X48 Rampage Formula Preview.

[kwalker]

Uhm yeah looks pretty crowded, is that case just really small or does the massive tubing making it tiny?

Its a P180 B but tubing chipset coolers and both 3870 cards water cooled with 5/8 tubing tends to get crowded

[Earzz]

Nice, very nice

[panheimer]

been too busy with work lately to break my stable settings!
i'm out of headroom on this cpu with current cooling, and out of clocking headroom on these ram sticks! was going to watercool the cpu and NB for fun, but x58 + i7 will be out in a month or so. Seems pointless to spend money on things i'll be upgrading then that aren't compatible, if I find anything I'll be sure to post it ;>

...hope you jump on nehalem train very late so you'll have more time to explore this board deeper and teach me something else!

[mikeyakame]

I personally will recommend that you get the X48*, just so I we can help with any questions, and the BIOS is now mature.

However, I would have to recommend the P45 on price alone. You can get a P45 Maximus II Formula for $265, the Rampage Formula is still at $290 .

P45 is quite nice, just very temperamental with certain memory sticks still, also isn't nearly as balanced as the X48. The P45 isn't all that flash for low latency memory and tightish timings. The P5Q i've overclocked for a friend was much more tolerable for higher fsb on a quad core though once you get the hang of the chipset's quirks. It wasn't nearly as elegant when it came to running high ram clocks on a set of micron based Corsair Dominator 1gb sticks. Nowhere near enough DQ (data phase drive voltage) to push the microns much farther past 1080MHz.

[GAR]

P45 is quite nice, just very temperamental with certain memory sticks still, also isn't nearly as balanced as the X48. The P45 isn't all that flash for low latency memory and tightish timings. The P5Q i've overclocked for a friend was much more tolerable for higher fsb on a quad core though once you get the hang of the chipset's quirks. It wasn't nearly as elegant when it came to running high ram clocks on a set of micron based Corsair Dominator 1gb sticks. Nowhere near enough DQ (data phase drive voltage) to push the microns much farther past 1080MHz.

I had the P5Q3 and it was a nightmare

[zerazax]

Hey guys,

I'm looking to put a water block on my NB and was wondering if the Heatsink & Pipes on the NB and SB setup are thermal epoxied/pasted to the NB/SB like the Maximus Formula was? Or is this one a little easier to take off than freezing it..?

[flylow]

New 410 BIOS released

http://dlsvr04.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/...rmula-0410.zip

[003]

Official release notes:

Improvie Memory compatibility

... hmm anybody test it?

[traveler]

Official release notes:


... hmm anybody test it?

Thank you Buds for the suggestions.

I give up on the 2 x 2GB OCZ Reaper HPC PC2 8500 RAM. Even ASUS telephone tech support says says OCZ and current ASUS motherboards don't get along well.

I just ordered a set of G.Skill 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit from Newegg. That's the Pi Edition. I like those new Pi Edition extended heat spreaders! I didn't know G.Skill had that feature.

I hope they work.

The good news: The new G.Skill RAM has arrived. I like them. Nice heat sink design!

The bad news: I get twice as many errors in Memtest86+ with the G.Skill RAM than with the OCZ Reaper RAM. How come everybody can run the G.Skill in Memtest86+ and get no errors for hours except me?

It looks like I'll be trying the new 0410 BIOS since it says "improved memory compatability" as the tag line.



__________________
Asus X48 Rampage Formula / Intel Q9450 / 2 x 2GB OCZ Reaper HPC PC2 8500 / VisionTek Radeon HD3870X2 OverClocked Edition /
Western Digital Raptor X Hard Drive / Two Western Digital Caviar RE2 WD5001ABYS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives /
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Elite Pro 7.1 / Creative Gigaworks S750 7.1 Speaker System /
Lian Li 343B cube case / PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Crossfire Edition

[3lfk1ng]

Bad luck.

