**Official ABIT IX38 QuadGT Review/Overclock/Guide Thread**

[Ace-a-Rue]

ALL-RIGHTY-THEN (in jim carrey fashion)...i FOUND and purchased a Retail QX9650....AND...IX38 board...i will have it by friday, the latest...now, we will see a comparison between the IP35 Pro and the IX38 board...i'll do basic benches like wPrime, SuperPI, 3D2001, PCMark2005, 3D2005 and 2006.

[golfjam]

I've bought 2 3870 for CF. Simple question: is this board worth the upgrade from P35?? Dual PCI-E 2.0 looks very interesting and price is not bad. X48 will be DDR3 only, cool but no thanks... I'm very happy with my board, way better than my previous P5W DH Dlx but would like to take full advantage of my cards. Sincere replies appreciated.

[nordien]

I've bought 2 3870 for CF. Simple question: is this board worth the upgrade from P35?? Dual PCI-E 2.0 looks very interesting and price is not bad. X48 will be DDR3 only, cool but no thanks... I'm very happy with my board, way better than my previous P5W DH Dlx but would like to take full advantage of my cards. Sincere replies appreciated.

It will bring something but not as much as you would like(10%!?). I would get the new RV680 (dual) in crossfire. PCIe 2.0 is nice on paper. See the net for HD3870 crossfire benches. A single GTX is faster......
Next year with the new cards your are much more likely to see performance gains.

[Supershanks]

i FOUND and purchased a Retail QX9650....AND...IX38 board...i will have it by friday,

sounds like santa's come early

[DangeR!]

Like Supershanks says, 1:1.25 isn't stable yet so I haven't bothered. .

@ Ace-a-Rue: wana swap your QX9650 for my E2140 (it kicks ass BTW)

EDIT: Has anyone got some direct links to some single and xFire 3870's. I just want to see how mine compairs, thanks.

[Ace-a-Rue]

sounds like santa's come early

i gave santa a BIG hug and a KISS....LOL...it's nice to know your wife still loves you (me)

[Ace-a-Rue]

@ Ace-a-Rue: wana swap your QX9650 for my E2140 (it kicks ass BTW)

give me a couple of weeks with this new chip. if it doesn't produce then we can negotiate.

[Supershanks]

i gave santa a BIG hug and a KISS....LOL...it's nice to know your wife still loves you (me)

Know exactly what you mean

[JoeBar]

ALL-RIGHTY-THEN (in jim carrey fashion)...i FOUND and purchased a Retail QX9650....AND...IX38 board...i will have it by friday, the latest...now, we will see a comparison between the IP35 Pro and the IX38 board...i'll do basic benches like wPrime, SuperPI, 3D2001, PCMark2005, 3D2005 and 2006.

Waiting for your results. Your opinion about abits is, as usual, much appreciated...

i gave santa a BIG hug and a KISS....LOL...it's nice to know your wife still loves you (me)

Surely one of the best ways to prove it, for ppl like us...

[DangeR!]

Surely one of the best ways to prove it, for ppl like us...

As the good reverent said "Amen brother" .

[Viper GTS]

Made a little progress, I think. I've discovered that if I move my video card into the 3rd slot (the blue one furthest from the CPU socket) it works reliably. Turns on fine, can retain BIOS settings, etc. If I shut it down & do nothing but move the card back into the "correct" slot it all goes to hell again.

Should I be worried about this or just go ahead & build it? Both video cards I've tried (granted they were identical...) did the same thing. Maybe it's just something with the EVGA 7900GTO's I have.

[strange|ife]

how much did u score that 9650 for ace?

you better hit at least 4.2, past simple web browsing stability.!

[gengstapo]

Yep it wil, main issue is when you try to open 2 instances.

1.42 works fine(so far) for me but Heidfirst told me about it after i'd had a crash from it :-The one that got away

just now ive tried open cpu-z 1.42 with uGuru working at background in idle mood, it suddenly get hangged & lastnight it was prime passed around 5hrs.

so, any explanation(s)?

