MAX3 Review

[ricksimm]

HERE (http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NTA5)

[Netto]

Only 285 fsb? My IS7 can do 305 easy, they need some new reviewers eheheh I Bet this mobo can do 320+ FBS no problems

[Vatt]

My limit is FSB 280, whereas the P4C800-E could do FSB 290 with the same chip.
However, benchmarking the MAX3 is faster than the P4C800-E :confused:
It works, so I'm happy. After going through 3 motherboards in 3 weeks, I finally have one that works as it should.

I think the lack of Vagp(max 1.65v) is the reason why I can't go higher.
I'm only at vcore of 1.675, but the chip just keeps erroring in Prime when I try higher.
The Asus had a Vagp of 1.80v , so maybe that is why I could go higher then.

[gouda96]

i don't understand...raising the vagp can raise your proc/mem oc? I have heard that several times before...when i seem to reach my max oc should i try upping the vagp a little? How high is safe, and should good cooling on the vid card allow for a higher vagp? would raising the vagp increase the temp of my gpu?

[kingassasin]

Well gouda96, thats a good question. I have tried to raise it and didn't help at all. But I have heard alot of people say it does allow for higher oc. Maybe I'll give it another try. goodluck

[gouda96]

with a 3.0@~4.1 you might be already at the absolute top for you cpu? Maybe with lesser cooling it can help...maybe not. I wish vapos and prommies were cheaper...would be cool, litterally. I guess my mcw5000-pt will have to do for now...especially with a 2.6c that can hit 3.7+ on stock volt/cooling.

I gotta finish this intel rig...anything I say about this intel stuff is just me passing on knowledge from other people...actually I have built 3 friend's intel comps this summer, but they were just aircooled, and all their chips were so-so. All 3 were 2.4's maxing at about 3.2 or 3.3, but the one that hit 3.3 had basically no fans, because the 3 that were in the case did nothing and i think with some decent airflow he could be stable at about 3.5 or so.

I can't wait to get my pelts up and cooling.

[Major]

It's been suggested that on the CW and SD mb's the AGP and the Chipset voltage are one in the same. I've never taken the time to check, and have yet to see any difinitive proof. I've seen several people claim that raising the AGP increases FSB OCability. So maybe there is some truth in it.

[Kunaak]

raising the AGP has never done anything for me on these P4's.
now on AMD I know for a fact it stabilizes high FSB's, cause it's the only thing that would let super pi pass at 237.
1.8 volts on AGP=Pass.
1.7=fail in the middle.
1.6=barely boots.
1.5=clear CMOS-try again.

but on these P4's, I can't really tell what it's suppose to do.
I can tell you it makes the outter edge of my Ti-4200 hot as hell, but not much else ;)

[gouda96]

so can raising the agp volt hurt the video card? I am not sure what it even effects.

[Kunaak]

285 with a koolance isn't too damn bad if you ask me :)

[Vatt]

I also am not sure about the Vagp, but since that is the only difference between the P4C800-E and the MAX3 , that was the only thing I could think of.

I know Vagp helped me with my i845P (Epox 4PEA+) , but I'm not sure it works the same with this new i875P chipset.

At least this board (MAX3) is very stable and hasn't crashed yet.
I very pleased with it, except for the green lights in the OTES air channel. I didn't even know they had put lights in there.

[gouda96]

I think I am gonna go with a p4c800-d. It seems to be the best board for the money...I am assuming that the d oc's about the same as the c?

[Amoeba Assassin]

I would get the p4c800-e dlx

it will oc just the same

[gouda96]

ah....that would be the other way around for me. I don't need the extra features between the d and c, so if they oc the same I will save the money...and what about the non d, just the regular p4c800. Might not be as good being that it is stripped down. Might want to get the 'e' for resale purposes, because it might hold its value a little better.

