DFI 680i LT Quad Core overclocking

[jonbass]

I received my DFI 680i LT about a month ago and i must say that this motherboard have really surprised me allot in a positive way, especially the over clocking ability’s with Kentfield have blown me away.

DFI have really taken the time to make this board as well as it can be, both the motherboard itself and also the BIOS is just amazing.
The layout on DFI 680i LT is really great, everything feels like it’s in the right place. The clean area around the socket is perfect for everyone who wants to cool the CPU with more extreme cooling.
But not only the layout is great, the stock cooling on the card is also one of the absolutely best i ever seen. On the Southbridge DFi have used a active cooler that looks a bit like Ever cool VC-RE, and this cooler does a really good job.
But it was the Northbridge cooler that really astonished me, first of al this cooler is so big it doesn’t come assembled on the motherboard it comes in a separate box. The cooler looks a bit like a hybrid of Thermal right HR-05 and a improved Zalman NB47J, this is something completely different from other 680i motherboards.

I could go on a write so much about this motherboard, but it already exist a couple of great threads/reviews about DFI 680i LT here on xtremesystems so i have decided just to show a couple of pictures of the board and put focus on Quad Core over clocking.

First a couple of pictures off the motherboard and CPU.
























Since I got the board last month I have done some testing especially with Quad Core and over clocking, unfortunately I haven’t had the chance yet to cool the board with anything more extreme than air yet but it is coming later this week, hopefully.
Before I decided to get the new DFI motherboard I used both Asus Striker Extreme and EVGA 680i board and was pretty satisfied with them, but there was a couple of things bothering me especially the low FSB was to me a big problem but also a couple of problems with memory dividers and unlinked mode was bothering me.
So when I read about DFI 680i LT and that both high FSB with kentstfield and memory over clocking was great on this motherboard I just had to try it out, I thought that if someone can make a 680i motherboard great it must be DFI.
And it seems like I did the right choice, DFI 680i LT is according to me the absolutely best 680i motherboard out there so far.
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Here are a couple of results on air, the cooler used is a Zalman 9500AT and the ambient temp was around 25-30 degrees.



Lets start with some FSB overclocking togheter with my old CPU QX6700, i managed to raise the FSB on the DFI 680i LT to 470Mhz witch isnt to shabby.



This is a Screen with my new CPU togheter with DFI 680i LT, for this i used 1.38v.



Super PI with around 1.4v.




3D Mark 06 & 3D mark 03






Here are some memory overclocking with 1T,




So far DFI 680i LT exceeds all my expectation, i hope i will be as satisfied when i move over to more extreme cooling.
I will be updating this thread with results as soon as i have more to show.

[Wiggy McShades]

what's your max fsb on the G0

[Solarfall]

jonbass that is very good results with air im actually very impressed how these now quad chips overclock with just air.. hmmm my next toy maybe
oh and btw awesome pics brotha what camera do you have?

[Yoxxy]

That chip is a monstor 4 ghz pi with only 1.392

[Wiggy McShades]

how much time did you spend tweaking the gtl voltages to get 470 fsb?

[Pedro Rocha]

Nice

What Bios version are you using??

[virtualrain]

how much time did you spend tweaking the gtl voltages to get 470 fsb?

Good question. What GTL values did you end up using? Can you share your bios settings for this?

[Kampfzerstorer]

Congratulations. I can't begin to tell you how envious I am.

Can't say that I'm getting similar results with mine. In fact I'm just about ready to snap this mobo in half. Post some bios settings so we can get some insights.

[AndreYang]

PM me. I have QX6850 DFI 680i BIOS to share.


Andre

[doghouse]

Beautiful pictures and beautiful results, did the PWM's need any extra cooling?

[justin_c]

i just got 2 q6600 G0s, a dfi 680i lt, and an evga 680i A1. i will be testing them tomorrow and friday. wish me good luck! (me and my cousin)

[virtualrain]

i just got 2 q6600 G0s, a dfi 680i lt, and an evga 680i A1. i will be testing them tomorrow and friday. wish me good luck! (me and my cousin)

I'll be very curious to see what clocks better the EVGA or DFI. It sure seems hit or miss with the DFI.

