***Asus Rampage III Extreme Owners Thread***

[zoson]

Enabling c-states is not just a performance enhancer, it also allows your chip to drop its clockspeed depending on load(saving you electricity). Disabling c-states makes it significantly easier to get high overclocks. But it's also one of the reasons why my 4.6GHz overclock pulls more GFlops than your 4.6GHz overclock.

Very nice result though!!! That chip is amazing!

[LennyRhys]

Cheers zoson, definitely one of the better 990X like Cryptik's. This chip has an amazing core but the uncore is not as good as earlier golden batches. Even so, only 1.35v for 3700MHz uncore is still extremely good, and I now know that it'll bench 4300MHz uncore with 1.4v real; definitely better than either the 970 or the 980X I had previously. I'm sure it won't take a lot of tweaking to get C-states LinX stable, and tbh I would prefer to have them enabled because I do spend a fair bit of time not stressing the system.

With a good chilled WC loop this CPU would easily do 5GHz HT - my 84C max temp is 80C above ambient with air cooling.

[CryptiK]

Very nice result Lenny, bet you're glad you reclaimed that chip huh I've not tried to push mine that far and given the temps we are having here at the moment I wont be trying anytime soon. Expect 35*C tomorrow and its been over 40*C a few times recently.

I dont use LLC for QPI because I dont need it at my clocks. It's running 12GB at 1869Mhz 7-7-7-20 tRFC 60 and 3600MHz uncore at ~1.25v load and with a slight bump will do 3733MHz uncore so I'm not worried about it. Real voltage? no idea, think I measured it at some point with a dmm might have posted the data here somewhere. I know I did with vdimm though, which I also found stable and close to BIOS set. vcore and vtt may be lower than software and it wouldnt surprise me, given a set load like linx vcore jumping around isnt what i'd expect so I kind of ignore software values and just use them comparatively. Might have to measure and see what mine's running at vs BIOS.

As of now I will also be using both. I did more DMM testing with QPI LLC enabled and with 1.3000 set in bios, vdrop is only 9mV and vdroop a further 7mV, so 1.284 under load. Brilliant.

And I actually love this board so much. I re-ran my 4.7GHz HT LinX run and it was going good at 90 GFlops until about 20 mins. All I needed to do was lower CPU PLL to 1.7v and it passed with flying colours. Tried enabling C-States for the extra bandwidth but LinX was having none of it, so I just left them off. Measured CPU, QPI and RAM with the multimeter. BIOS values were 1.45, 1.36875, and 1.67 respectively.

4.7GHz HT (142x33), C-states disabled BIOS 1502

CPU: 1.437 real
PLL: 1.7
VTT: 1.352 real
RAM: 1.64 real

All other voltages stock
http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/889/4700crop.png

Looks like I've found a killer daily overclock. Anybody want to try beating 90.6 GFlops with 3700MHz uncore?

[LennyRhys]

Cheers CryptiK, yeah I'm VERY glad I got that chip back, and even more so that I got a R3E... even if it did mean selling my 17-40L! Looks like a 10-20mV drop from BIOS value is fairly standard across all voltage values.

Current temp here is -2C (and dropping because sun has just set, 5pm) which is why I'm going to be taking my rig back up to the spare room again to test with C-States enabled, possibly with a different BCLK to see if I can do memory/uncore at 1:2 for best performance.

I haven't even started to properly tweak voltages yet so could probably get vcore closer to 1.4v at a push, but anything below 1.45v and I'm happy as a dog with two d!cks.

[CryptiK]

dayum, 17-40L is nice. I use a 24-105L most of the time but I'd love something wider angle. -2*C you should be able to get some nice clocks with that.

[LennyRhys]

Yeah the 17-40L is a beautiful landscaping lens... really need a tilt-shift lens for architectural stuff tho because the distortion at 17mm on full frame is baaaad.

I took my rig back into the cold for some testing with C-states enabled. It was perfectly stable in LinX but no improvement in GFLops, so I tweaked voltages for quite some time but ultimately it made no difference. I'm guessing LinX is playing funnies with me again. Bottom line is there were no major fluctuations in GFlops and no freezing or BSODs, so it's definitely still stable. Mem bandwidth is right where it should be in Aida64 - 21 read, 17.5 write, and 20 copy.

In any case 4.7GHz is probably a little on the toasty side for daily use so I'll do some more tweaking with 4.6GHz and 4.5GHz when I have time.