[macci]

That HardOCP review is in a way phucked cos they seem to use some very slow mem timings and prolly some slow bios too on ASUS and 2-2-2-5 on abit :P
for instance the sandra mem score gives only like 47xx for p4c800 and 5050 for abit. it funny that I've always got over 5000 with p4c800 if ran at 15x200 like in that review.

[Raptor]

Usually i have more than 5100 if i turn off USB 2.0 on bios...

[Claw13Angel]

can anyone confirm that raising Vagp will able to have higher FSB? And will it HURT the video card?

[macci]

well I've just tested the MAX3 with the shipping BIOS on it and I think that its easily the worst 875/865 mobo I've tried.
in 1:1 mode it would run at 220FSB max even if Vmem was set to 3.2V...on P4C800 it does 240+ with Vdimm of 3.2V.
In 5:4 mode I had trouble going past 250FSB - 252 would give an error on SuperPi (with ASUS been up to 313 5:4).
Vdimm is jumping from 3.02V to 3.34V when set to 3.2V in the BIOS.

'Must have [HARDWARE]' indeed :D

[Hognert]

Reminds me of the IT7 situation.. Did the MAX boards perform any better than the original?! I think not. I seriously doubt the IC7-MAX3 does any better than the IC7 over all. Sure there's a few cherry boards but that's also the case with the original version. I would personally never spend the extra cash to get a max board.

[Amoeba Assassin]

Originally posted by macci
well I've just tested the MAX3 with the shipping BIOS on it and I think that its easily the worst 875/865 mobo I've tried.
in 1:1 mode it would run at 220FSB max even if Vmem was set to 3.2V...on P4C800 it does 240+ with Vdimm of 3.2V.
In 5:4 mode I had trouble going past 250FSB - 252 would give an error on SuperPi (with ASUS been up to 313 5:4).
Vdimm is jumping from 3.02V to 3.34V when set to 3.2V in the BIOS.

'Must have [HARDWARE]' indeed :D


tell that to kenneth;)

[runmc]

The Asus board (P4C800) is hard to beat - rock steady.

My Max 3 seems to do the job just fine, but the volts are all over the place in the bios. I was starting to think my PSU was crapping out on me.:D

[gouda96]

At this point my first choice mobo is the epox 4pda2+ due to the 1.85vcore and 3.3vdim. I imagine I won't be able to get it in the us, and when i get some responses from axiontech and newegg on wether or not they have the rev2 I will be buying my mobo and finally getting my intel rig setup. I guess doing a vdim mod and modding my 3.3v line for the p4c800 shouldn't be that big a deal.

[macci]

Hmm I'm starting to think that I've got a bad board.. as this wont run stable even at stock FSB with all GAT settings set to AUTO.

[Shane5578]

i hope mines not a bad batch.

[Amoeba Assassin]

I have heard that some boards are better than others

twiztdskater (or whatever his name) had one with perfect rails, but it died

he got another & it didn't have perfect rails

[macci]

I flashed the board with the latest -12 bios today and unplugged my 3.3V rail vmod from the Antec PSU. These two changes made it run like it should with HyperX ram. Obiously there was some major problem with HyperX in the -11 BIOS as I couldn't even load the OS menu with HyperX3500. PC3000 would run to OS but it crashed quite quickly.

Now the Vmem is solid at 3.16V and now I can reach a lot higher RAM speeds too. Gotta plug the 3.2C and R404 in and see if I can match P4C800 :)

[gouda96]

Macci how do you like the khx 3500? kingston is has a sale going where 256mb sticks are like $67. What kind of chips does this stuff have, and would it be good mem for me to try to get 2-2-2-x at 300+ fsb with 5:4 divider on a p4c800 or 4pda2+?

any ideas?

thanks.