[jonbass]

Thanks for all the nice feedback

Also i will also share my BIOS settings but i am working right now so i will post them later today



Wiggy McShades// virtualrain
The max FSB with my G0 is around 445-450 so far but I haven’t really found the best settings for this CPU yet, hopefully I can raise the FSB to 470Mhz like my QX6700. Although I have some problems with the current BIOS I am using together with QX6850 and I am really hoping DFI will release a fix soon.

The GTL ref voltage aren’t that tweaked on my QX6700 results, I read the VictorWang/ Pedro Rocha threads here on Xtremesystems and used their recommended settings 170/95/95 and 1.6v for VTT. But my QX6850 is given me more problems with the GTL ref, It have taken me a lot of time to find the right settings and still I aren’t satisfied so I will continue trying.


Pedro Rocha
I am using both BIOS 05/21 and beta BIOS 07/22, now the multiplier on 07/22 is locked so I have gone back to 05/21 now when I am going to assemble my SS.
But I am looking for a better BIOS for my QX6850, hopefully DFI will release a new BIOS soon.
Also I saw that DFI have the 07/22 BIOS on their regular site so hopefully they have fixed the problems with this BIOS, I will try it later today.


AndreYang
It would be great if I could try your BIOS


Solarfall
I used to work as an assistant/ image editor for a photographer so now I have possibilities to borrow both the studio and camera from there, the camera I use for these pictures is a Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II.

Here are more picthures of DFI 680i LT.

http://www.skebo.ac/jonbass/DFI680iLT/index.html



doghouse
The PWM area is getting really hot and that is one of the reasons why I haven’t pushed the voltage any higher yet, so I have to use active cooling or else I am getting stability issues.
Right now I am using a 80mm fan blowing on the area around the PWM but it is getting really ho anyway so I am thinking about assemble something else to get better temps.


justin_c:
Good luck, looking forward to se results from both EVGA and DFI, I actually thought about getting the EVGA rev A1 motherboard before I found DFI so it will be really intresting.



Last night I finished the work on my SS so it is ready to be assembled and hopefully I will get it up this weekend, I will post new results as soon as I have anything to show.
Also once again thanks for al the nice comments .

[justin_c]

I cannot start my rig right now because my surge bar blew, and I am building a test bench for it. Preliminary results say the DFI is extremely fussy, the EVGA reaching 3.8 ghz with 1.55V. I have swapped that 3.8 ghz proc from the EVGA to the DFI, hoping to test later today.

btw, can anybody dig up that thread concerning difference between the temps of cores 1/2 and 3/4. its almost a 10C difference, but the AS5 hasnt cured yet. cant seem to find it.

[justin_c]

cant even get 2.8 ghz prime stable with all voltages maxxed out. i'm running 4gbs of ram though, may take 2 sticks out. really have to tweak those gtl settings.


edit: two gigs of ballistix 8500, still failing orthos within 5 seconds. gtls that ive tried include 176/176/95, 195/195/95, 200/115/95. running at









HELP!

[transistor]

Great results jonbass!

I still have both, DFI 680i and G0 Quad wrapped in their package, waiting for some action, and your results are quite encouraging.

My aim is to get 3600Mhz from the quad (400X9), is it hard to get a stability on prime @ 400Mhz fsb with current avaiable Bios?

Keep up the good work!

[justin_c]

^^yes, very difficult to get 3.6ghz prime, 400 fsb. its the gtl that rules if the OC is completely stable, or completely not. i think i need to get a evga 680i a1 for myself.

[jonbass]

First I would like to say that there are a couple of great threads here on Xtremesystems with info about the best settings for DFI 680i LT, i think that these threads are better than mine if you need info on how to set up your motherboard.

You can find the most of them here in Virtualrains great thread about this mobo.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=143674

Also i recomend evrybody with this mobo to read this thread by Victor Wang.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=144585

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To make the overclocking with DFI 680i LT easier would recomend to use Clock gen for 680i motherboards, also memset can help.


