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

[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.
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.

[virtualrain]

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

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

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

[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

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.

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

[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 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

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...

[mouawad]

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

[easyrider]

Nice info