I recently swapped out my copper TRUE with a standard TRUE, and the cooling is 2-3C behind at the very most... but I haven't lapped the new one yet, and the 990X is lapped, so I'd expect the lapped performance to be more or less the same. The copper one sure looks nice but it's just far too heavy for my liking - I had to tie it to the roof of the case for peace of mind lol.

[CryptiK]

I have a TrueCu also and they really are heavy. Never had the testicular fortitude to run it on a vertically mounted mobo. I didn't want to suspend it so it was my cooler i used for ram benching. Would be great to use as a geeky bookend or something in the study :P

4.5GHz should be plenty for daily requirements, I'm at 4GHz at the moment in 'dusty rad in summer' mode.

[LennyRhys]

Good thing about 4.5GHz is it's doable at room temp thanks to the low voltages, probably with max at about 85C which is fine by me on air cooling. The annoying thing about X58 is that better memory performance makes the CPU hotter!

[zoson]

I have a TrueCu also and they really are heavy. Never had the testicular fortitude to run it on a vertically mounted mobo. I didn't want to suspend it so it was my cooler i used for ram benching. Would be great to use as a geeky bookend or something in the study :P

4.5GHz should be plenty for daily requirements, I'm at 4GHz at the moment in 'dusty rad in summer' mode.

Dusty - YOU DON'T KNOW THE MEANING! Pics or it didn't happen.

Got my GPU's on water this weekend, and went nuts overclocking. My 560Ti 448 classifieds only go up to 1.1v, so I have to do some bios modding tonight to increase that. Gonna try to go up to 1.2v since at full furmark load my cards arn't going above 55c.

So far I've got P12881 http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2566062

[CryptiK]

I have to take the fans off for pics....will take some before I clean this wkend. What blocks are they? Seem to have integrated fans or is that custom work by you?

Watch the vrm temps thats what is keeping me at 1.1v on my GTX580 on water. Back of the pcb under the vrms gets quite hot.

[zoson]

I have to take the fans off for pics....will take some before I clean this wkend. What blocks are they? Seem to have integrated fans or is that custom work by you?

Watch the vrm temps thats what is keeping me at 1.1v on my GTX580 on water. Back of the pcb under the vrms gets quite hot.

I'm using a pair of Swiftech MCW82 universal GPU blocks, and I picked up a pair of Swiftech GTX480HS Unisinks. I have a weird 560Ti... The PCB is the same as the GTX480.

The Unisinks come with pre-drilled and tapped holes for mounting an 80mm fan. I bought some 80x15mm uv red 1800RPM fans and they're great. Dead silent. My PC is SUPER quiet now, and I freaking love it. Also the Unisink and the little fan seems to do a GREAT job at keeping the vrm's and memory cool. It's pretty awesome.

[LennyRhys]

Looks nice - do you not hear your 2TB drives over everything? With my fans turned right down my system is more-or-less inaudbile, except for the Samsung F4 2TB. I recently bought two 1850 Gentle Typhoons for push/pull on the TRUE to see if they give me better noise/performance than the tamed Delta I have on at the moment.

On another note, I'm testing a PWM Delta 92mm on my graphics cooler and I've connected it to one of the OPT fan headers on the board so I can lower the speed by PWM duty cycle, a very nice feature of this board. The manual says the duty cycle can go as low as 40%, however in BIOS 1502 the lowest I can set is 60% and it's just a tad too loud for my liking. I wonder why they would change the fan control options to make them less comprehensive... seems daft to me. I'll need to check out 0003 to see if it's the same.

[zoson]

Looks nice - do you not hear your 2TB drives over everything? With my fans turned right down my system is more-or-less inaudbile, except for the Samsung F4 2TB. I recently bought two 1850 Gentle Typhoons for push/pull on the TRUE to see if they give me better noise/performance than the tamed Delta I have on at the moment.

On another note, I'm testing a PWM Delta 92mm on my graphics cooler and I've connected it to one of the OPT fan headers on the board so I can lower the speed by PWM duty cycle, a very nice feature of this board. The manual says the duty cycle can go as low as 40%, however in BIOS 1502 the lowest I can set is 60% and it's just a tad too loud for my liking. I wonder why they would change the fan control options to make them less comprehensive... seems daft to me. I'll need to check out 0003 to see if it's the same.

If you have any OPT_Fan ports available, take one of the temp probes that came with your board, plug it in next to that header, and then plug in your fan there. connect the temp probe to the object to be cooled, and then set the fan control to user mode. the low temp will set your fan at 40%.