Cooling:

This motherboard needs a lot of cooling to really perform at its best, at least it have been so for me. So the first thing I recommend is alot of cooling and especially around the sockel and PWM area, If I remove the fan I have directed against the PWM area then I experience stability problems pretty fast when over clocking. It also help cooling the area around the nortbridge.



BIOS Settings:

The settings I have used is not something that will work for everybody, I think I can give some pointers to start with but I believe everybody have to adjust the settings especially for their hardware.



Linked & Unlinked:
I have noticed that the best results are with linked mode for memory’s, I have more trouble getting high FSB with unlinked mode especially with my QX6850. So I usually use 5/4 or sync, also this motherboard is just awesome memory over clocker so even when running around 1000 MHz I can use very tight timings.


PCI-E & SPP/MCP :
when benching I usually have the PCI-E bus around 125-130 Mhz, the SPP/MCP I set to 200 to begin with, later when getting a stable over clock then this one can be tweaked.


FSB Frequency:
The FSB can be a little tricky, FSB has to be set together with GTL ref settings for Quad Core. To get over 400Mhz wasn’t any big problems for me i could use only the CPU VTT setting and leave the GTL ref voltage on 140/75/75, but to go higher i had to tweak the GTL ref settings. Now this is also very different from hardware to hardware, my QX6700 was a bit easier to get high FSB with than my QX6850.
Also I have had some problems with FSB between 1500-1600 with my QX6850, i had to jump directly to 1600Mhz from 1500Mhz.
To find right GTL togheter with FSB I would recommend ClockGen for 680i, this can help.


Voltage:

Now lets go to voltage, this chapter is the most important to get a great over clock on this board, it takes a bit of trying and tweaking to find the right settings but when you do then this motherboard just flies.



CPU Vid Control & CPU vid Special control:
My QX6700 needed quite a bit of voltage, and for me the CPU Vid control together with CPU Vid special control worked much better than just using the CPU vid control. So instead of using 1.5v I set around 1.46x 103% =1.5038v.
My QX6850 don’t need as much voltage as my QX6700 but still I use both CPU VID and special vid Control.


CPU Drive Strenght & Dram Drive Strenght:
There are now universal setting for CPU drive strength and Dram drive strength, this is something that everybody has to try them self and se what works. I have had more luck with Strong both for my CPU and also my memory’s, but like I said I doesn’t mean this will be the best setting for everybody.


Dram voltage control:
I use OCZ flex 9200 and I usually use around 2.3-2.4v and this works great, also there is important not to give the modules more voltage than they can handle because to much voltage and heat will kill them. I imagine that the most people already know this fact.


NB Core voltage:
This is a bit tricky, it depends a bit how good cooling you have on the Northbridge, its very important for the stability to keep the Northbridge cool if you are going to raise the voltage.
Also if I raise the voltage to high I get stability issues even when using great cooling, I have had best results with around 1.6-1.65v on the Northbridge, now I know that other have had more luck with even higher voltage but start with 1.6v and then raise if the temp feels OK.


SB Core voltage:
This one is important for high PCI-E, Victor Wang recommends 1.56v to get PCI-E 133 Mhz. For me 1.56-1.6 has been fine.


SB Dual Voltage:
For this one Victor Wang recommends 1.62v to get high PCI-E, I have been using default voltage but if you are having trouble try to raise it and se if it does any difference.


LDT Voltage:
I set this one between 1.37-1.42v.


CPU VTT Voltage:
This one is really important for high FSB on Kentsfield, for my QX6700 I used 1.6v to get 472 Mhz FSB. With my QX6850 I doesn’t need as much as I did on my QX6700, I usually use 1.5-1.55v when running above 375 Mhz FSB.
Now I saw that there is recommended settings for VTT together with GTL ref voltage, Unfortunately I haven’t had any luck following that. But even if I haven’t had any luck with the recommended settings I would still recommend trying them out first and if they don’t work then try tweaking them.

You can find the recomended settings here.
http://www.thetechrepository.com/showthread.php?t=163


GTL Ref voltage:
Enable for Quad core


CPU GTL 1 ref volt:
like I said before the recommended setting didn’t work for me so i had to tweak them myself, this can really be time consuming but it will pay off if you take the time doing it.
With this one I have had most luck around 170, this actually is the setting that Victor Wang recommends.
You can read about Victor Wang recommended settings here.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=144585


CPU GTL 0/2/2 ref volt
This one have also worked great with Victors recommended setting, = 95.
Now I have been trying a lot of different combination for GTL ref voltage and if I set these values to high then the system get unstable so it’s important to find the sweet spot.


