Gigabyte EP35-DS3P Overclocking issues

Coming from an MSI P35 Neo2-FR, I find my new gigabyte board to be a bit ockward in overclocking.

Going in small incriments, things would seem fine but once I hit over 3.5ghz, stability isn't the issue..it's FPS.

At stock cpu settings with my 9800gx2, frames are in the 250 range.

but once i start overclocking past 3.5ghz, if i don't hit a sweet spot with the volts, frames stay in the 30-50 zone.

Once I hit a sweet spot, and frames seem normal, instability kicks in and either my game crashes or my comp restarts.

The one thing i've noticed that's very different between the msi and GA board is that the MSI board does two cold restarts before booting into post/windows before applying the OC.

GA does not. if you don't touch the FSB frequency, it doesn't even cold restart once, it'll just apply the volts and boot into windows.

So what i did, is I copied the physical nature of the Neo, and after applying an OC with my GA board, i would manually give it two cold restarts.

Voilla! the FPS issue is gone! now it's just a matter of stability, and getting back up to 4.3ghz since right now i'm at 4ghz, but now that I don't have the FPS drop issue i'm okay for now..

Anyone else have this kind of experience with GA boards?

UPDATE: crashed at 4ghz. upped vcore, frames in drop zone again.

UPDATE: Reverted back to stock, applied load calibration. Load calibration bumped up volts once I started hitting above 3.4ghz, going from 1.225 to 1.236. Now what i've been doing since I'm in the 3.71ghz zone is applying the vcore manually to match what load calibration has been setting it to.

Example: in bios, for 3.51ghz, bios read 1.236v but in windows, vcore reads 1.225v. Once instability kicks in, I would manually set the bios's vcore to 1.236v and stability seemed okay. Before, I would never touch the vcore (would also be at default) and load calibration would just notch it up once in a while depending on what frequency I set the CPU to.

UPDATE:

Okay I figured it out. the FPS drop is caused by too much northbridge and FSB voltage.

This board does not need much increase, I was able to sustain 4.07ghz without touching the northbridge and FSB voltages.

I've read in other forums that in order to achieve +4ghz with DS3 boards, you need 0.30 past default on FSB and northbridge. Well with this board, that is wayyy too much.

Now at 4.43ghz, my FSB is at 1.50 past default, and my northbridge is at 1.50 past default.

So the FPS drop issue is northbridge thermal-throttling i guess.


UPDATE: Reduced NB and SB voltage to 1.0 past default due to instability issues.
Now to run some benchmarks! (y)

I RMA'ed this board for a rampage. If you apply more than 1.4vols to the northbridge it limits your FPS by 30-50fps.

This board is great for stock, and a cheesy OC but other than that, it's not an enthusiasts board.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by slugzkea

I RMA'ed this board for a rampage. If you apply more than 1.4vols to the northbridge it limits your FPS by 30-50fps.

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That doesn't exactly pinpoint a motherboard issue.
I have the board here for review, so... I'll share my own experience soon.

why are you increasin NB volts in first place
GB boards don't need an increase in NB anyways. They will give you great FSB and RAM speeds at stock voltage believe me

also for future reference users should select Turbo graphics in bios in case of slowdowns....that causes very poor 3D scores and could have been a possible problem

Quote:

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Originally Posted by slugzkea

I RMA'ed this board for a rampage. If you apply more than 1.4vols to the northbridge it limits your FPS by 30-50fps.

This board is great for stock, and a cheesy OC but other than that, it's not an enthusiasts board.

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good call

I can guarantee you that this was cause by the PCI-E x16 slot being run at x1. That's what happens when you set NB or FSB voltage too high. That's why I don't use mine for gaming anymore. My Neo2-FR takes care of my gaming computer.

you raise NB volts to stablize high clocks.

I use my e8400 at 4.3-4.5ghz, no lower.

the GA-EP35-DS3P bios F3 could not sustain that no matter what I tried. anybody that did stabilize their e8400 at 4.3ghz or above on AIR with this board, let me know how u did it, i'm curious.

the droop is terrible, and 1.4volts on NB isn't even considered "high" voltage for NB.
And wtf is the board doing automatically switching the PCI-E speed to 1x without any user permissions?

This board sounds like it runs its self, and if you dont want the board to run itself, it doesn't co-operate.

Screw that, I heart my rampage.


And what i mean by stable is Prime95 blend for at LEAST 4 hours.

Oh, and load calibration on this board did absolutely nothing.


You use your Neo2-fr over the GA for gaming? you see to me, that's insulting. The neo2-fr is way cheaper. It's considered a budget board and to my experience, prolly the best budget board you'll ever own.

I can't wait for my neo2-fr to come back from RMA.

When GA charges almost 200 bux for an "enthusiasts" board, and "#1 gamer's choice!" stickers, but yet the neo2-fr does way better, I dunno...I just find that a joke.

to my own experience, this GA board is for submitters, not dominator's.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dinos22

why are you increasin NB volts in first place
GB boards don't need an increase in NB anyways. They will give you great FSB and RAM speeds at stock voltage believe me

also for future reference users should select Turbo graphics in bios in case of slowdowns....that causes very poor 3D scores and could have been a possible problem

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Poor gaming fps and scores was not the problem, stability was.