680i Tips, Glitchs, Things to Know and More.

[Kunaak]

I been getting a ton of people asking me in PM's and in my posts about advice and such for overclocking the 680i chipsets, and how I can get the results I have from these boards.
so, I'll try to write down anything I can think of about these boards thats worth knowing.... atleast, that I personally have tested and know 100% for sure is working for me.
however, what works for my board, may not work for yours, so dont think this is a conclusive post or anything.

First, Alittle about me and the 680i.
I use the Asus P5N32-E Sli. stock default bios.
no mods (I would if I could find any, and havent got curious enough to start looking for them myself)

I have No SLI cards.
why this is important to mention?

cause lately, I see a whole lot of 680i "reports" that have little to nothing to do with the board, and get overshadowed by the 8800GTX's or such being used.
which tells me nothing.
zilch. nada... zip, as useless as if I didn't even see the post.
a SLI board that can run SLI... wow... amazing... neato...
but what about the board?

well, thats where I come in... kinda.
see, I've spent the last week, doing nothing.... notttttttttthing related to videocards, no 3Dmark, nothing related to anything other then whats in the BIOS and what will get me more speed.
I spend atleast 3-4 hours a night booting, and rebooting that board over and over and over again, changing 1 setting at a time to find what works and what doesnt and where the glitchs are, and where they arent.
sometimes, the results are very curious...
heres a few.



1. CPU HT Voltage.

easily the most important voltage on my board when it comes to breaking 500 FSB's with it.
no voltage, not Ram, not vcore, not chipset.... no voltage does as much for this board as this one voltage, CPU HT Voltage.
stock voltage is 1.2 volts.... tops is 1.55.
what its related too?
not a clue... but what it does, is very clear.
it gets me high FSB's and makes them boot everytime.
take this voltage down even alittle, and you find a quick loss in overclockability with this board.
I just leave it at 1.55, it doesnt seem to affect the CPU temps, but it does have a direct effect on the results, and not a small one either.
in my case 1.2 volts will work fine to about 420.
1.55 volts will work fine to 525.
thats not a small range as you can see...
so thats where I suggest you start first, if you want to try going higher.

I dont think the reference 680i boards from EVGA, BFG, ECS or anyone are the same caliber as this Asus board, since they are all stock Nvidia boards, so I dont know how much this will help anyone with a Stock board, but if you have a Asus 680i, definatly give this voltage a shot.


2. CPU Multiplier.

this is where things get very tricky with this board.
it took me a few days to notice this, but the CPU multiplier has a direct effect on the bandwidth of your ram.

in my case, going from 7 x 500, to 6 x 500, loses me about 20% in bandwidth, I've tested this with Crystal CPUID, Sisoft sandra, and Everest Ultimate Edition.
its the same everytime...
the lower your multiplier goes, the less bandwith you get for your ram.
so 1000 mhz on the ram, at 6 x 500, is not the same as 1000 mhz at 7 x 500.

Lowering your multiplier on these boards has a drawback that you might not wanna live with, especially if your overclocking a high multiplier CPU on Air, like a E6700, where you been lowering it on the 965/975 chipsets with no penalty to your speeds in things like Super Pi, but if you lower the Multiplier from its stock default multiplier on the 680i, you will get a slower score then you might be expecting, and it's probably directly related to the bandwidth loss you suffer by lowering your multiplier.

3. Ram Speed Glitch.

Theres a Glitch that one can Exploit when Overclocking with the 680i boards, and it's signifigant enough that its worth mentioning.

your ram speed will be reported wrong in a few programs like Ntune, if you lower your multiplier.

set 1000 mhz in bios, it boots at 1 ghz, but you ran a 6 multiplier, instead of 7.... when you look in Ntune, it will report 1200 mhz.

this only happens when you lower the multiplier.
I havent taken the time to see if this glitch effects CPUZ yet.
(its thanksgiving, and I just got home)

so this is something to be aware of, to avoid fakers and false results.

4. 1T Command Rate.

This ones a iffy one, cause some people will want to not believe it.

1300 mhz, cas 5-4-4-10 at 2T.... is only alittle faster then 900 mhz, cas 3-3-3-8-1T.

regaurdless of the speed used, linked or unlinked... 1T is very fast, when you get it up to 900+ Mhz.

I tested this at 3.5 ghz (7 x 500) many many times.
unlinked mode always, and setting my ram speeds manually.

cas 3 at 900 mhz, and 1T.... while not exactly easy to get stable, is almost as fast as 1300 mhz at cas 5-4-4 at 2T.
while I admit, I have not tested this in gaming yet... in everything else, this has been confirmed for me over and over.

heres where it gets alittle fuzzy.
1300 mhz... while you may not believe it, is alot easier on these boards then it sounds. I am starting to think, that pretty much any High Quality ram has a real good shot at 1200 mhz easy on these at reasonable voltages, and 1300 mhz if you push it alittle.

but at the same time, cas 3 at 900 mhz at 1T, isn't so easy.
it takes extra voltage usually, and is harder to keep stable.
but should prove to be great for extreme benchmarks should you choose the 1T/low latency route.

so it's not so easy to say one is faster then the other, cause high MHz is definatly easier to achieve, then moderatly high speeds with low cas at 1T is.
it wont suprise me if this is a aguement that is very hard to have a conclusion with.


5. Heat and Overclocking.

if you take nothing I say here serious, atleast take this one point and listen for a second.

these boards run really.... reaaaaaaaally hot.
my Asus board here has heatpipes all over it, but after about 5 minutes of it on, its clear the heatpipes on this board are doing little to nothing for this board. this board should not be run with any form of passive cooling if you intend to overclock.

active cooling is a must, and not just for the NB.
the SB and PWM area all too get very very hot when running overclocked for long periods of time. to give you an example, how I found this out was.... I was poking around the board with my flashlight looking for some ICS, so I could see if there was a clockgen available for this board.
the board was on and running...
I tapped the NB heatsink, with my flashlight hand... and I burned my hand.
not like alittle warm... I mean burned.
at the time, the board was heavily overclocked, and running some high voltages... but no different then any other overclocker would do.
to say it was hot, isnt the right word.
I've seen boards that run hot in the past... especially after days like the first prescotts.
this board makes the prescott look like a ice cube.

these boards need far better cooling then I am seeing on them at stock.

it might take a hour or so of heavy overclocking or gaming to see what I mean, but touch the heatsink and you will see what I mean.

put fans on there, anywhere you can if you overclock.
these things need it.


6. Latency and "Strap".

this board definatly does run with some form of "Strap".
however, where they are, isnt exactly clear yet.
what I mean is... passing 1066 FSB, doesnt mean your gonna automatically get the 1333 FSB strap kicking in.

when your at a low FSB like 333 or so, your gonna be around 50-55 NS for latency.
when you get to above 500 FSB your gonna be about 60-65NS for latency.

boot at 9 x 400, and you will have a faster set of ram, then if you booted at 8 x 450, cause the latency and the multiplier bandwidth loss would make it less of a good overclock then you might think, even though your ram appears to be running faster, you might find the difference is shockingly small, cause your taking a hit in 2 ways.
the latency of the chipset changes... and your lower multiplier then the stock one, also makes your ram take a high on its bandwidth.

so test your OC's alot before you settle for one, cause just setting one speed without testing it... may result in a slower speed then you thought you had, cause of things you cant actually control, like the chipset latency, and the bandwidth you lose by lowering your multiplier.