North Bridge GTL ref volt
85-95, also Victors recommended setting.
But like the rest of these settings you have to try out what works best on your hardware, I had to use different settings with my QX6850 and QX6700.



I think thath DFI have the absolutely best motherboards out there al categories, they give the user much freedom by leaving so many settings open.
Now this can be both good and bad, the more settings you can change the more things can go wrong, but also the more you can control the better stability you can accomplish.
DFI´s motherboard will often take some time to figure out but when you do find the right settings their mobos are just great, for me DFI 680i LT is absolutly one the best motherboard i have tried for core 2 duo. Now it toke me many hours to figure it out but now thath i have i coulndnt be happier.


I hope that this can help someone, now like i said before there are many great threads here at Xtremesystems with more and better info about the settings than in this thread so i recomend evrybody with a DFI 680i LT to read these threads.
If someone have any questions or want to know any other settings then please ask by writing in the thread or sending me a PM, if i have wrote something completly wrong then please correct me.

[jonbass]

Nice system Justin C, i really love the cooling you have for yor memorys, what is it?

Transistor Looking forward to see some results from you, this mobo togheter with G0 is awesome.
The BIOS out are pretty good for QX6850 CPU´s but still there are a couple of things DFI needs to fix, now i hope and i think that next BIOS realesed will have these fixes.
I would recomend you to start out with BIOS 05/21 and if you are not happy with that BIOS then try the new official, now my multipler where locked on the newer BIOS but if you are going to run on air then this shouldnt be a problem. good luck


Despite everything that happened this weekend i took me an hour to do some tests and i must say that this combination of mobo and CPU keeps getting better and better. Now i had some trouble with multiplier 11 so i had to use 12 and that is why i have so low FSB on my 3D mark result, but i have a new BIOS for QX6850 that i will try today or tomorrow and hopefully the problems i have will disappear.



So for these results the CPU are still cooled with a Zalman 9500AT.


Jonbass 2007-08-19
As you can se on this screen the temp is pretty low during idle, now it gets higher during load but it doesn’t get as high as the temperature i had with my QX6700. Now i am still using pretty low voltage, around 1.42 set in BIOS for this result.


Jonbass 2007-08-19
This was the best result so far, i run the memory’s with 1T and this gave me a pretty nice boost.


Jonbass 2007-08-19
This was a FSB test with my kenstfield, and so far 440 seem to be the limit. Now like i said in the beginning of the thread i will try a new BIOS today or tomorrow and hopefully that will give me a bit higher FSB.


Hopefully i will get some time over this week so i can try my SS on the CPU, i had some problems with it so i had to take it down and assemble air cooling again but now it seems like everything is working like it should so hopefully i can post some results from that in a couple of days.

[justin_c]

jonbass, its a OCZ XTC memory cooler. works great, manages to get some flow over the two small aluminum heatsinks and caps too.
Very impressive FSB, I am pretty sure this motherboard needs time to get stable enough for a 3dmark06 run.

Is the GTL really processor specific? Because no matter what I try, 400x9, max volts, GTLs from 176 to 200, it won't be stable for more than 2 minutes.
Must tweak this thing like crazy.

[justin_c]

VERY GOOD NEWS!!!!
I have found the problem to my mysterious sudden shutoffs; hitting the top 90C limit set in BIOS. With two Silverstone 110 cfm fans strapped to my tuniq, and a desk fan blowing at the PWMs, maintaining 87C @ 1.6V, it has primed for 20 minutes, 4 cores. Just gotta wait another 2 more hours, then I will try notching down the voltage (yeah i know, i should prime for 8 hrs, but i gotta lower this temp). i will report on gtl settings very soon.

[jonbass]

EDIT: I was too slow ,
Great, it seems like you found the problem , this mobo is a tricka piece but like i said when you find the right settings this mobo rocks.