Honestly, over everything I hear my drives clicking and my pump. I have my MCP655 turned down to 3000rpm to quiet it as much as possible. It really dropped my flow rate, but didn't hurt my temps too much.

[CryptiK]

I can't hear my mcp655 at all even on 5. It's mounted super silently though! Cant remember what I run it at, 3 or 4 and never noticed any difference in temps between them but didnt do extensive testing.

[LennyRhys]

Bah... you guys and your water cooling

Thanks for the tip zoson - I decided to connect the temp sensor and taped it to the heatpipes on my HR-03GT. The fan is definitely more audible when the GPU is being stressed but it's never obtrusively loud. I suppose if I ever find that it gets annoying then I can simply unplug the sensor.

[zoson]

I dun 5GHz!!! HT off. 1.5750v BIOS.


4.8GHz HT on. 1.52500v BIOS.


4.665GHz HT on 18GB 1866MHz for 24/7 use. 1.4500v BIOS.


Everything was done with 1.35v QPI BIOS. It will do about 3.8GHz at 1.35v QPI.
Batch 3101A239 is AMAZING. :O

Edit-
For you memory guys, 4.725GHz CPU with 2.2GHz memory:

[LennyRhys]

Very nice chip zoson, and gratz on six cores at 5GHz with seriously crazy GFLops Seems to have a better IMC than mine (which needs 1.368v BIOS for 3.7GHz uncore) but possibly a hair's breadth behind on the cores, as mine will do 4.7GHz with 1.45 in BIOS with a view to properly tweaking CPU PLL to get the vcore lower (PLL was 1.7v for my best run).

We can welcome another happy camper to the rockin' 990X club.

[spoolindsm127]

Lowest TDP (60W) Six Core Processor available: L5640

Extreme in it's own way





Known models are L5638, L5639, L5640, and L5645.

[Hardware_Hank]

my Noctua NH-D14 doesn't give me enough clearance on my first 2 DIMMs so i'm stuck running my ram in dual channel. I can't keep 4.2 Stable on my i7 950 and im thinking thats probably the main reason but I can't be for sure on that. I have Dominator GT 1866 9-9-9-24 DIMMs but I think the heatsinks can come off, I just don't have the proper tool to do it.

[zoson]

@Spoolin: isn't it multiplier locked? Even 19x217 is just barely over 4.1GHz... I don't see the point?

@hardware_hank: dual channel would do nothing but make you more stable, as a memory channel in your IMC will be disengaged. Your stability issues stem from elsewhere. Most likely a lack of core or qpi voltage. I'm pretty sure you just need an allen wrench to take off the GT heatspreader... They can be had for a few cents from any hardware store. Just take a stick with you to make sure you get the correct size.

[spoolindsm127]

my Noctua NH-D14 doesn't give me enough clearance on my first 2 DIMMs so i'm stuck running my ram in dual channel. I can't keep 4.2 Stable on my i7 950 and im thinking thats probably the main reason but I can't be for sure on that. I have Dominator GT 1866 9-9-9-24 DIMMs but I think the heatsinks can come off, I just don't have the proper tool to do it.

The Dom GTs have an extended PCB, which the DHX heatsink covers fully. Then on top of that Corsair mounts the colored fins with 3x 3/32″ hex screws. You can remove them with an allen key.

@Zoson: Yea the multi is locked at 19. But I bought this as a spare/backup CPU. I just posted the ss to show the low low TDP, VID, and how cool it runs. Not looking to overclock it, I have my 980X for that

[XII]

my Noctua NH-D14 doesn't give me enough clearance on my first 2 DIMMs so i'm stuck running my ram in dual channel. I can't keep 4.2 Stable on my i7 950 and im thinking thats probably the main reason but I can't be for sure on that. I have Dominator GT 1866 9-9-9-24 DIMMs but I think the heatsinks can come off, I just don't have the proper tool to do it.

Turn the Noctua 180 degrees. It should give you just enough clearance.

[CryptiK]

Was up late last night and it was low 20's ambient so I did a quick test. Stopped it myself as it was too late to do a full run but gives me an idea where to start.

4.67GHz @ 1.429v | 3600MHz uncore | 1866MHz mem | 7-7-7-20 tRFC 72 1T

[CryptiK]

double post thanks to xtremelybuggyandslowsystems.org

[Kosmic71]

Hey guys, is there a way to monitor in windows a water temp prob connected to the two pins header on the r3e?