7. 1333 Mhz Wall.

this is gonna sound strange, cause its only a hunch...
but getting 1300 mhz with these boards is almost too easy.
however the closer you get to 1333... the sharper your stability falls.
I have 2 sets of ram that easily hit 1300.
but its the same in both cases. theres a drastic fall in stability once you get near, or pass 1333 mhz on your ram speed.
so drastic, that it actually seems like a wall, more then a hardware limit.

getting up to about 1310 mhz is easy with alittle stability.
1320 will work for awhile.
but 1333 is a quick and drastic change in stability.

my guess... and yes, I have no proof of this.
is that theres a hardware wall within the bios, to make 1333 mhz not possible.

why?

cause the 1333 FSB is intels next CPU FSB.
and Ive seen this before with the 925x chipset, where they didnt want people taking 200 FSB CPU's changing them to 266 and getting a cheap extreme edition.
so there was a near solid wall at 260-ish.
but that same wall, didnt exist for CPU's with the 266 FSB.

would they do it again?
sure, why not?
this gives them a reason to push the 1333 FSB even more, if they appear to OC better... when they really are just getting a free jump over a bios limitation.

so thats my little conspiracy theory. :D

8. Linked or Unlinked.

this is something I really dont know where to go with...
I've heard people claim that Unlinked is slower then Linked.

however, after about 20 trys with Super Pi, and various bandwith tests.... I can't see to find any differences, between linked or unlinked.
I mean none... I get no benifit from running linked, then I do unlinked....


9. Dividers.

when you run stock, you have a few usual dividers to play with, like 3:2, 5:4 and 1:1.

when you run unlinked, you have a whole range of odd dividers that kick in to determine your ram speed.
however, some dividers seem to be less stable then others.
example.

for me running 7 x 500, I run unlinked.
unlinked at 1300 mhz, and Auto for the divider I get 1300 mhz even, and uses the 10/13 divider.
but run linked, and set the divider manually and I use 3:2.... which says it gets me 1300 mhz in bios, but reboot and I get 1333 Mhz.... not the 1300 it said.
to get it to boot at 1300 at 3:2, I gotta clock down 1 FSB to make the ram seen at 1299 mhz... but that turns out to be less stable, then if I let the bios just use the 13/10 divider, when I set auto and left it unlinked.

so try different combinations for your ram, and realize, some dividers are less stable then others.


10. OS Corruption and high Ram MHz.

heres the one biggest drawback to this board so far.

with how easy it is to et past 1200 mhz with these boards, your gonna wanna push your ram farther and farther.
if your anything like me, you will just keep trying and trying till you cant go any farther.
but once you pass 1330 mhz...
you will quick start to corrupt your OS, and it wont boot anymore, or constantly gives you BSODs just after the load screen.
usually, a windows repair install wont work either, cause by then, you probably corrupted most of your boot drivers, DLLs and such... so theres nothing for windows to work with, it may not even see that theres a OS there to repair...

so be very verrrrrrrry careful if you really get into pushing your ram, otherwise you might loose everything off your hard drive.
make back ups of your information that you dont want to lose, and get yourself a copy of Norton Ghost, if you really wanna start pushing your ram on these boards.
cause Data Corruption happens very easily past 1330 mhz.



thats it for now, I am tired of typing and I am full of turkey and damn I gotta sleep... this foods making me feel 100 pounds heavier and sleepy.

[newls1]

absolutely awesome that you wrote this up for us. Im getting an EVGA 680i motherboard soon, and this will be VERY helpful for me, and im sure others. Thank you for taking the time to do this.....

[Grinch]

bravo!:toast:

[nop]

wow...thanks for the useful information and contribution you've made.

[Grinch]

well I raised the CPU HT Voltage to 1.55v and still no higher fsb...:( will try more stuff..:toast:

[nugzo]

Thanks for your time Kunaak! I see alot of potential with this chipset. We need to get you an EVGA to play with. C'mon bios updates!!

[damnnit]

Do you guys have weird keyboard problems with this board? I seem to get it on my ps2 mouse even with no ocing.

[zakelwe]

8. Linked or Unlinked.

this is something I really dont know where to go with...
I've heard people claim that Unlinked is slower then Linked.

however, after about 20 trys with Super Pi, and various bandwith tests.... I can't see to find any differences, between linked or unlinked.
I mean none... I get no benifit from running linked, then I do unlinked....


For SuperPi there does not seem to be much difference but for 3D it is best to have it linked and in sync or unlinked but the RAM running at exactly half the FSB speed ( so it equiv to 1:1 ). This was confirmed by my own testing and also a 3d bencher who is a lot better than me ( a real lot better ).

Also we both agree with you on the 3-3-3 1T thoughts in regards to 3D, in fact here it is slightly faster than huge RAM speeds. The more memory speed you go the more trade offs you have to do .. I have to confess all these huge memory speeds just leave me cold. However they are useful for people who are running low multipliers and want to stay 1:1.

Regards

Andy

[vladimir]

Do you guys have weird keyboard problems with this board? I seem to get it on my ps2 mouse even with no ocing.
I've seen issues concerning the motherboard beeping on the Foxconn reference board, (evga, BFG), from people using a PS2 keyboard. Using a USB keyboard seems takes care of it in some cases.

There could be some sort of power issue with the PS2 port. Pure speculation on my part since I am still waiting for my ASUS mobo to be delivered.

[MrDeeds]

Great guide

Its about someone broke down the realities of 680i. I was getting so sick of people posting the ridiculously high memory bandwidth screens with no explanation of their horrible pi times.

You've definately got me interested in the asus board.

[FEEXX]

excellent, really helpful!!!!

thx

[PcCI2iminal]

awesome work
thanks Kunaak

[X.T.R.E.M.E_ICE]

I tried HT voltage of 1.55v and i was able to go from 449fsb to 453fsb. but i can't go any higher 7x453fsb

[MTP04]

Good write up!

Thanks for the headsup.

[dinos22]

good write up :toast:

[maxxor]

Thanks for your time thanks Kunaak

[nugzo]

For those of you using RAID. Try to disable it if your set up permits. i gained 7 minutes on dual 32m runs. Here is a link to a post i started concerning this. This also shows the gain i received by following kunaak's suggestions. i was stuck at 400*9 & 1200 for memory. It isn't a huge gain but it is significant in my eyes.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=124415

[icon57]

very good read, and after spending time (not as much as you did..lol) i have had similar results and opinions...thank you for putting it into words for us all.

[fsh42na]

Kunaak,

I'm a new member and I do a heck of alot of browsing and reading here without many posts. Why? Cuz this intel stuff has been really confusing for me and I didn't want you guys to know how dumb I am:eek: . Besides coming over from Hardforums where I got :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana: slapped one too many times for simply asking a "dumb" question, I'm still a little gunshy when it comes to posting. Your post has been one of the most informative post I've read in a LONG time. It summarizes your experiences in an easy to read format and it has gone a long way in helping me to decide on whether I should go with a 975 board or a 680i board.

The heat issue you mention concerns me cuz I do want to do some Overclocking, though not extreme. Other than case fans, can other fans be mounted onto the pipes? I've heard of people using cable ties to do so, but if the heat is as high you've noticed, would the ties melt eventually. I initially ordered and then returned the EVGA board because of the layout, noisy chipset fan, resistors on the backside and reported SATA issues. I've been eyeing this board and it's big brother Striker for a while and will bite the bullet on one of them this week. Info I've seen suggests ETA between 11/27 and 11/30.

Thanks again for your informative (as usual) post:toast:

[kimandsally]

Very nicely done Kunaak, you've made it easier for everyone beginner to expert and all in between. Takes a lot of hard work and carefull notes to do that, I haven't got a 680 board but I enjoyed reading it.

Thanks for taking the time to help others.

[nugzo]

Kunaak,

I'm a new member and I do a heck of alot of browsing and reading here without many posts. Why? Cuz this intel stuff has been really confusing for me and I didn't want you guys to know how dumb I am:eek: . Besides coming over from Hardforums where I got :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana: slapped one too many times for simply asking a "dumb" question, I'm still a little gunshy when it comes to posting. Your post has been one of the most informative post I've read in a LONG time. It summarizes your experiences in an easy to read format and it has gone a long way in helping me to decide on whether I should go with a 975 board or a 680i board.