First i would say that your Northbridge voltage is a bit too high, also the GTL ref voltage seem high and when you give more voltage on the GTL ref you will get an unstable system.
I also noticed that my QX6850 is harder than my QX6700 to get stable, and this probably have something to do with BIOS, i think that the next release from DFI will be better for 1333 quad core CPU´s, or at least i hope so.
Now i don’t have any big problems like you describes, but hopefully its just some wrong setting causing al your troubles.

By the way, do you have clockgen for 680i motherboards, and memset? They can really help when raising the FSB.

I would suggest you to use 170-95-95 GTL ref and CPU VTT 1.6v, the Northbridge around 1.6v and good cooling on the Northbridge, place a good fan on the stock cooler. Also place a fan that blows directly at the PWM area only, this can really help with stability, also raise the SB voltage to 1.56-1.6v
Also try CPU Drive Strength both weak and strong, It is very different from CPU to CPU if drive strength weak or strong is better, so try and se what happens.I would also suggest you to try strong for your memory’s and se if it does any difference.

When getting really high FSB try both unlinked and linked mode, try sync and see if that gives any better stability. Also your memory settings try to set them manually.

I hope that you can find the best settings for your CPU and get the mobo to work, keep posting the progress and i will try as good as i can to give you advice.
But right now i would say that GTL ref can be the problem, like i said earlier, try 170-95-95 CPU VTT 1.6 and northbridge 1.6, and use good cooling.

Good luck.

[justin_c]

i am going to upload some 3dmark06, superpi 1m, and prime pics @ 3.6ghz.

i can't even boot up now, after a 3dmark06 run @ 3.8 ghz failed. it cannot boot when the sli bridge is in. no sli bridge=boots up fine. im going to reflash the bios again. i read a post by raja over @ dficlub.org that the 2ct version is for locked upwards processors, such as the q6600. the 4ct is for completely unlocked.

some things ive learned about this mobo:
1. use rmclock to disable tm1, tm2, and extended throttling. if you don't do this, the multiplier will drop down to 6x if you go somewhere in the 80C range.
2. GTL voltages are absolutely key to stability. if your off by 2, that means an unstable OC, between a completely Prime stable, and completely UNstable.
3. disable the auto shutdown feature!! very important, i spent over 2 hrs trying to figure out my mysterious sudden shutoffs.
4. pwm cooling; im using a desk fan blowing across the motherboard to get the best air i can (for the meantime till WC next month).
update: i just flashed the bios with the same version and SAME PROBLEM! will not boot up at 3.6ghz settings (which have been determined as stable earlier today), but boots up at completely stock settings (after a hard cmos reset). it gives error code 75. i will try flashing 4ct version onto it, maybe it needs a complete reflash of bios to work again.

update 2: flashed the bios with 4ct version and works @ 3.6ghz with sli bridge now. im really going to try 3.8 ghz tomorrow, i think gtl values for that are probably somewhere in the 142-170 range. here are some pics, nothing special:

[virtualrain]

EDIT: I was too slow ,
Great, it seems like you found the problem , this mobo is a tricka piece but like i said when you find the right settings this mobo is just the best.


What BIOS do you use? I would recomend BIOS 05/21 4CTST521, dont use the 2C BIOS use the 4C for quad core.

DFI has caused a lot of confusion with their BIOS nomenclature.

Prior to 521, the 4C and 2C represented the versions tuned for quad and dual core processors respectively.

With 521, they changed the nomenclature to mean that 4C was for Extreme (unlocked multi) processors while 2C was for non-extreme (locked multis). If you use a 4C on a Q6600 you will find you don't have multi control as a result. Use the 2C version to have full control over multiplier.

With 723, they unified the BIOS versions but at least for non-extreme processors, the multi is locked and cannot be lowered.

So if you want multiplier control on a Q6600, your only real choice is the 2C521 BIOS. If multi control is not important, then either BIOS appeared to work fine for me.

BTW JonBass, I haven't reviewed your other tips but I'll definitely add that to the ever growing archive.

[justin_c]

How is the 723 BIOS? The Nemesis said it didn't do too well above 390 FSB.