[rabeb25]

I happened to get a good board, and a mediocre chip, At first I had some problems above the 250 1:1 mark but a bios flash helped me with that, I have really solid rails, and my vdimm is a solid 3.30-3.31 when set to 3.2 in bios. I saw mid 6500's in mem bandwidth at 285fsb 5:4 running the mem at 2,2,2,6. I would like to say though that my vcore overvolts un-godly high, as you will see in my pic. I have vcore set to 1.7 in bios, mbm5 reads it as 1.78. It has a bit of a temperature problem too at sub-zero temps, but none the less I would say it has treated me right. But this is also coming from an intel noob.:stick:

[Vatt]

Nice, but strange.
I assume you are talking about the MAX3 right?

I have attached my MBM screen, and all values are correct.
Have you used Diode 2 for your CPU measurement?

The rails seem low, but I have measured with my multimeter and they are exactly as they should be.
3.3 = 3.3
5.0 = 4.99
12 = 11.98
The board reads them very slightly lower, but that's okay.

BTW, this screenshot was when CPU was idle and -10°C compensation( in preferences)

[macci]

-10C compensation? why is that? to make it look colder? :D

[Vatt]

LOL, yeah.... :D
It is now right at the same level that my P4C800-E is at.
So it is for comparison...:D :D

[rabeb25]

hey how did you get the pwm temp?

[Vatt]

PWM temp = Winbond 3

System = Winbond 1
CPU = Winbond 2 Diode

[Amoeba Assassin]

keep us posted macci:D

[macci]

All righty. The MAX3 finally let me go below 33sec in SuperPi 1M. yesterday I ran my 3.2C on P4C800 using 1010D BIOS and had it up to 4410MHz and still couldn't get 32sec. ANd now on MAX3 it only took 4381MHz to do 32sec :)
Also a bit faster in PiFast bench.

So not a bad board at all - just requires a BIOS update if used with HyperX ram ;)

more results coming with maybe better cooling..

[Zroc]

UFC is the bomb ;)

[Creative]

My Hyperx 3500 was fine with the 11 bios :) Im now using the 12 bios and im 100% stable at 235fsb 2-5-2-2 F1/Strength/6cycles/enabled/enabled :banana: Im soooo happy cos I couldnt even get it to POST at F1 at anything higher that 210 with the IS7 and even this MAX3 before I unplugged fro the vapo :banana:

I dont have the Vapo anymore so the machine is all on air so the PSU has very very nice rails. My vdimm reads 3.22 and 3.19 real with a multimetre, up from the 3.16 I had when I had the vapo plugged up

My 3.3 is awesome again at 3.32 instead of 3.10 - I nearly went and bought a new PSU but Im glad I didnt considering its 100% and it was just the Vapo draining it ;) The 12v is fine and 5v is fine too.

What revision is your 3500 macci? I have the earlier revision from the start of the year....:)

ps
Forgot to add screenie :)

http://users.bigpond.net.au/creat/max3/235fsb2-5-2-2F1AndSTRENGTH!!!!.JPG

Ignore the scores etc, just stable testing atm :)

I love my MAX3......I thought the IS7 was the best mobo I had owned.....I think that just got overthrown :toast:

[macci]

the hyperx3500 I tried was most likely with CH5 chips on em.

[rabeb25]

what bios are you using now macci?

[WxChaser]

PWM temp = Winbond 3 WHAT is the PWM temp, not sure? Thanks.

[rabeb25]

Taken from abit




"PWM" is a circuit on mainboards to convert the voltage level from power supply unit to provide specific voltage to components (ex. Provide CPU with core voltage). We know that CPU could be the hottest component inside a PC system, and we always care about the heat dissipation of it. Actually, the PWM circuit is quite hot too; especially when CPU is at full loading, large current passes through the PWM circuit and was converted to necessary CPU core voltage. Some ABIT boards show "PWM temperature" on BIOS setup page and Windows hardware monitoring tool. This provides users possible hottest temperature inside the PC chassis, and check whether the air conditioning inside the chassis needs to be enhanced or not. When CPU works heavily, the CPU temperature could be around 60 degree C; nevertheless, the PWM temperature may achieve 70 degree C or even higher; depends on the design of thermal convection. The safety limit of the PWM temperature is about 120 degree C, however, we strongly recommend improving the air flow and heat dissipation inside the PC chassis once it rises to 100 degree C.

