/BCLK)

I did some QPI/BCLK/bus frequency testing to see if i could break the 222Mhz "wall" I had in my previous tests. It was a bit of a tussle but in the end i managed to get some extra bus speed through few different settings outlined below. It seems as thought PCI Express frequency, uncore "sweetspot" volts and settings you boot at are the main driving factor from my initial testing in achieving higher/stable bus speeds or QPI or BCLK or whatever people call them. I was maxing out at 102.5MHz PCIe frequency in windows and while i also managed to find a sweet spot to let me OC a touch more (103 or so MHz) i was not able to make a run stick even though i did have a CAS6 run running at 228.3MHz bus only to crash on 16th loop...it looked like a 7m30s run

...

Here are my findings so far. Disregard the SuperPi efficiency.......i was just testing frequencies.

I'd love to hear from Gigabyte X58 board owners about their experience and whether these settings help anyone reach higher clocks.

I'm in touch with Gigabyte guys about this so hopefully they can figure out what it is exactly, whether it's the PLL chip or signaling/traces issue or whatever. All i care about is 250+Mhz bus speed stable on any GFX card

Test Configuration:

Gigabyte X58-UD5 F4n bios (old bios for initial testing)
Intel Core i7 920 retail chip 3849A910 D0 stepping
6GB 2000MHz CAS8 DDR3 Corsair Dominators
Nvidia 8400 PCIe Graphics Card + Xfire ATI 4890
1000W HX1000 Corsair PSU
1hp C-BuZz Single Stage (kayl evap) > on CPU
160GB IDE Hard Drive
Windows XP Pro 32bit SP3
Windows Vista Ultimate SP1

BIOS SETTINGS:

CPU PLL Voltage: Auto or 1.80v - same effect
CPU VCORE: 1.35-1.36 - same effect
IOH/ICH 1.1V Voltage: Auto or 1.20v - same effect
IOH Voltage: 1.42v (i havent tried auto...dont think it matters)
ICH PCI-E Voltage: Auto or 1.5v - same effect
QPI/VTT: 1.433v or 1.455v = this chip's sweet spot (any higher or lower and i was unable to push past 101MHz PCIe frequency in windows)
VDIMM: tried between 1.66v - 1.94v same effect
BUS SPEED: booting from 200 or 210 same effect, lower or higher i had problems going past 101MHz PCIe frequency in windows
for the record i could boot at 220 straight from bios to windows...sorry didnt try higher..will do next time
PCIe FREQ.: Auto or 101MHz - same effect....102 would occasionally boot but every now and then throw an F6 error iirc...anything higher and no boot at all. In windows i did not see 101Mhz PCIe freq. in SetFSB even though i was selecting it in bios so not sure it was actually sticking at all.