[sonofander]

if you open CPU-Z first, you'll be fine. Don't understand it, but if you open uGuru first and CPU-Z after it locks up...

[Supershanks]

if you open CPU-Z first, you'll be fine. Don't understand it, but if you open uGuru first and CPU-Z after it locks up...

That's exactly what i was doing b4 i got my hands on 1.42. I think it's probably down to a memory allocation/conflict or something.

so, any explanation(s)?

As i said i've had no issues with 1.42 & guru, so no i've got none. I'd do as sonofander suggested, it seems the safest way.

luck

@Viper GTS, I may have saved myself some hassle then, i've run my gfx from slot PCIEX 3 since day1, no particular reason than it gave me best room.

[Hazzan]

Finally my test IX 38 QUAD GT still on air and use bios 12B02....









now still progress with bios 12B03

[DangeR!]

Any one used the RAID function yet.

I am trying to install XP on my raptor's and cannot get them to work.
On the install I get BSOD when it tries to start windows. It doesn't even get to the terms and agreement page.
It loads drivers etc then I specify the SATA driver, it loads some more drivers then gets the starting setup bit and BSOD.

I have tried many times and it just doesn't work.
I am using the drivers from the CD and created a driver disk.

Where can I get the latest drivers from?

Also, when I select RAID in the bios and boot my normal single windows hard disk (the one I am on right now) I get a BSOD when at windows loading bar.
I think that's just because it doesn't have the driver for RAID, even though I would of thought it did. As its still an SATA port and the driver should cover the RAID function.

I hope I made sence lol.

Could some please give me a DIRECT link to the latest chipset/raid drivers available please.
I will try and find them now but intel's driver site suks

[Supershanks]

Any one used the RAID function yet.

Yep running intel matrix on 4x80gb hitachi sata2. 2 stripes 68gb raid0 & rest on raid5. Was a pile of Sh?*t using the supplied drivers off cd. also had an issue with drive detection Using RAID: Intel Matrix Storage Manager

Also, when I select RAID in the bios and boot my normal single windows hard disk (the one I am on right now) I get a BSOD when at windows loading bar.

This is a known driver issue see
How to enable AHCI/RAID mode without reinstalling windows
if you see post#18 that might be a quick fix as well.

luck

[DangeR!]

Well, I found the latest SATA drivers but it still will not work.

I have no idea what I am doing wrong.


I enabled RAID in bios and reboot.
Press Ctrl+i and build my raids then save and reboot.
Then the above plays out... BSOD.
What am I doing wrong :/.

Could it be because my XP disk is very old and some other driver is crashing it?

I may d/l a newer version of XP and use my CD key. CBA doing it now lol. I'll do it later.

[DangeR!]

Yep running intel matrix on 4x80gb hitachi sata2. 2 stripes 68gb raid0 & rest on raid5. Was a pile of Sh?*t using the supplied drivers off cd. also had an issue with drive detection Using RAID: Intel Matrix Storage Manager

luck

Thanks Super, I will give these a go in a bit... need to chill to Andrea Bocelli . Then i may give some Soil a go and get pumped up for an all nighter.

[DangeR!]

In fact chill with me peeps

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp0ccQVy1og

[Supershanks]

In fact chill with me peeps

very nice thanks for that,

Must admit i cheat with Raid. I keep a small emergency xp installation on a 500gb data drive. I have the latest drivers on that, access mode is raid from the start. I use Intel Matrix Raid Storage manager to create raid arrays from the emergency XP, don't touch bios raid manger.. Once raid stripes are created, I install xp onto the raid0 or restore an Acronis image of my main OS.

[jcool]

I set up a Raid 0 with two WD4000ABYS RE2 w/o a problem... entered matrix manager, created floppy from cd, installed XP. I was using a version with integrated Sp2 btw so maybe that's why it worked.
My personal IX38 still hasn't come btw

[Supershanks]

I added the istor drivers to the xp cd via NLite

[Ace-a-Rue]

is 12.b03 the latest beta for this board?

have my parts...just about ready to slap things together.