The heat issue you mention concerns me cuz I do want to do some Overclocking, though not extreme. Other than case fans, can other fans be mounted onto the pipes? I've heard of people using cable ties to do so, but if the heat is as high you've noticed, would the ties melt eventually. I initially ordered and then returned the EVGA board because of the layout, noisy chipset fan, resistors on the backside and reported SATA issues. I've been eyeing this board and it's big brother Striker for a while and will bite the bullet on one of them this week. Info I've seen suggests ETA between 11/27 and 11/30.

Thanks again for your informative (as usual) post:toast:

I haven't noticed excesive heat on the EVGA board. If they get the bugs worked out soon i'd try that one.

[Sorrow13]

top notch post. Thanks!

[Kunaak]

heres something I need to point out.


I dont think the reference 680i boards from EVGA, BFG, ECS or anyone are the same caliber as this Asus board, since they are all stock Nvidia boards, so I dont know how much this will help anyone with a Stock board, but if you have a Asus 680i, definatly give this voltage a shot

all the EVGA boards I see so far, all top out around 440 - 455.
I dont know how much advice I can give in regaurds to those boards, cause they just seem to have a wall around 450-ish.
so I really dont think the CPU HT voltage is gonna do anything for those boards.

but for the Upcoming 680i's from DFI, Abit, MSI and Gigabyte, I would definatly try that voltage first... assuming they do as good, or better then the Asus 680i's.

now, for alittle testing results.

heres to show exactly what I mean when I say these boards run hot.

for reference, heres how hot my CPU Heatsink is.
the CPU in this Pic is at Idle, at 3.5 ghz, and 1.35 volts.

108.6 F

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=53283&stc=1&d=1164397907

Heres the PWM... no load, just running at Idle. boards doing nothing except running windows.

119.2F

As you can see, the PWM is hotter then the CPUs heatsink... but honestly, thats not so unusual, the PWM is a very hot area usually.
this shots just for reference.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=53285&stc=1&d=1164397907

heres a shot to show what I mean by hot... you can literally feel the heat just radiating off these boards. I mean... it runs hottttt... and in this pic, the probes not even touching the NB heatsink yet... AND the boards at Idle.

107.8F degrees, and it's not even touching the NB Heatsink yet.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=53284&stc=1&d=1164397907

now heres where it gets real interesting.
remember, this boards doing absolutly nothing, no load, so these aren't the highest temps from this board....

166.3F

and this, this isn't even the highest tempeture I seen from the NB yet... its just the pic with the most clarity and detail.
I am not that curious to break out the tripod to get a great shot of this... this should show enough to illustrate my point, that these boards run hot.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=53286&stc=1&d=1164397907


lastly, this is a very simple mod you can do, and takes only a few seconds to do. take any 40mm fan you have, and just screw it into the fins of the NB.
its so simple that anyone with 2 minutes time can do it.
its not the only mod I do for NB cooling, but its certainly the least I would recommend anyone do. if you do no other mod for these boards... atleast do this one.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=53287&stc=1&d=1164397907

[Kunaak]

and I didn't forget about you guys that use the Celcius Temp for Measurement. :D

please note.

I know this isn't a perfect way to measure temps, I just dont know any better way then to simply take a temp probe and touch whatever I want the temps of.

oh yeah, the temps were taken after the board was on for about 10 minutes.

[msgclb]

5. Heat and Overclocking.

if you take nothing I say here serious, atleast take this one point and listen for a second.

these boards run really.... reaaaaaaaally hot.
my Asus board here has heatpipes all over it, but after about 5 minutes of it on, its clear the heatpipes on this board are doing little to nothing for this board. this board should not be run with any form of passive cooling if you intend to overclock.

active cooling is a must, and not just for the NB.
the SB and PWM area all too get very very hot when running overclocked for long periods of time.
...
to say it was hot, isnt the right word.


I might have missed it but what kind of cooling are you using or plan on using?

Edit: You posted the above pics, etc. while I was putting this together and I do have a 40mm fan!

[msgclb]

I've just noticed something else from your pics. What slot do you have your video card in?

[Kunaak]

I've just noticed something else from your pics. What slot do you have your video card in?

PCI, the one between the 2nd and 3rd PCI Express slots.

Heres a Pic to show the Glitch that I mentiond, in action.
Luckily, leave it to franck to always get CPUZ working right. :D
CPUZ = good for some level of verification of a OC.

Nvidia Ntune = Not Good, Glitchy, and Easy to Fool.

[Kunaak]

And Finally, Heres to show exactly what I mean by "lowering your multiplier, directly effects your bandwidth".

between these two shots, nothing is different in the ram speeds, just went into bios, to change the multiplier from 7 to 6.
thats it.

same ram speeds, same ram settings, everything is the same...
but as you can see, the results are not the same.
the multiplier has some direct effect on the bandwidth of the Ram.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=53291&stc=1&d=1164227497

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=53292&stc=1&d=1164227497

[virtualrain]

Kunaak... I just want to say that this is one of the more useful and informative motherboard evaluations I have ever seen... :clap:

This is useful stuff. Now why can't motherboard reviews dig into this kind of detail?! :confused:

Keep up the good work. I hope to see more motherboard evaluations from you... you could make a career out of this! :toast:

[lopri]

Great post as usual. One thing I'd like to mention about:

"lowering your multiplier, directly effects your bandwidth"

That's pretty obvious, I'd think? Because by changing multies we're comparing different CPU speed. Higher CPU frequency = Higher memory bandwidth. Personally I don't think multi would have anything to do with bandwidth, but if you really want to prove that point, you'll need to figure out how to measure its effect. I am not sure how that can be done.

[heikis]

Great post as usual. One thing I'd like to mention about:

"lowering your multiplier, directly effects your bandwidth"

That's pretty obvious, I'd think? Because by changing multies we're comparing different CPU speed. Higher CPU frequency = Higher memory bandwidth. Personally I don't think multi would have anything to do with bandwidth, but if you really want to prove that point, you'll need to figure out how to measure its effect. I am not sure how that can be done.

read the first post and you'll understand what he meant:

the lower your multiplier goes, the less bandwith you get for your ram.
so 1000 mhz on the ram, at 6 x 500, is not the same as 1000 mhz at 7 x 500.

[Lestat]

heikis,

i think your missing the point.

no mtter what platform you chose amd or intel the higher the cpu freq you are guarenteed to get better memory performance, i dont care which platform,
1000mhz ram is 1000mhz ram, yes, but comparing 6x500 to 7x500.. well yeah duh, of course your going to get better since your 500mhz higher.
and comparing 3ghz vs 3500ghz is a big deal with a conroe.

you would have to compare. 1000mhz 450x8 to 400x9 to make it truly fair.
3.6ghz @ 8x multi and 3.6ghz @ 9x multi using unlinked mode and forcing the memory to 1000mhz
thats the only way you cna say with 100% proof that a lower multi is better or worse.

[nugzo]

heikis,

i think your missing the point.

no mtter what platform you chose amd or intel the higher the cpu freq you are guarenteed to get better memory performance, i dont care which platform,
1000mhz ram is 1000mhz ram, yes, but comparing 6x500 to 7x500.. well yeah duh, of course your going to get better since your 500mhz higher.
and comparing 3ghz vs 3500ghz is a big deal with a conroe.

you would have to compare. 1000mhz 450x8 to 400x9 to make it truly fair.
3.6ghz @ 8x multi and 3.6ghz @ 9x multi using unlinked mode and forcing the memory to 1000mhz
thats the only way you cna say with 100% proof that a lower multi is better or worse.
Yup!

