RD600 first look and general questions

[OldGuy]

Very worthwhile rant Bingo...and realisticly not even a rant but pointing out what people need to realize. Will they? Of course not. Gimme gimme gimme more FSB!!! My FSB is higher than your FSB so therefore you are a noob and I am superior All the while the guy with the budget rig just fragged yer ass repeatedly in your favorite online game

[MsB]

I don't think I have ever seen a company reach out thru reps and involve the overclocking comunity in the release of a mobo like this I think that DFI's commitment to the OCing community and allowing its input to a product alone, deserves to be accounted for in my decision to buy this board. Besides that IT IS pretty feature rich, beautiful, and I know after all this work being done when I am able to get mY hands on one of these baby's I should get a remarkably stable high OCable unit I will enjoy a lot. Worth the extra wait. Not to mention if I hit any snags I can go to the street and get great support. Emo Boys complaining so much bugs me. Keep up the great work Guys!

[Raja@ASUS]

I agree completely. People need to understand what you are giving up to get those few extra FSB. While it is nice that I have a couple of ASUS boards that do 520FSB with the E6300, I would much rather have an E6600/6700 on a good 975X board at 415~420FSB. Our discussions with the motherboard suppliers center around stability and peak performance at given FSB points and not on producing a board with the highest FSB in order to grab headlines. It just seems as if everyone has gotten into the FSB race and decided to ignore actual performance or stability for the sake of a good SuperPI or CPU-Z screenshot. Unfortunately, unless you show this capability people will say the board sucks.

The people complaining about the FSB limit on this board should realize at this time the board is more stable at its upper limits in actual use than any other non-Intel chipset (better than most of those) board available. While it does not provide the best performance in benchmarks, it does give the user great flexibility with their component choices.

In the end, not a single one of us would be able to tell the difference between this boards performance or the 680i/650i/965/975X without a benchmark in day to day operation. What matters is stability, features, support, warranty, and price in my opinion. I would just assume to throw out most of the bencmarks and look at overall platform stability at given FSB/Memory settings. For the benchmarks left, they should be compared on a clock by clock basis between chipsets. A wider audience might start to fully realize that you need that additional 35~50FSB on a 965 board above 400FSB to make up for performance losses due to memory strap changes as an example.

I would be a lot happier to have a stable P965 system at 390FSB than 450FSB any day due to the memory/mch timing improvements. When the first P965 boards were introduced, the suppliers were working towards that goal as they knew the best performance of the chipset at a reasonable cost was to get into the 385FSB range in a stable manner, people started complaining about not having high FSBs once they realized the overclocking headroom in the Core 2 Duos, so now we get 450FSB on average but did performance really improve that much? The new target for any "decent" P965 board is 500FSB and with it we get higher board costs, less stability overall, and lower performance at stock or near stock speeds just to name a few issues.

The problem is we expect our components to achieve at least a 50% improvement in speed without question. It is now expected this capability will be provided to us at no cost. Do we expect this from the automobile manufacturers? We pay extra for that level of performance. While I believe asking $1000 for a CPU or $400 for a desktop motherboard is way overboard the majority of time, I think it is wrong to expect, now demand, that same level of performance from a $150 CPU or $65 motherboard. Rant over...

Those are the sorts of posts we all need. It's a shame that so much ground work has to be done before we see them. I still hold my stance that tight moderation is needed with strong teams and a set place of test criteria.
Threads need to be either locked or have expected time frames for the next round of data and the content of data to be expected. Bios settings need to be made clear as do whether or not review peripherals are purchased retail or review supply.

Those are the only previews/reviews that should be presented period.

I like the fact that eva2000 has taken the initiative and posted bios screenhots with settings. Screenshots of the board at every angle and a single bench mean nothing to me anymore and I'm not the only one I can assure you, all it does is serve to lead people on an assumption path which does no-one any good long term. Least of all the better users that go round helping people out afterwards with setting tips.

Next comes glitches bios fixes, tricks tweaks and incompatibility issues, to any extent that they're possible.

regards
raja

[p0tter]

I'm quite skeptical about wether DFI will leave this board all passive cooling. I mean even the LP NF4 boards have active cooling. I would really look forward to an active cooling on the chipset, and maybe some extra heat sinks where it counts most. I believe it makes sense for this tweaker board to have that sort of help instead of giving that extra hassle to the buyer , specially considering this isn't a value product.

Because its a lose lose situation,

NF2 and NF3 = passive and everyone btchd

NF4 and CFX = active and everyone btchd because it was too loud.

I perfer stock being passive since I am going to swap it out anyways.

[RichUK]

Very worthwhile rant Bingo...and realisticly not even a rant but pointing out what people need to realize. Will they? Of course not. Gimme gimme gimme more FSB!!! My FSB is higher than your FSB so therefore you are a noob and I am superior All the while the guy with the budget rig just fragged yer ass repeatedly in your favorite online game

You seem a bit confused about the FSB argument.

Do you actually understand why certain people look for high FSB capable boards?

[OldGuy]

You seem a bit confused about the FSB argument.

Do you actually understand why certain people look for high FSB capable boards?

No confusion on my part bud...just tired of seeing it be the end all be all of how a motherboard is measured.

[Raja@ASUS]

I think the point is (oldguy's) unrealistic expectations...

[The Stilt]

Same limitation with bios 12/23.
The board maxes out at 420FSB and this time even the trick doesn´t work.

Guess its just this board.

[mnemonik23]

Same limitation with bios 12/23.
The board maxes out at 420FSB and this time even the trick doesn´t work.

Guess its just this board.

I guess 511 FSB wont be the case for everybody after all...

Stilt, maybe it's your CPU?

