** OFFICIAL ** Intel DX38BT & DX48BT2 BoneTrail Thread

[astrodave]

Yikes, I'm staying clear of this board for now. Wasn't there supposed to be a V2 of this board coming out next month? Maybe it's because this version is a lemon? My XBX2 has been a stellar performer so it's odd that this board has so many bugs and issues coming from Intel.

[gtj]

Funny, I don't think this board is any less stable than the XBX2 was on its earlier BIOS releases.

Where I'm at now...

vCORE:  BIOS: 1.375
vMCH:   BIOS: 1.350
vFSB:   BIOS: 1.300
FSB:    412MHz        Processor: 3.7GHz

Reference/Memory Freq: 333/1333
Timings: 8-8-8-24
vDIMM:  BIOS: 1.98

24 Hours Orthos stable 

I think this is going to be my every-day config.

I'll stretch it more this week.

[BLHealthy4life]

What is he BSOD you get installing XP ?

I do not remember....I didn't write it down.

I had other problems with the mobo not taking install to XP with two different XP discs; even before I could get to XP setup. One of the discs were sealed and used for the first time on this board.

Again, all hardware was from a previous build that worked fine.

Another note that I forgot to make, the speaker on the mobo does not work at all either. I never ever get a POST beep before the boad allows me into the BIOS....weird.

I just put in an RMA from the place i purchased the mobo, they are giving me a refund minus shipping cost.

I'm happy now.

I'm going witht he P5E3.

BL

[Solarfall]

hey gtj could you provide us some screenies too.. superPi runs etc.

[gs274]

how many people have this board and what is the consensus compared to the other ddr3 x38 boards out currently. i'm making the move from my formula se to a ddr3 board and am torn between the dx38bt and the maximus extreme.

[gtj]

hey gtj could you provide us some screenies too.. superPi runs etc.

Yeah, I'll get some posted in the next day or so.

[Solarfall]

Yeah, I'll get some posted in the next day or so.

kwel looking forward to it.. btw while we are on the subject..some bios screens would be awesome if you could snap few photos of them too.. mainly i'm interested about the overclocking settings /voltage settings that this board has

[gtj]

how many people have this board and what is the consensus compared to the other ddr3 x38 boards out currently. i'm making the move from my formula se to a ddr3 board and am torn between the dx38bt and the maximus extreme.

Is the Maximus Extreme released yet? It looks like it's going to be expensive.

[gtj]

kwel looking forward to it.. btw while we are on the subject..some bios screens would be awesome if you could snap few photos of them too.. mainly i'm interested about the overclocking settings /voltage settings that this board has

Yeah, I actually took the BIOS pictures yesterday. I'll get them up tonight.

[gs274]

Is the Maximus Extreme released yet? It looks like it's going to be expensive.

release a week or so ago, least newegg has it...currently $340-370

[nFo]

kwel looking forward to it.. btw while we are on the subject..some bios screens would be awesome if you could snap few photos of them too.. mainly i'm interested about the overclocking settings /voltage settings that this board has

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/566/2/

Or look in the bios.

[Randy]

how many people have this board and what is the consensus compared to the other ddr3 x38 boards out currently. i'm making the move from my formula se to a ddr3 board and am torn between the dx38bt and the maximus extreme.

Well,
I switched to the DX38BT after having the Maximus Formula. There was something wrong with the Asus board. It ate 6GB of Crucial Ballistix, one by one - no overclocking. Then for the grand finale, mysteriously one of my 3 month old 150GB Raptors died. All the memory is out for RMA now.

I got to say that I am damn pleased with the Intel board - but I'm not after any major overclocking, even though this boards bios appears to have the capability.

[Randy]

Yikes, I'm staying clear of this board for now. Wasn't there supposed to be a V2 of this board coming out next month? Maybe it's because this version is a lemon? My XBX2 has been a stellar performer so it's odd that this board has so many bugs and issues coming from Intel.

The board has a few bios issues, but stability is great. It is at the initial bios release.

[Blauhung]

Yikes, I'm staying clear of this board for now. Wasn't there supposed to be a V2 of this board coming out next month? Maybe it's because this version is a lemon? My XBX2 has been a stellar performer so it's odd that this board has so many bugs and issues coming from Intel.

yes, there will be a BT2 version with an X48 quality bearlake chip it in. Just about everything else about the board will be the same, possibly with a few bios tweaks to take advantage of latency improvements that can be squeezed out of the higher binned northbridge. Depending on the industry acceptance of DFI like tweakability the BT2 might also include a few more of the performance tweaks available on their P35 board.