[Sumanji]

you would have to compare. 1000mhz 450x8 to 400x9 to make it truly fair.

No, because then you are directly changing one of the constants which effects memory bandwidth?! Since the memory controller is not on the CPU, bandwidth should (in theory at least) be wholly dependant on the link from the NB to the RAM (i.e. frequency and latency).

Kunaak: How much did NB temps drop after putting the fan on?

Awesome guide btw :) thanks!

Suman

[eva2000]

heres to show exactly what I mean when I say these boards run hot.

for reference, heres how hot my CPU Heatsink is.
the CPU in this Pic is at Idle, at 3.5 ghz, and 1.35 volts.

dam 166F = ~74C :eek:

AFAIK, the NB on 680i holds the memory controller...have you measured the actual DDR2 memory modules and the heat at each vdimm setting ?

[Ychocky]

But... What about SLI?...



J/K Very neat write up.

Passing this along to my mate with his board on order.

[Pt1t]

10. OS Corruption and high Ram MHz.

heres the one biggest drawback to this board so far.

with how easy it is to et past 1200 mhz with these boards, your gonna wanna push your ram farther and farther.
if your anything like me, you will just keep trying and trying till you cant go any farther.
but once you pass 1330 mhz...
you will quick start to corrupt your OS, and it wont boot anymore, or constantly gives you BSODs just after the load screen.
usually, a windows repair install wont work either, cause by then, you probably corrupted most of your boot drivers, DLLs and such... so theres nothing for windows to work with, it may not even see that theres a OS there to repair...

so be very verrrrrrrry careful if you really get into pushing your ram, otherwise you might loose everything off your hard drive.
make back ups of your information that you dont want to lose, and get yourself a copy of Norton Ghost, if you really wanna start pushing your ram on these boards.
cause Data Corruption happens very easily past 1330 mhz.



thats it for now, I am tired of typing and I am full of turkey and damn I gotta sleep... this foods making me feel 100 pounds heavier and sleepy.

:mad: I have an asus Striker Extreme , And it s the first time i killed a fresh windows xp so easy :slapass:

[theteamaqua]

admin should have a link to this thread. within the sticky "Core 2 Duo motherboard tweaking and guides."

[SLi_dog]

1. CPU HT Voltage.

easily the most important voltage on my board when it comes to breaking 500 FSB's with it.
no voltage, not Ram, not vcore, not chipset.... no voltage does as much for this board as this one voltage, CPU HT Voltage.
stock voltage is 1.2 volts.... tops is 1.55.
what its related too?
not a clue... but what it does, is very clear.
it gets me high FSB's and makes them boot everytime.
take this voltage down even alittle, and you find a quick loss in overclockability with this board.
I just leave it at 1.55, it doesnt seem to affect the CPU temps, but it does have a direct effect on the results, and not a small one either.
in my case 1.2 volts will work fine to about 420.
1.55 volts will work fine to 525.
thats not a small range as you can see...
so thats where I suggest you start first, if you want to try going higher.I assume the CPU HT voltage is the SPP voltage? That was the setting that allowed me to get to a whopping 453FSB on the BFG :rolleyes: It keeps crashing out when running 3DMark03 or higher though??? Still, much better than the abit AW9D-MAX. I'm thinking of changing the SB for active cooling, it's in a heck of a bad spot though.

Also, the SPP voltage is listed at PCI-E voltage in nvidia monitor so would that suggest it is some kind of equivilent to the MCH voltage of the 975x boards? If so, then 1.55v max is rather low.....

My board crashes after a few minutes if the NB voltage is set to 1.5V so I assume that is from overheating.

[roller11]

well, thats where I come in... kinda.
see, I've spent the last week, doing nothing.... notttttttttthing related to videocards, no 3Dmark, nothing related to anything other then whats in the BIOS and what will get me more speed.


As good as your post is, I see nothing that tells me how good the
AC characteristics are of this board (aka 'OC ability').

AC characteristics are, of course, relative, so they are meaningful only in terms
of how they compare to other boards. Can you tell us how the max useable CPU
clock compares with, say, some well known 965/975 board? Of course this
means doing a side by side shootout with both boards using the same CPU and
RAM, and both boards running the same Vcore (voltmeter measured).

[Kunaak]

you then misunderstand the post.
this post has nothing to do with any specific board, just tips that worked for me, or observations and glitchs.

this isnt a guide on how to OC the board, but a series of observations.

if you want to know how well a board OC's just look for the post on a specific board, and not in this post.

[sdumper]

well written and useful thank you ive applied some of this and it has worked great on my striker extreme:)

[Ic3man]

Thanks for the write up Kunaak, a job well done.

[GrimReaper]

Kunaak excellent write up :thumbsup:


about the temprature thing for the NB, i am sure even the asus p5b and p5W gets this hot, I tried touching my NB and pwm area and it sure felt boiling hot :eek:
:confused:
maybe all the boards get this hot?

[xgman]

I can add that after sme extensive PS rail testing, the 680i boards are under reporting the 3.3 and 5v rails by around .1 in some cases. The 12v line is closer but still under actual load MM readings.

[xgman]

heres something I need to point out.



all the EVGA boards I see so far, all top out around 440 - 455.
I dont know how much advice I can give in regaurds to those boards, cause they just seem to have a wall around 450-ish.
so I really dont think the CPU HT voltage is gonna do anything for those boards.

heres to show exactly what I mean when I say these boards run hot.


I am finding the same thing re: the 450 wall on the reference boards. I thought it was because of my 10x multi and 6800, but I guess not.

Also I have tried the striker and evga and bfg versions so far, abd the asus ran noticibly hotter than the reference designs for some reason.

[Lestat]

i have given up on my eVGA after two boards neither of them can boot at 440 or above. tried 100 different ram variations, linked unlinked, 1:1 3:2 Auto etc etc
tried auto voltages and manual tried 1x HTT Link and 5x HTT link.
tried everything and it just wont do it.

i didnt pay 250 bucks for a motherboard that cant even compete against my 145 DS3 for pure CPU overclock,

sure the 680i can overclock my ram like mad but when it comes to Conroes ram speed isnt as important. its all about the cpu.
800mhz to 100mhz to 1200mhz ram ther eisnt that much difference. unlike AMD where Ram speed can make all the difference.

and ther eisnt a capacitor on the board that isnt bent over. the only ones that arent are the solid caps by the cpu.

there are two big coil packs right behind the RJ45 Jacks and they are leaning against each other directly touching each other.
along with the insanely long soldering joints on the underbelly of the board which are just begging to short out on the backside of your case and smoke all your hardware.

eVGA has truly let me down on this, and i have no intensions of buying another eVGA board, even their cards have been pretty crappy for ME in the past. bah.. i stick with BFG for video cards and ... someone else for mobo's.

[Sumanji]

Lestat; how is it eVGA's fault that the nVidia reference boards aren't made properly? Blame that on Asus or Foxconn or whoever is making them. Sure, eVGA are responsible for packaging and stuff, but I think making sure every cap on every board is straight is asking a bit much...

Also, afaik memory speed doesn't do much on A64 does it?! I thought bandwidth was much more influential on Intel systems... :confused:

[mouawad]

you will get the same problems with any other 680i reference board from BFG or ECS

[easyrider]

Nice info

[illuminati-hwt]

#0, afaik.. In unlinked mode, ram speed isnt set by using dividers on the main PLL. The board has dual PPL, one for cpu, one for ram.
You kinda hint otherwise under 9. Dividers

[easyrider]

I noticed a speed decrease when unlinked

[Demo]

heikis,

i think your missing the point.

no mtter what platform you chose amd or intel the higher the cpu freq you are guarenteed to get better memory performance, i dont care which platform,
1000mhz ram is 1000mhz ram, yes, but comparing 6x500 to 7x500.. well yeah duh, of course your going to get better since your 500mhz higher.
and comparing 3ghz vs 3500ghz is a big deal with a conroe.

you would have to compare. 1000mhz 450x8 to 400x9 to make it truly fair.
3.6ghz @ 8x multi and 3.6ghz @ 9x multi using unlinked mode and forcing the memory to 1000mhz
thats the only way you cna say with 100% proof that a lower multi is better or worse.