[Revv23]

Same limitation with bios 12/23.
The board maxes out at 420FSB and this time even the trick doesn´t work.

Guess its just this board.

Hey stilt, why would someone want to clock in sync? Better performance?

[Raja@ASUS]

I guess 511 FSB wont be the case for everybody after all...

Stilt, maybe it's your CPU?

depends what he's running I guess. E6300?

no point i can see if there's any strap changes in lowering your multi on any of the 4mb cache chips.

[Raja@ASUS]

from the bios screens posted by eva200 I take it NB core voltage convert from is actual control of pre nb core voltage regulation circuitry for the nb? That's a very fine detail of control for all us setting freaks. You guys get any more stbility setting that higher? There should be a gap between nbcore and that setting by at least .5v I reckon (if it's the voltage control that is) as most regulation circuitry has a minimum input to output regulation requirement.

Interesting Oskar went that far, the tweaks seem endless..


regards
Raja

[The Stilt]

I guess 511 FSB wont be the case for everybody after all...

Stilt, maybe it's your CPU?

Like I said before, this board is a release candidate not a final revision.
Neither the board or chipset.

[The Stilt]

Hey stilt, why would someone want to clock in sync? Better performance?

In some cases sync mode is performing better, yes.

[_33]

Because its a lose lose situation,

NF2 and NF3 = passive and everyone btchd

NF4 and CFX = active and everyone btchd because it was too loud.

I perfer stock being passive since I am going to swap it out anyways.

You know w, I figured; "Hey, it's christmas eve, let's make some VIP requests for once and see wether DFI takes note!" One way or the other... Don't need any WIFI antenna thoe !

Bah, concerning noise, really... I still have an 80GB Hdd in there right now and let me tell you it obliterates that small chipset fan no matter what speed! Not to mention my PSU which is a class B... Nyhow,

[Praxis1452]

full Vr-zone review is up. not sure what bios he is using.

[The Nemesis]

full Vr-zone review is up. not sure what bios he is using.

Link to the review.

[eva2000]

from the bios screens posted by eva200 I take it NB core voltage convert from is actual control of pre nb core voltage regulation circuitry for the nb? That's a very fine detail of control for all us setting freaks. You guys get any more stbility setting that higher? There should be a gap between nbcore and that setting by at least .5v I reckon (if it's the voltage control that is) as most regulation circuitry has a minimum input to output regulation requirement.

Interesting Oskar went that far, the tweaks seem endless..


regards
Raja

Straight from http://www.thetechrepository.com/showthread.php?t=76

NB core 1.2V convert from This controls the voltage the 1.2V NB core voltage is stepped down from. As you rais the NB1.2V you should raise the Convert from voltage for max efficiency. 2.14V is my sweet spot

[sierra_bound]

Link to the review.

Yikes, look at that NB temp.



"Chipset temperature makes a lot of difference for your overclocking, without the fan blowing and chipset at 104C, the FSB wouldn't even go 475MHz stable. With the fan lowering temperature to 70+C, I could then go to 495MHz FSB stable. I guess it should go higher with a water-cooled chipset, or even a chilled chipset."

[The Nemesis]

@sierra_bound
Yes, it would seem the stock cooling is insufficient for high FSB clocking.
What's most surprising about the review is the board's overall performance ranking compared to other chipsets.

[sierra_bound]

He's right about 965 and Kentsfield. My P5B Dlx does 450+ FSB easily with a quad core. 385FSB is good, but not good enough unless you have the fully-unlocked QX6700.

Will be interesting to see more results from users here.

[eva2000]

Yikes, look at that NB temp.



"Chipset temperature makes a lot of difference for your overclocking, without the fan blowing and chipset at 104C, the FSB wouldn't even go 475MHz stable. With the fan lowering temperature to 70+C, I could then go to 495MHz FSB stable. I guess it should go higher with a water-cooled chipset, or even a chilled chipset."

haven't read his review yet so not sure how much NB volts he has shoved in.. but yes you need active cooling on NB.. even a small fan would help

DFI ICFX3200-T2R/G RD600 Additional cooling
- Northbridge Chipset & ICS Clock generator
The Northbridge chipset is passively cooled and can get up to 55C according to Smartguardian under load near default volts/clocks. As with most Intel based chipsets, raising NB voltage allows a higher FSB clock. But raising NB voltage will increase the heat load for NB chipset heatsink, so even the simple acts of re-applying the thermal paste under the NB heatsink and adding a small fan over the passive NB heatsink will give you cooler temps (too early to tell from testing if it equals higher FSB max yet).

• I had to uninstall Tuniq Tower 120 heatsink to get the passive NB heatsink's hook clips nearest to cpu socket to unhook.
• I removed the white foam spacer piece attached to bottom of passive NB heatsink
• Then cleaned off the grey thermal paste used on the NB heatsink
• Reapplied Ceramique thermal paste on chipset core and reinstalled NB heatsink.
• Added 60x25mm Sunon 23.5cfm MagLev fan over passive NB heatsink. This dropped chipset load temps by ~10C under load.
• Added a Swiftech MC14 copper ram sink to the ICS clock generator as apparently this may allow you to clock higher - I haven't done enough tests to confirm if this is true. But additional cooling never hurt anyone

The RD600 chipset itself:


The ICS Clock generator chip:


The Swiftech MC14 copper ram sink with fins spread out using pliers:

[The Nemesis]

@eva2000
Shamino's voltages:

[eva2000]

2.31v NB PLL 1.8v trust Shamino to shove that much volts down a new board

[qdemn7]

DFI ICFX3200-T2R/G RD600 Additional cooling

eva2000 could you tell me what is the center hole to center hole distance on the 'sink on the Mosfet, and the length of 'sink itself? Thanks.