RD600 first look and general questions

[Eldonko]

Yeah you just need the patience to troubleshoot until you learn the board inside out. It's night and day when compared to all the 965 boards Ive been running that's for sure.

[cadaveca]

Yes, it takes alot, but that's true of any board, and has been compounded by the fact that this is the sole board that features this chipset, thereby leaving us without a comparison other than other users.

but in order to find out what the board is capable of, you need to also know your other components very well too. You can't made adequate judgements based on a single platform alone...you must use many. Irregardless of the part you consider.

With that in mind...for gaming in newer titles, this board fares about the same as 975x(currently fastest clock-for-clock), but that's partially due to the nature of those programs.

If i hadn't decided long ago for an all-ATI build, and then pushed further towards it by the merger, I would not be using this board in my daily driver.

Kinda silly that I got 3 975x board just sitting here collecting dust...

but think about that. I DO have other options. I CHOOSE not to use them, and am more than happy with what I get out of this board. No, it's not ideal, and no, it's not the fastest, but...


took me abt 2days apeice to tame the 975/965 boards. While I've explored just about everything this ATI board has to offer, I'm not done yet, and we are talking weeks now. I'm an overclocker...and this board lets me overclock, the way I want to, not the way "they" want me to.

[chefnr1]

This is my one of the first test and it fell's god

[nealh]

LoL. But you gave up, and here I am, still tweaking away at my leisure, first board.

I've spent time with three of these boards, all behaved similar. With just the first board, I've spent far more time delving into the possibilities than you have, so to me, my greater experience means I have a better understanding of what's going on.


You couldn't even figure your problem out.

I am happy you got a nice board to work with....an unrecoverable C1E makes a board useless unless you have BIOS chip...so RMAed

Second board was not right...hotter chipset, never ran memory the same as first board,
No way a board is stable for 26 hr of Prime, all the 3 d tests and memory testing and 2 days later with no no software or hardware changes to no longer be stable

I tried god knows how many memory setting, voltages, cpu setting and never got the system stable again...not even at stock

I decided the board was no longer worth the hassle...my first board was very stable until I made a ram timing change and did not up the NB voltages enough when running sync mode....I would still have the board if I could have recoved the C1E....but nothing worked...

[Aivas47a]

I DO have other options. I CHOOSE not to use them, and am more than happy with what I get out of this board. No, it's not ideal, and no, it's not the fastest, but...


took me abt 2days apeice to tame the 975/965 boards. While I've explored just about everything this ATI board has to offer, I'm not done yet, and we are talking weeks now. I'm an overclocker...and this board lets me overclock, the way I want to, not the way "they" want me to.

Well said. I tried the Asus P5N32-E SLI but it just couldn't compare with the ATI board for satisfaction. And I don't mind bucking the conventional wisdom. This board will hold me just fine at least until bearlake.

BTW, thanks for the tip you gave earlier on decreasing vdimm to balance increase in driving strength.

[jimmyz]

Well said. I tried the Asus P5N32-E SLI but it just couldn't compare with the ATI board for satisfaction. And I don't mind bucking the conventional wisdom. This board will hold me just fine at least until bearlake.

BTW, thanks for the tip you gave earlier on decreasing vdimm to balance increase in driving strength.

i know exactly what you mean by satisfaction!! p5b-d has very limited tweaking. this board has so many options that can affect speed and stability that i still have no idea how close i am to the max. most fun i have had with the c2d generation. it makes me remember why i love to tinker. when i hit a wall i drop back, examine my notebook and dig in. yeh this isn't a pi board but in 3d apps it rocks. and i'm sure the extra memory tweaking has a lot to do with that. part of the reason i got this board was simply to play, i didn't think it would replace my p5b but it did.

here is something odd that i have seen mentioned in this and other threads:
when i run orthos or w/prime with cpuz open the multi drops from 9 to 6 regardless of bios settings but if i set multi to 10 even though my 6600 is a 9 it doesn't seem to do it and my 32m and w/prime times get quicker?? i wonder if this is why pi seems sluggish on this board because the first time i ran 32m my times sucked. now my times , while slower than a 965, are acceptable. obviosly it doesnt support raising multi on a retail 6600 but just selecting 10 keeps my multi from dropping when under load? auto and 9 both allow my multi to drop.

[dasa]

wonder could someone give us a hand to get raid0 working
i think i had it setup correct then inserted the floppy and loaded the files during xp install then partitioned and formated the raptors to 20g and ~112g
now the problem after format it looked to the floppy for files that it cant find and if i skip those files winxp has a bsd when it starts to install
i tried formating a new floppy and downloading the raid drivers from dfi but same problem so its not the floppy

[Aivas47a]

wonder could someone give us a hand to get raid0 working

Several posts over on the dficlub forum from folks having similar problems with raid, but I don't see any good answers posted yet.