Im a bit confused, in your statement you said that the higher CPU freq is you are guaranteed to get better mem bandwidth, correct ?

with that said, dropping the multi from 7 down to 6 reduces the CPU freq so it should also drop in memory bandwidth, thats from what i understand in your statement.

So whats the problem of losing mem bandwidth from 7 down to 6 when its expected to do so ?

But do C2D's maintain bandwidth regardless of the CPU speed say i get X bandwidth with 400fsb with 8x multi, even dropping it to 6x multi while having 400fsb still nets the exact same bandwidth ?

p.s. im not saying anyone is wrong here but i just seem to miss the point.

[Ibinco]

I differ when it comes to NB temperature. My NB doesnt get to over 55 Celscius when stressed with 1.45 NBcore. I have the striker to be exact.

[Yoxxy]

Mine stays quite cool, and the heatpipes are actually working quite well. I stay right around 31 on the Asus probe, with an actual thermometer it gets to 45 where you were putting the temp sensor.

I would also say my best performance for memory/pi/3d/everything is in the 1T column. 4-4-4-8-1T @ 970 mhz beats everything else I could throw at it. 980 errors ou on pi32. 960 is prime stable. Its a funny board.

[Lood007]

I have not popped mine off yet, but is it possible we are seeing yet another case of bad mounting, concave chipsets, and improper application of thermal interface material on these boards?

[Ibinco]

Ive found a glitch on my Striker. Sometimes when booting my Razer diamondback isnt recognized..so i unplug it and replug it.. soon as i replug it..the system reboots itself :stick:

[sdumper]

Just RMAed my striker today hopefully ill have a replacement quick...this board rocks though absolutely a wonderful mobo IMO.

[sdumper]

Anybody recommending another board over the striker? I will have a full refund in my pocket and was just going to buy another Striker but now im wondering if EVGA is just as good...

[gr8golf]

Ive found a glitch on my Striker. Sometimes when booting my Razer diamondback isnt recognized..so i unplug it and replug it.. soon as i replug it..the system reboots itself :stick:

I have trouble with my Saitek keyboard. I have to plug / unplug it and it's recognized again. No reboots tho.

[Ibinco]

I need help :)

i ve got 2 settings in my bios(striker) that i need cleared up:

- 1.2 VHT voltage
-CPU VTT voltage

Which one of these two is the equivalent of HTT voltage?!

[JoeBar]

Anybody recommending another board over the striker? I will have a full refund in my pocket and was just going to buy another Striker but now im wondering if EVGA is just as good...
From what i read here, i would say stick with Striker.

[Daemono]

In response to Ibinco,

My Razer Diamondback loses itself on both my DFI Lanparty and my EVGA 680i. And has caused reboots on both. So Im pretty sure it isnt just the board. I never noticed this phenomenon on my AMD stuff before I got the Razer.

[Celcius]

I noticed something weird on my evga board today.
All I did was add a dvd-rom drive and reverse the cable, and my windows boot time is now literally like 4 times faster than before.:eek:

I don't know what happened, but faster is always welcome:toast:

[Lood007]

You didn't buy one of those directional cables, did ya now? :p

[icon57]

Anybody recommending another board over the striker? I will have a full refund in my pocket and was just going to buy another Striker but now im wondering if EVGA is just as good...
yes, imho, prolly better, and a lot less in price!

[sdumper]

i have given up on my eVGA after two boards neither of them can boot at 440 or above. tried 100 different ram variations, linked unlinked, 1:1 3:2 Auto etc etc
tried auto voltages and manual tried 1x HTT Link and 5x HTT link.
tried everything and it just wont do it.

i didnt pay 250 bucks for a motherboard that cant even compete against my 145 DS3 for pure CPU overclock,

sure the 680i can overclock my ram like mad but when it comes to Conroes ram speed isnt as important. its all about the cpu.
800mhz to 100mhz to 1200mhz ram ther eisnt that much difference. unlike AMD where Ram speed can make all the difference.


Agreed and i have been running orthos 4.4ghz now for lets see....2hours and 20 minutes ... not too shabby...1.63/1.65 vCore after vdroop...

Striker Extreme FTW

CPUz: http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc?id=149338



Icon57: Had to give Striker another chance the layout and probes were so cool ... lol


Obviously I can bench higher but right now I am more interested in everyday use and so Orthos is playing a big role. Also since I have only had this board back for a short period I'm sure it has a lot of hidden secrets to discover...this bios is amazing 0402 ... 0502 is not stable for me :(

[Cupcake]

Very nice job.

Im waiting for the first 680i to fall under $200 then Im gonna start making my conroe rig :D

BTW @ Sdumper. this is plug from BPC :D

and thanks for the info kunaak

[sdumper]

Very nice job.

Im waiting for the first 680i to fall under $200 then Im gonna start making my conroe rig :D

BTW @ Sdumper. this is plug from BPC :D

and thanks for the info kunaak

Hey Plug these chips respond very nicely to phase so when you get your Mach II gt back expect big things! I think you know where to find a nice chip already lol...

[sdumper]

Seems to OC fairly high too...

http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc?id=149488

[The Asgard]

Anybody recommending another board over the striker? I will have a full refund in my pocket and was just going to buy another Striker but now im wondering if EVGA is just as good...

I have had ZERO problems with mine. 6600@400x9 ruuning at default volts, 8800 GTX, XT-X, 2x WD 500GB RE2's. Rock solid stability compares easily with the P5W64 Pro which is my fav Intel board.

[Janbatos]

have an e6600 runs on 680i evga nice on water @ 3,850 and vcore 1,65!!My problem is the DDR2!! Have an G.E.I.L
DDR2-800 in 4-4-4-12-2t on 2,1volt..What is possible to these chips?get some tryin like 5-5-5-15-1t 1000?anyone had these chips?

thanks and happy xmas

janbatos

[sdumper]

I ran Orthos for over 6 hours at 4.4ghz and then shut it down to play some with my highest OC ... :) Anyway I brought it back up and let it fold both cores for 48hours and not a single error in my WUs. This is plenty stable for me. Final verdict this is hands down the best socket 775 mobo I have played with.

Food for thought: 4717 ghz (http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc?id=149488) on this board and prior to that my highest was 4.6 on my P5W64 Pro (http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc?id=131381). I havent tried all the mobos but this is what is beats out from the ones I have tried:

P5W DH Deluxe (vmodded)
P5B Deluxe
P5W64 Deluxe
P5B Deluxe wifi (vdroop modded)

Im sure it will have some contenders soon but for me it was worth the money I spent on it.

[Cyaneed]

Has anyone else noticed that the P5N32-E SLI has been removed from the ASUS USA Website? looks like the Striker Extreme is now the only 680i board they are going to sell. Guess ASUS got greedy and doesn't want to sell a board for under $400.

I was also wondering if anyone knows of a tutorial that explains what tests to run to test individual components of a PC so I can pinpoint where my bottlenecks are happening? I'm still at 3.2G and somewhat unstable since I cant Orthos blend for more than 2 hours and dual SP2004 errors after around the same amount of time. I'm starting to wonder if I should have started with a different board for my first system in over a decade. Maybe a nice intel board or something that will really 3D like a champ.

Cy

[msgclb]

Has anyone else noticed that the P5N32-E SLI has been removed from the ASUS USA Website?