[mikeyakame]

Official release notes:


... hmm anybody test it?

seems about the same as 0408 for me. using it now. no major changes at least as far as bios options go. doesn't break anything, and all my things have been working fine for the previous bios versions. My si3132 based sata2 pci-e controller card can still boot from my optical drive connected to it, which worked fine on 0408 too.

[tranngocminh]

I love this mobo very much

ASUS Rampage Formula - BIOS 0408
Q9550@3.95Ghz - Stepping C1
vCore: 1.45v BIOS - 1.440v idle & FL
BlendTest 2h
Cooling: TRUE
Temp FL 71*C - Ambient 27*C

[sxs112]

ASUS Rampage Formula - BIOS 0410
E1200@2.88Ghz - Stepping M0
vCore: 1.265v BIOS
Mem-DDR2-667*2+DDR2-1066*2
Cooling: S1283

Rampage Formula is very Good

[phillai]

I'm not a PC expert but since I had my Rampage Formula last week, I've had nothing but trouble with the PC randomly crashing.

All I wanted was a stable machine - I have not overclocked any of the componants at all...

I was at my wits end so I tried this 0410 bios this morning and now it's running smoothly now with no random crashing anymore!

Thanks for the 0410 bios heads up!

[phillai]

I'll take what I said back... I still got the random crashing!

I'm beginning to suspect that it's my Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator PC2-8500C5 TwinX (2x2GB) memory that's giving me problems!

Does anyone else have any ideas?

[mikeyakame]

download memtest86+ v2.01 and run a few passes of that.
also make sure that vdimm is set to what corsair recommend also in bios. probably 2.0-2.2v range i'd guess.

http://www.memtest.org/

just remember the system is only as stable as the components in it, and how they are setup in the bios.

[mikeyakame]

The good news: The new G.Skill RAM has arrived. I like them. Nice heat sink design!

The bad news: I get twice as many errors in Memtest86+ with the G.Skill RAM than with the OCZ Reaper RAM. How come everybody can run the G.Skill in Memtest86+ and get no errors for hours except me?

It looks like I'll be trying the new 0410 BIOS since it says "improved memory compatability" as the tag line.



__________________
Asus X48 Rampage Formula / Intel Q9450 / 2 x 2GB OCZ Reaper HPC PC2 8500 / VisionTek Radeon HD3870X2 OverClocked Edition /
Western Digital Raptor X Hard Drive / Two Western Digital Caviar RE2 WD5001ABYS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives /
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Elite Pro 7.1 / Creative Gigaworks S750 7.1 Speaker System /
Lian Li 343B cube case / PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Crossfire Edition

have you tried manually setting the primary memory timings and vdimm correctly?

[Rattle]

can someone kindly tell me if both lans are on the pci lane or if one of them is on the pci-e on this lovely board.

thanks

[mikeyakame]

both are on pci-e 1x off the southbridge

[DaLiu]

Any big difference between bios 0408 and 0410, im using 0408 right now.

[Rattle]

thanks, think i might pick on of these up

[zerazax]

Hey anyone modded the northbridge heatsink before and can answer my question? Is the thermal material on there epoxy/adhesive like it was for the Maximus or is it easier to take off?

[bigslappy]

Hey anyone modded the northbridge heatsink before and can answer my question? Is the thermal material on there epoxy/adhesive like it was for the Maximus or is it easier to take off?

my WHOLE cooling assy (stock)fell off in my hands whwn I remooved the push pins & screws .. it was assy'ed by crack monkeys

[003]

Hey anyone modded the northbridge heatsink before and can answer my question? Is the thermal material on there epoxy/adhesive like it was for the Maximus or is it easier to take off?

Yeah I can't believe the stock heatsink even transfers any heat. The copper contact plate that is between the NB and the contact base of the heatsink makes almost zero contact with the heatpipes. What's more, it is like they just use CA based super glue as the thermal paste.

When I got mine off, the crap it left on the IHS was almost impossible to remove. In the end I had to carefully scrub it with MEK.

[zerazax]

Yeah, no wonder my stupid board is loading up to like 60C on the NB

I'll definitely be removing the stock assembly and put on the NB block soon