[macci]

im using the latest -12 bios

[gouda96]

I would love to get a max3, but it is jut to much. I think I am gonna pick up a p4c800-d. I realy want a 4pda2+ rev2, but I can't find one, and the rev1 only has 1.6v vocre. I think I am gonna flip a coin betwee the 4pca3+ and the p4c800-d...if only the 4pca3+ was at newegg...

Oh btw if my 3.3v rail reads 3.5 would I still need to mod the 3.3v rail to get my vdim over 3.1v on the p4c800 after the vdim mod?

thanks for hte help guys.

[Underwater Mike]

Any of you noticing wierd Vcore on the MAX3? On the IC7-G, used to be that Vcore was on and Vdimm was low; on the MAX3 it's the reverse: 1.55 Vcore gives me 1.41v; 1.6 setting gives me 1.50 in BIOS; etc. OTOH, Vdimm is spot on (at least as reported by HW Doc). PSU rails are within 3% via multimeter.

Any ideas? This fluctuating/low Vcore is what everyone was ragging at the P4C800-E about...

[rabeb25]

my vcore is out of control high, 1.6 in bios gives me like 1.68 in mbm/hardware doc

[Creative]

Wierd, my vcore is pretty much spot on, if anything she undervolts a little

eg 1.60 in bios is 1.58 real :)

[runmc]

I flashed to the 12 bios.

Voltages all leveled out. that is much better.

It still overclocks the same. That's with Corsair. Maybe I can do better with a couple of sticks of hyperx, I have coming.

The Corsair loves the 3.2v. Doesn't run for squat without it.:)

[gabbax]

Originally posted by macci
well I've just tested the MAX3 with the shipping BIOS on it and I think that its easily the worst 875/865 mobo I've tried.
in 1:1 mode it would run at 220FSB max even if Vmem was set to 3.2V...on P4C800 it does 240+ with Vdimm of 3.2V.
In 5:4 mode I had trouble going past 250FSB - 252 would give an error on SuperPi (with ASUS been up to 313 5:4).
Vdimm is jumping from 3.02V to 3.34V when set to 3.2V in the BIOS.

'Must have [HARDWARE]' indeed :D Bad luck?I do not understand. My does easy 300+......i said ts the best there is:D

http://w1.825.telia.com/~u82507683/4100mhz.jpg
This is MAX oc, its stable at 308...so the IC7 max3 its the best investment iv ever done!

[Semper Fi]

Gabbax, what bios are you using? Whats your other hardware? ram, psu etc?

[gabbax]

This is set with Abit latest, ive changed to BT´s(BigToes) BIOS, but it did no diffrence.
2.6C #L321
PSU:org Chieftec 360w
RAM:2x256 3200 Tw/wi BH-5
G-card:9480TVD

[Creative]

So another L321, or in other words, Week 21 shines thru again with a nice awesome OC :thumbsup:

Nice one :)

[gabbax]

hehe, just glad to pleaze u all;)

[macci]

This is MAX oc, its stable at 308...so the IC7 max3 its the best investment iv ever done!
but on P4C800 you could run 5:4 instead of 3:2 at that FSB (given that your ram can do it) ;) And its clearly cheaper mobo too.

Ic7MAx3 is the optimal mobo for 250-275FSB with 5:4 but its all over when you need to drop it to 3:2. P4C800 I've got does 312 3D-stable with 5:4 dividier using stock NB cooler so it will clearly outperform IC7/MAX3.

[gabbax]

But i do not have any good rams at all, the stops at 228mhz, i have run A-data way over 300+ at 5:4, so the mobo is perfect:) just waiting for some good ram to come.


EDIT: Macci, are u near Sthlm, would love to test your RAMs;) then 308 at 5:4 wouldnt be a probbs:D