I'm still at 3.2G and somewhat unstable since I cant Orthos blend for more than 2 hours and dual SP2004 errors after around the same amount of time.
Cy
The P5N32-E SLI is still on the Global site. It's probably just a web site screw up although I'm beginning to wonder why AnandTech hasn't put up a review of this motherboard. I'm sure I saw where their review should be posted around Thanksgiving but now I'm wondering if the P5N32-E SLI didn't turn out to be the turkey!:D

I'm also having problems with dual SP2004 at 3.2GHz and above. In my case it's unstable almost immediately.

[Cyaneed]

Well I'm running 4-4-4-12-2T@2.1v on Ballistix DDR2-800 I'm wondering if thats too tight for this board at that speed on air. When I get back home I'll try 5-5-5-18-1T and see if it primes better at 3.2G. If that doesnt work I'll back up to 3.15G so I can use the 9X multiplier again and see if it helps. I really dont want to push more than 1.5875 Vcore since once I hit 1.6 Vcore my temps go up exponentially. I'm really starting to see the limitations of Air Cooling even with a Tuniq Tower 120.

Cy

[sdumper]

What board?

[Mad Pistol]

Wonderful read! I just ordered a Core 2 Duo E6600 with this board. This will help a ton!

[sdumper]

Wonderful read! I just ordered a Core 2 Duo E6600 with this board. This will help a ton!

Im assuming your talking about the Striker right?
If so great choice. Its a tad slower in SuperPi but it overclocks very high and is rock solid. SLI is faster for me than with the modded sli drivers i was using on my modded P5W DH deluxe.

Heres some links at 4.4ghz with a pair of volt modded 7900gt cards (256mb variety)

3DMark06: http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=839804 : 11651
3DMark05: http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=2460065 : 20552
3DMark03: http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=4944512 : 45033
3dMark01: URL: http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=9115855 : 66410
Total: 143605

[sdumper]

Anybody having trouble setting up Raid 0 with the striker using the Nvidia raid controller?
-I copied the nvidia raid drivers to my floppy drive
-I enable raid in my bios
-Set up my 2 raptors for striping with a 128k block
-boot off my CD
-load the raid drivers
-Install hangs when trying to load windows ...

I can recognize the the two raptor drives as a single striped drive when I boot into windows on my my single sata drive (which is installed on SATA6...the raptors are enabled on SATA 1 and SATA 2). However I cant for the life of me get windows to install on the striped array.

[eva2000]

Anybody having trouble setting up Raid 0 with the striker using the Nvidia raid controller?
-I copied the nvidia raid drivers to my floppy drive
-I enable raid in my bios
-Set up my 2 raptors for striping with a 128k block
-boot off my CD
-load the raid drivers
-Install hangs when trying to load windows ...

I can recognize the the two raptor drives as a single striped drive when I boot into windows on my my single sata drive (which is installed on SATA6...the raptors are enabled on SATA 1 and SATA 2). However I cant for the life of me get windows to install on the striped array.
windows original cd-rom or slipstream unattended cd-rom ? it's known fact that F6 method of loading drivers won't work with unattended cd-roms of windows.. only original windows cd or if you integrate the drivers into the unattended cd

[sdumper]

windows original cd-rom or slipstream unattended cd-rom ? it's known fact that F6 method of loading drivers won't work with unattended cd-roms of windows.. only original windows cd or if you integrate the drivers into the unattended cd

Windows XP orginal CD-rom ...

Might be the overclock but its Orthos stable at 4.4ghz so I dont think thats it.

I do have the SB on auto and according to asus probe 1.54/1.52 volts.

[Cyaneed]

What board?
P5N32-E SLI otherwise known as "Striker Lite".

Cyaneed

[Omastar]

Do you guys know if the NF68P23 BIOS have fixed these issues with the eVGA 680i board?

I'd like to hear responses from a few people running this BIOS, as I'm thinking about buying it. Has it fixed the SATA HDD/RAID issues, as well as RAM compatibility, stability, overclocking, etc.?

Thanks. :)

[ZeroOne]

Windows XP orginal CD-rom ...

Might be the overclock but its Orthos stable at 4.4ghz so I dont think thats it.

I do have the SB on auto and according to asus probe 1.54/1.52 volts.

I had the same problem with a raid0 raptor set on a striker. BSOD or setup "cannot find drive" errors, even with the floppy in. At first it was reporting it could not find the drive because I forgot that you have to load BOTH of the options that appear in the load driver section of setup. After I did both, it blue screened.

Once the raid drivers were slipstreamed onto a new cd, it worked with no problems. Doubt it's your oc.

[MiamiMuscleBoy]

I just bought the p5n32-e , e6600 and ballistix ddr2 1000, and this thread you posted was referred from another site , everything I have is still in the boxes because I dont know whether or not to go with the 680i or wait on the commando being that I have not bought any video cards yet waiting to see what may come out of the r600 if it ever does. I currently have an x1900 xt that i can use until but. i have heard that many of our p5n32e's or any 680i chipset is having probs... although your post says alot . i am assumning they quit making our board because it is basically the striker without the price tag... thats why i bought it... can you tell me if the ballistix ddr2 1000 is ok to install since the box says nothing more than 800?





I been getting a ton of people asking me in PM's and in my posts about advice and such for overclocking the 680i chipsets, and how I can get the results I have from these boards.
so, I'll try to write down anything I can think of about these boards thats worth knowing.... atleast, that I personally have tested and know 100% for sure is working for me.
however, what works for my board, may not work for yours, so dont think this is a conclusive post or anything.

First, Alittle about me and the 680i.
I use the Asus P5N32-E Sli. stock default bios.
no mods (I would if I could find any, and havent got curious enough to start looking for them myself)

I have No SLI cards.
why this is important to mention?

cause lately, I see a whole lot of 680i "reports" that have little to nothing to do with the board, and get overshadowed by the 8800GTX's or such being used.
which tells me nothing.
zilch. nada... zip, as useless as if I didn't even see the post.
a SLI board that can run SLI... wow... amazing... neato...
but what about the board?

well, thats where I come in... kinda.
see, I've spent the last week, doing nothing.... notttttttttthing related to videocards, no 3Dmark, nothing related to anything other then whats in the BIOS and what will get me more speed.
I spend atleast 3-4 hours a night booting, and rebooting that board over and over and over again, changing 1 setting at a time to find what works and what doesnt and where the glitchs are, and where they arent.
sometimes, the results are very curious...
heres a few.



1. CPU HT Voltage.

easily the most important voltage on my board when it comes to breaking 500 FSB's with it.
no voltage, not Ram, not vcore, not chipset.... no voltage does as much for this board as this one voltage, CPU HT Voltage.
stock voltage is 1.2 volts.... tops is 1.55.
what its related too?
not a clue... but what it does, is very clear.
it gets me high FSB's and makes them boot everytime.
take this voltage down even alittle, and you find a quick loss in overclockability with this board.
I just leave it at 1.55, it doesnt seem to affect the CPU temps, but it does have a direct effect on the results, and not a small one either.
in my case 1.2 volts will work fine to about 420.
1.55 volts will work fine to 525.
thats not a small range as you can see...
so thats where I suggest you start first, if you want to try going higher.

I dont think the reference 680i boards from EVGA, BFG, ECS or anyone are the same caliber as this Asus board, since they are all stock Nvidia boards, so I dont know how much this will help anyone with a Stock board, but if you have a Asus 680i, definatly give this voltage a shot.


2. CPU Multiplier.

this is where things get very tricky with this board.
it took me a few days to notice this, but the CPU multiplier has a direct effect on the bandwidth of your ram.

in my case, going from 7 x 500, to 6 x 500, loses me about 20% in bandwidth, I've tested this with Crystal CPUID, Sisoft sandra, and Everest Ultimate Edition.
its the same everytime...
the lower your multiplier goes, the less bandwith you get for your ram.
so 1000 mhz on the ram, at 6 x 500, is not the same as 1000 mhz at 7 x 500.