[cadaveca]

I have no issues with RAID 0 on ATI controller(typing from it now), so i assume this must be on the promise chipset?.

[dasa]

Aivas47a thanks il take a look

cadaveca nope promise controler is disabled since iv read its even slower than the ati controler i wonder whats different that it works for you and not me

found one other with same problem but as you say no answers
http://csd.dficlub.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1775

[cadaveca]

I'm using Seagate 7200.10 250gb 16mb SATA 300 drives, jumpers removed to force sata300. I also am NOT using the cables that came with the board...had issues with cables in previous builds on other DFI boards, so just leave them cheap yellow things in the box.

[Eldonko]

Hey guys any idea what I can use to tweek mem secondaries w/ this chipset and server 03? Cant seem to get AMD system manager to work with server 03 and memset doesnt work with rd600 chipset. Systool maybe?

[cadaveca]

I don't use systool as it installs driver that take up IRQ, and only use XP/Vista here.

[Eldonko]

Hmm I suppose I can boot into XP, optimize, and then set bios.. But I think Ill try systool first.

[dasa]

I'm using Seagate 7200.10 250gb 16mb SATA 300 drives, jumpers removed to force sata300. I also am NOT using the cables that came with the board...had issues with cables in previous builds on other DFI boards, so just leave them cheap yellow things in the box.

im useing two 74g 8m sata 150 raptors and im still useing the cheap yellow cables from my dfi rdx200 since they never gave me any problems

in the ati raid setup i set the drives to raid 0 and set the size to be 8m smaller than there full size as it dint let me set it and i left one setting disabled might have been (fast something)
since it let me partition and format the drives i doubt its that but im wondering what it is and what you used

the other posibility is the winxp install i used was put together with n-lite so it had sp2 and would install itself
i doubt thats the problem but if i can find the origonal cd again il try it
or maby il just give the promis controler a go slower raid0 may be better than none

[cadaveca]

I just set it up, used all the default settings, stuck in the disk that came with the board when prompted after pressing "F6", let windows do the formatting before installing(full format, not quick), and was good to go. I've done this about 10 times now, with no issues. The only thing I could see as a problem is the Raptors VS the Seagates(used 250GBx4 8M, 250GBx2 16MB, 320GBx4 and 500gbx4 7200.10's, all no issues).

[Enz0]

Here is a new beta BIOS.
http://us.dfi.com.tw/Support/Downloa...FLAG=B&SITE=US

Major Reasons of Change:
1.Added New Micro Code for FSB 1333MHz CPU: 06F9H Patch ID=82H Platform ID =01h (Conroe-E0).
2.Remove SCR mode for ITE8718 not support and add IR disable slect item.
3.Change default RTC year.
4.Change CMOS loaction that can't used.(Load last bootable setting)

[Kallileo]

I just bought the mobo and I want to install my Raid 0. What controller should I use? ATI or Promise?

Also in most of the reviews ppl say that RD600 is much slower than 975X....is this really that bad?

[Aivas47a]

Here is a new beta BIOS.

Thanks! Glad to see DFI hasn't abandoned the board. Anyone try this beta yet?

[cadaveca]

I just bought the mobo and I want to install my Raid 0. What controller should I use? ATI or Promise?

Also in most of the reviews ppl say that RD600 is much slower than 975X....is this really that bad?

Well, yes and no. real-world, yes, slightly slower...barely noticible.


Benching...


AQuamark3....

RD600 165k.
XBX2 179k
P5WDH 181k.

'06:

RD600 11764
XBX2 11853
P5WDH 11632

01

RD600 58k
XBX2 62k
P5WDH 60.5k

[Eldonko]

Interesting, got any PI comparos? Im having difficulties matching PI times I could run w/ P5B, seems about 1 minute slower clock for clock. I was thinking that async ram would allow more flexibility and the higher ram clocks would help but last night I tested the difference between 500mhz 4-4-4 and 565 4-4-4 and the delta was within MoE.

[cadaveca]

TRC was much higher for 565, no? Alpha timings work the way they are supposed to on this board....


Sry no pi comparisons. I'm sure you could find them here if ya really wanted tho, and make your own for RD600. PI does not relate to my usages, so I have no need for it other than stability testing.

[ThorLite]

Hi all i have hit a wall at 511.3MHz and i cant run even 1M over this point.Running an 6600 with 2GB G.Skill PC6400 HZ with a modded Prometeia.I played and tried a lot combinations of voltages but none seems to help......

[cadaveca]

pci-e card is in your way. pci-card runs off of southbridge...

[ThorLite]

Ok thanks for the tip i will try again with a PCI VGA anyway RD600 is a little slow for SuperPi but its really fun to play with it.I didnt expect mine 6600 to reach 4.6GHz but it seems to be a good cpu...