Athlon FX and ATI 9800XT overclocking

[trooper11]

I have two questions regarding overclocking. First is in regards to the Athlon FX. Which motherbaord would be best in combination with the Mach II compressor kit to get upwards of 2.8ghz? I have read that the board of choice is the Asus SK8N Nforce 3 150 Pro and that there is a special bios that will allow multiplier settings of up to 14x. The only thing I worry about is the fact that the nforce 3 chipset has shown problems in performance in gaming particularly since it has a lower HT speed. Will the special bios that i have ehard work on the AsusSK8V VIA K8T800 Chipset motherboard as well? Also, Ill be using sata hard drives so I am assuming ill need locked agp and pci , which of those boards have that feature?

My second question is about the ATI 9800XT card. I want to know if it is worth it to overclock it using either an air cooler or a water gpu cooler such as the WaterChill VGA cooler. I have heard of some hitting 500/400 and more using a water set up, but I dont know if that is something easily atainable. Are there any other coolers, water or air , that would be better for ocing it? I wish nVentive made an adapter so i could use the mach II on my gpu as well lol. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[JCviggen]

the SK8V is better than the SK8N, also you might look into the Gigabyte board, sounds good but havent tried it

[xgman]

The SK8V will overclock a bit higher with an Nvidia graphics card due to the lack of an AGP lock on the via chipset. The Ati is a bit more sensitive to the PCI bus.

[J0k3r3]

SK8V for sure m8. I tried the combo (w/ mk2 and they do very well togethor). You dont really need fsb here. Just set fsb to like 220 and use the multipliers (their all unlocked!)

btw make sure to download this firmware into the mach2 (it fixes the boot issues with the sk8v) -> http://nventiv.com/log/FIRMWARE821.zip

trooper on air/water you should get about 450~500/~420

you can get a cheap vapope and mount it on your gpu its very easy. or just get a swiftech pelt!

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3461588941&category=3673

just see if you can get that cheap and take the compressor, condensor, evap out of the container and use it to cool ur gpu

[trooper11]

Thanks for all your help. I would definitely prefer to use the sk8v but i was wondering if it also has the same special bios to allow access to all the multipiers, i belive up to 14x. The other thing is the lack of a lock on the pci/agp. I would really prefer to use the ati 9800XT , is it worht the boost of the baord to use the fx5950 which is not the best performing video card? Is there a way i could still use the ati card? As far as getting the comrpessor component to use on a gpu, i would prefer a kit designed to be used with it then to mod my own, im not exactly an expert modder yet. If there is a guide to help me add either a compressor for it or water, id greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

[xgman]

1002.019 bios

ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/mb/socket940/sk8v/

[buff]

well, do u want to game, or bench? I would buy both:D

[trooper11]

well this will be for gaming, not benching. will the ati still work with the sk8v if i set it a certain way, or is there a low tolerance that it has? Any other ideas of guides or a kit too cool the vga and chipset?

[J0k3r3]

dont worry about agp/pci lack. just use the dividers. you can run up to 230fsb without any worries of your agp/pci messing up your hdd/video card...you WONT need 230 fsb though,. just run 215*13 and that is MORE than you need unless you want to take the orb,.

[trooper11]

what do you mean by just use the dividers? your right though, i wont be pushing the fsb very far, basically using the 14x multipier.

[trooper11]

any ideas on good video card cooling? i could consider water, but it might be too tough to mount in with the mach II so any suggestions on air cooling would be appreciated.

[Tom Holck]

Originally posted by xgman
1002.019 bios

ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/mb/socket940/sk8v/

You can't use clockgen with this bios..
1001.013 is better

I use 9800xt cooled with R404 modded March I with Sk8V/FX
it work fine

3DMark2k01 298xx
3Dmark03 91xx

If i use default 9800xt with air, the FSB have to be sub 235 with GPU cooling no problem going FSB at 247.

Update:
my new Corsair RE3500 ram can go FSB 25x-26x then I have to use a Nvidia card to handle the high AGP speed.

[xgman]

Tom, did you have the Corsair RE3200 prior? Is it worth the upgrade or are they just going to start binning more carefully now that they see the 3200 could do 3500+?

[trooper11]

but how do you cool the video card with the mach I? is there a vga attachment i havent seen? is it something i could adapt to the mach II as well?

[Tom Holck]

Originally posted by xgman
Tom, did you have the Corsair RE3200 prior? Is it worth the upgrade or are they just going to start binning more carefully now that they see the 3200 could do 3500+?

The Corsair RE3200LL v 1.1 is close to re3500 but a lot better than the Corsair RE3200LL v 1.0

I have all 3:D
I think the best is named 3500 and the rest 3200


Originally posted by trooper11
but how do you cool the video card with the mach I? is there a vga attachment i havent seen? is it something i could adapt to the mach II as well?

just bolt it on 2 holes in the VGA. Same on the March II
look here (danish)
http://www.tweak.dk/forum/thread.php?threadid=11907&sid=501cee2135579ce918aa791c12061ed1

[xgman]

Hmm, I didn't see that there was a ver. # on the RE3200. I'll have to look. I know they had a R3200 at 2-3-3.

[Tom Holck]

Originally posted by xgman
Hmm, I didn't see that there was a ver. # on the RE3200. I'll have to look. I know they had a R3200 at 2-3-3.

Yes,

The R3200 is no good. RE3200 is better

R3200LLPT
R3200LL
RE3200LLPL
RE3200LL
RE3200LL v1.1
RE3500LLPT

LLPT and LL is the same if you set the bios yourself.

[trooper11]

hmm well i see what your doing, but thats an awful lot of modding id rather not get into. and also, how do i get a second attachment, one for the cpu, one for the gpu? if i didnt want to do all of the modidng, are there any other , simpler options, such as air coolers or a discrete water cooling solution?