Lowering your multiplier on these boards has a drawback that you might not wanna live with, especially if your overclocking a high multiplier CPU on Air, like a E6700, where you been lowering it on the 965/975 chipsets with no penalty to your speeds in things like Super Pi, but if you lower the Multiplier from its stock default multiplier on the 680i, you will get a slower score then you might be expecting, and it's probably directly related to the bandwidth loss you suffer by lowering your multiplier.

3. Ram Speed Glitch.

Theres a Glitch that one can Exploit when Overclocking with the 680i boards, and it's signifigant enough that its worth mentioning.

your ram speed will be reported wrong in a few programs like Ntune, if you lower your multiplier.

set 1000 mhz in bios, it boots at 1 ghz, but you ran a 6 multiplier, instead of 7.... when you look in Ntune, it will report 1200 mhz.

this only happens when you lower the multiplier.
I havent taken the time to see if this glitch effects CPUZ yet.
(its thanksgiving, and I just got home)

so this is something to be aware of, to avoid fakers and false results.

4. 1T Command Rate.

This ones a iffy one, cause some people will want to not believe it.

1300 mhz, cas 5-4-4-10 at 2T.... is only alittle faster then 900 mhz, cas 3-3-3-8-1T.

regaurdless of the speed used, linked or unlinked... 1T is very fast, when you get it up to 900+ Mhz.

I tested this at 3.5 ghz (7 x 500) many many times.
unlinked mode always, and setting my ram speeds manually.

cas 3 at 900 mhz, and 1T.... while not exactly easy to get stable, is almost as fast as 1300 mhz at cas 5-4-4 at 2T.
while I admit, I have not tested this in gaming yet... in everything else, this has been confirmed for me over and over.

heres where it gets alittle fuzzy.
1300 mhz... while you may not believe it, is alot easier on these boards then it sounds. I am starting to think, that pretty much any High Quality ram has a real good shot at 1200 mhz easy on these at reasonable voltages, and 1300 mhz if you push it alittle.

but at the same time, cas 3 at 900 mhz at 1T, isn't so easy.
it takes extra voltage usually, and is harder to keep stable.
but should prove to be great for extreme benchmarks should you choose the 1T/low latency route.

so it's not so easy to say one is faster then the other, cause high MHz is definatly easier to achieve, then moderatly high speeds with low cas at 1T is.
it wont suprise me if this is a aguement that is very hard to have a conclusion with.


5. Heat and Overclocking.

if you take nothing I say here serious, atleast take this one point and listen for a second.

these boards run really.... reaaaaaaaally hot.
my Asus board here has heatpipes all over it, but after about 5 minutes of it on, its clear the heatpipes on this board are doing little to nothing for this board. this board should not be run with any form of passive cooling if you intend to overclock.

active cooling is a must, and not just for the NB.
the SB and PWM area all too get very very hot when running overclocked for long periods of time. to give you an example, how I found this out was.... I was poking around the board with my flashlight looking for some ICS, so I could see if there was a clockgen available for this board.
the board was on and running...
I tapped the NB heatsink, with my flashlight hand... and I burned my hand.
not like alittle warm... I mean burned.
at the time, the board was heavily overclocked, and running some high voltages... but no different then any other overclocker would do.
to say it was hot, isnt the right word.
I've seen boards that run hot in the past... especially after days like the first prescotts.
this board makes the prescott look like a ice cube.

these boards need far better cooling then I am seeing on them at stock.

it might take a hour or so of heavy overclocking or gaming to see what I mean, but touch the heatsink and you will see what I mean.

put fans on there, anywhere you can if you overclock.
these things need it.


6. Latency and "Strap".

this board definatly does run with some form of "Strap".
however, where they are, isnt exactly clear yet.
what I mean is... passing 1066 FSB, doesnt mean your gonna automatically get the 1333 FSB strap kicking in.

when your at a low FSB like 333 or so, your gonna be around 50-55 NS for latency.
when you get to above 500 FSB your gonna be about 60-65NS for latency.

boot at 9 x 400, and you will have a faster set of ram, then if you booted at 8 x 450, cause the latency and the multiplier bandwidth loss would make it less of a good overclock then you might think, even though your ram appears to be running faster, you might find the difference is shockingly small, cause your taking a hit in 2 ways.
the latency of the chipset changes... and your lower multiplier then the stock one, also makes your ram take a high on its bandwidth.

so test your OC's alot before you settle for one, cause just setting one speed without testing it... may result in a slower speed then you thought you had, cause of things you cant actually control, like the chipset latency, and the bandwidth you lose by lowering your multiplier.

7. 1333 Mhz Wall.

this is gonna sound strange, cause its only a hunch...
but getting 1300 mhz with these boards is almost too easy.
however the closer you get to 1333... the sharper your stability falls.
I have 2 sets of ram that easily hit 1300.
but its the same in both cases. theres a drastic fall in stability once you get near, or pass 1333 mhz on your ram speed.
so drastic, that it actually seems like a wall, more then a hardware limit.

getting up to about 1310 mhz is easy with alittle stability.
1320 will work for awhile.
but 1333 is a quick and drastic change in stability.

my guess... and yes, I have no proof of this.
is that theres a hardware wall within the bios, to make 1333 mhz not possible.

why?

cause the 1333 FSB is intels next CPU FSB.
and Ive seen this before with the 925x chipset, where they didnt want people taking 200 FSB CPU's changing them to 266 and getting a cheap extreme edition.
so there was a near solid wall at 260-ish.
but that same wall, didnt exist for CPU's with the 266 FSB.

would they do it again?
sure, why not?
this gives them a reason to push the 1333 FSB even more, if they appear to OC better... when they really are just getting a free jump over a bios limitation.

so thats my little conspiracy theory. :D

8. Linked or Unlinked.

this is something I really dont know where to go with...
I've heard people claim that Unlinked is slower then Linked.

however, after about 20 trys with Super Pi, and various bandwith tests.... I can't see to find any differences, between linked or unlinked.
I mean none... I get no benifit from running linked, then I do unlinked....


9. Dividers.

when you run stock, you have a few usual dividers to play with, like 3:2, 5:4 and 1:1.

when you run unlinked, you have a whole range of odd dividers that kick in to determine your ram speed.
however, some dividers seem to be less stable then others.
example.

for me running 7 x 500, I run unlinked.
unlinked at 1300 mhz, and Auto for the divider I get 1300 mhz even, and uses the 10/13 divider.
but run linked, and set the divider manually and I use 3:2.... which says it gets me 1300 mhz in bios, but reboot and I get 1333 Mhz.... not the 1300 it said.
to get it to boot at 1300 at 3:2, I gotta clock down 1 FSB to make the ram seen at 1299 mhz... but that turns out to be less stable, then if I let the bios just use the 13/10 divider, when I set auto and left it unlinked.

so try different combinations for your ram, and realize, some dividers are less stable then others.


10. OS Corruption and high Ram MHz.

heres the one biggest drawback to this board so far.

with how easy it is to et past 1200 mhz with these boards, your gonna wanna push your ram farther and farther.
if your anything like me, you will just keep trying and trying till you cant go any farther.
but once you pass 1330 mhz...
you will quick start to corrupt your OS, and it wont boot anymore, or constantly gives you BSODs just after the load screen.
usually, a windows repair install wont work either, cause by then, you probably corrupted most of your boot drivers, DLLs and such... so theres nothing for windows to work with, it may not even see that theres a OS there to repair...

so be very verrrrrrrry careful if you really get into pushing your ram, otherwise you might loose everything off your hard drive.
make back ups of your information that you dont want to lose, and get yourself a copy of Norton Ghost, if you really wanna start pushing your ram on these boards.
cause Data Corruption happens very easily past 1330 mhz.



thats it for now, I am tired of typing and I am full of turkey and damn I gotta sleep... this foods making me feel 100 pounds heavier and sleepy.