[gs274]

ok, i've got the board and 4gb of g.skill pc3-1333 on the way. hopefully this thing is as bulletproof as the badaxe2 was, i'm only going to clock the cpu up to about 333fsb and run the ram at default.

[gtj]

yes, there will be a BT2 version with an X48 quality bearlake chip it in. Just about everything else about the board will be the same, possibly with a few bios tweaks to take advantage of latency improvements that can be squeezed out of the higher binned northbridge. Depending on the industry acceptance of DFI like tweakability the BT2 might also include a few more of the performance tweaks available on their P35 board.

Expected release date?

[gtj]

A rather uninspiring SuperPI 1M... Should be below 14 at least.

[Supertim0r]

vista...

[rham]

All, quick hint on easy BIOS upgrades for Intel boards. If you're having issues with not getting an OS install and you don't want to make a bootable USB thumbdrive . . . don't.

All you have to do is download the DOS image from their site, uncompress it to somewhere. Next put the .BIO file that gets created and throw it on a thumbdrive. After that remove the BIOS Config jumper on the board, plug in the thumbdrive and wait. Then wait more. Sooner or later (like up to 3 minutes or so) you'll see activity on the thumbdrive. After even more waiting you'll see some feedback on the monitor about the update. Most thumbdrives are supported (though not all). Hope that saves people some time at some point, and removes the need to install an old OS just to update the BIOS.

[Blauhung]

Expected release date?

I believe it's targeted to launch along side the QX9770 (Jan '08), but the boards tend to lag behind sometimes.

[Randy]

All, quick hint on easy BIOS upgrades for Intel boards. If you're having issues with not getting an OS install and you don't want to make a bootable USB thumbdrive . . . don't.

All you have to do is download the DOS image from their site, uncompress it to somewhere. Next put the .BIO file that gets created and throw it on a thumbdrive. After that remove the BIOS Config jumper on the board, plug in the thumbdrive and wait. Then wait more. Sooner or later (like up to 3 minutes or so) you'll see activity on the thumbdrive. After even more waiting you'll see some feedback on the monitor about the update. Most thumbdrives are supported (though not all). Hope that saves people some time at some point, and removes the need to install an old OS just to update the BIOS.

I did it succesfully from a CD also.

[gtj]

vista...

Yeah, I might have to do a quick XP build to make sure.

[gtj]

I swapped out the E6850 for a Q6600/G0 to see what the differences were...

E6850


Q6600


Notes:

The SuperPI times are a little better with the Q because of the 2 extra cores. If I set SuperPI so it uses only 2 cores, the times are within a few msec of the E.

The Q needed a whopping 1.375 volts to be stable at 400. I think it's still got some headroom.

Some of the cells are blank because I forgot to run the tests.

I'm surprised at how well the OCZ memory is doing. It's rated DDR3-1600 8-8-8-24 at 2.00v. The tests on the E have the vDIMM set to 2.02 which I later found is more than I needed.

The board is very forgiving with it's FSB. Plenty of times I couldn't boot an OS but could still get to the BIOS to change it.

The board is NOT very forgiving with memory timings. One slip and you're back to maintenance mode. In fact, I think there's another BIOS bug... When I was trying to go from 7-7-7-20 to 6-6-6-18 @ 333/1333 on the Q, the board wouldn't boot. So I went into maintenance mode and set the timings back to 7-7-7-20 but the board still wouldn't boot. Finally I had to set 333/1066, 7-7-7-20, let the board boot, then go back to 333/1333 to get back to where I was.

The board, memory and G0 cpus are very stingy with power. Several times I found myself LOWERING the voltage to be stable. Big change from the older conroe's and DDR2 memory.

GTJPI is a PI program I wrote that cross-compiles on both Windows and Linux. I use it because I know EXACTLY what it does and I can compare apples to apples on both operating systems.

Conclusion:

At 400FSB / 3.6GHz, the Q6600 G0 is a better deal than the E6850. 2 extra cores, same core-for-core performance, same price. We'll see how it goes as the FSBs get higher.

[huussi]

thank you gtj for that memory calculator etc, has been a great help.

ive been half the day in maintanance mode. (which is a bit** compared to other bios recovery solutions ive seen)

[bobov]

Very impress. I also got a DX38BT with Super Talent DDR3-1600 memory. I will copy your setting. You save a lot of time for me. Thanks a lot.