[sdumper]

I had the same problem with a raid0 raptor set on a striker. BSOD or setup "cannot find drive" errors, even with the floppy in. At first it was reporting it could not find the drive because I forgot that you have to load BOTH of the options that appear in the load driver section of setup. After I did both, it blue screened.

Once the raid drivers were slipstreamed onto a new cd, it worked with no problems. Doubt it's your oc.

yep you were dead on Its working fine now.

Also a I tried out the new 0701 bios and they changed the NB settings. I used to run at a max of 1.45 and now run at 1.65 for the exact same results. In otherwords what used to work at 1.45 on 0402 now requires me to set 1.65 on 0701 just giving folks a heads up.

[MiamiMuscleBoy]

Thanks for that info I just got the p5n32-e sli because I wasnt going to pay 400 for a striker . I am not going to open anything till I see what the commando does. I have 2 stix of ballistix ddr2 1000 and an e6600 boxed up to. You are tempting me to open it up though ! everyones complaining about this 680i chipset and thus I an only run my one 1900xt on it when I set it up . I hope ati comes out with something to beat or match the 8800's thats the only thing I am waiting on to decide to refund this asus and get the commando so i have the option of going with the 8800's or the ATI;'s new r600 whichever ones better I guess. thanks for that info on clocking this board i will need it if i keep it for sure.

[MiamiMuscleBoy]

Ok I cannot thank you enough for all that work you did on your p5n32-e I went ahead and started on it (tired or waiting on all the bulls**t rumors on rd600 and stuff so I am wondering if what bios should i be using ? There is an update on the asus site but I have booted up with my e6600 L631B120 and the ddr2 1000mhz ballisitx you said would work fine and it does. havent done RAID or anything yet just 1 raptor on with xp right now. but this board feels like its in an oven I have a NB temp of 137F after its been on for over 15 mins but thats just with xp ? and I havent even started an overclock yet . !~ tell me what is the best (ACCURATE) sotware for reporting , sandra cupz everest crysal. i am not worrying about the video card yet, i have an x1900xt i am just going to run with untill r600 or something finally arrives or until they fix the 8800's whenever they getaround to it this year

[Lood007]

I have tried every Striker BIOS under the sun and have found that with the new 0701 BIOS, setting everything to AUTO under the overvolt menu (besides vCore and vDIMM) works the best.
I manually tried every possible setting... most were unstable at FSB1700Q and higher. Auto made some of these a lot more stable, but I am having a lot of trouble getting any higher than 430 MHz FSB with this E6300.

[Janbatos]

did anyone know if these ram chips run on evga 680i ??
G.SKILL PC2-800 CL3 KIT F2-6400CL3D-2GBGA (org. timings 3-4-3-8 )
hope they can push my evga very well;)

any oc?

[Jerunk]

Anyone having high temps under load with the scythe infinity on the evga 680i board? I touch 85c under load, with 1.5v vcore reported in bios.

[H0RM0NE]

Anyone having high temps under load with the scythe infinity on the evga 680i board? I touch 85c under load, with 1.5v vcore reported in bios.

How are you measuring your temps? I would definitely look at remounting your HSF. I have the E6400 and Infinity P/p fans and it'll idle at 28 and has never gone above 45C under loads at 1.5 Vcore. My board is the P5N32-E SLI PLUS board and not Evga but still...

[RealTelstar]

you would have to compare. 1000mhz 450x8 to 400x9 to make it truly fair.
3.6ghz @ 8x multi and 3.6ghz @ 9x multi using unlinked mode and forcing the memory to 1000mhz
thats the only way you cna say with 100% proof that a lower multi is better or worse.

I would like to see these exact benches on a 680i board.

As I would like to measure the 1T performance boost on a rather low frequency like 800 or 900mhz.

[RADCOM]

Another great post thanks. Do you think it's best to strip out the heatpipes and get active cooling for the NB and SB or just have some thing like an antec spot cooler or fan over that area?

[NickS]

Great info Kunaak, added this to my Ultimate C2D thread. :)

[hydkrash]

Anyone has any prob running D9 fat bodies on this board? I've got a pair of Corsair 8000UL rated at 1000Mhz 5-4-4-9 but simply won't run at 1000Mhz no matter what settings I use 1T, 2T, 5-5-5-15...nothing works

it runs rock stable with 2.2V 900Mhz 4-3-3-7 1T though

[HighT3ch]

I am writing from work so I quickly browsed the thread thus may missed it somewhere. I have a somehow irrelevant question regarding the 680i chipset. Is not about overclocking etc but the BSOD and the network interface teaming. I had an evga 680i (then with the p24 bios) and I had BSOD every time network "boost" and teaming were enabled. I was looking forward in this specific feature and I was let down. I wanted to know if with the current bios these problems still exist. Realistically speaking do Evga and Striker boards suffer from the same problems?

[adamsleath]

yes; helpful kunaak; higher 1.2 ht (at 1.5-1.55v) certainly helped me to get higher fsb.

[Solarfall]

did anyone know if these ram chips run on evga 680i ??
G.SKILL PC2-800 CL3 KIT F2-6400CL3D-2GBGA (org. timings 3-4-3-8 )
hope they can push my evga very well;)

any oc?

there is a thread in the EVGA forums about memory compatibility. you might want to check it out: http://evga.com/community/messageboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=21137

[IluvIntel]

Subscribed

[veilsidebr]

Hello guys! i have a quick doubt.

Recently i´ve got this impressive motherboard, and i´ve been so trying to overclock my old P4 630 3.0 model.

But i got abit confused with some of the voltage sets:



Ht voltage
Vcore voltage
CPU Vtt voltage



I really dunno if i should change the second one, or maybe both, so maybe im lacking of this information to get my expected results coming up.

My PSU is also abit weak i suppose(i think that it lacks some energy supply since there is no second 4-pin connector, so i basically just connect one, to the striker while it should be 2) its a 420 w Seventeam.

How do they work, these 3 values of voltages, or what about are they related to?

[veilsidebr]

One other thing that bothers me out is the fact that the software, Soundmax Control panel for the Asus Striker, dont come with an equalizer (HOW) and the SAME software for the Asus M2N board comes!!

LOL

Anyone that made it work in striker? pretty annoying to have that software with no equalizer =(

[Andrew LB]

The whole memory compatibility issue with the Striker and P5N-E SLI kinda worries me since I just recently bought G.Skill DDR800 memory for my new E6600 setup. The 2x 1gb memory works great but isn't on the certified memory list.


P5N-E SLI: http://www.asus.com/999/download/products/1459/1459_10.pdf

Striker Extreme: http://www.asus.com/999/download/products/1439/1439_10.pdf

[veilsidebr]

What are yours Andrew?
i got a F2-6400 GBHK kit 2x1 GB aswell, DDR2800 4-4-3-5

[veilsidebr]

Hello i would ask to you guys that are very experienced in overclocking, well my PSU doesnt support 2 4pin connectors to motherboard, so i just connect one to the Asus Striker. Does this cause any damage effect or efficiency loss(i think that so while overclocking, but im not sure)to the processor or other parts of motherboard? i was wondering if im not damaging it when im just connecting a single 4pin energy cable to it, and not both, when it maybe is required.

Any issue on that, or can i use my processor(sig) very ok with this way?

[Chopst1x]

This has been a great help, thanks so much.

[TheBeast1590]

Thanks Kunaak, it helped a lot...