Official GIGABYTE X38-DQ6/X38T-DQ6 Info/BIOS Thread

[eva2000]

It's been a while since I've played with Gigabyte brand motherboard, the last Gigabyte board I played with was the old 8SRX

Thanks to Gigabyte, I've the opportunity to get reacquainted in the form of Gigabyte X38-DQ6 and X38T-DQ6 that Gigabyte has so kindly supplied me with

I purchased a QX9650 L739A644 Retail OEM recently, and it seems to be oc'ing very poorly (worse I've seen so far) on Asus Blitz Extreme and Asus Blitz Formula even with lastest 0904 and 1205 bios respectively. So thought I'd try Gigabyte X38-DQ6 to see if it's the QX9650 being a dud or just motherboard/bios support issues.

I installed QX9650 L739A644 and it booted up even on X38-DQ6's F3 bios. Web site says official support for QX9650 starts from F6A bios onwards, so was surprised to see F3 bios had no issues with QX9650 as well.

System:

• Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 L739A644 Retail OEM
• CPU Cooling: Thermaright Ultra 120 Extreme + 120x25mm Delta 75cfm fan + MX-2 TIM
• Gigabyte X38-DQ6 F6B bios supplied Gigabyte
• 128MB Gainward FX5200 PCI video card
• 2x1GB Corsair 10000C5D Dominator supplied by Corsair
• Memory cooling: 120x25mm Thermaltake 81cfm fan
• 160GB Seagate 7200.7 NCQ SATA port 2
• Pioneer DVD-RW
• 620W Corsair HX620 PSU supplied by Corsair
• WinXP Pro SP2 Nlite Fully Updated.

Quick test at default vcore on Gigabyte X38-DQ6 F6B bios...









Flashed to F7D bios now for more tests..

@4000Mhz - 12x333FSB at 1.5v bios (1.488v cpuz idle -> fluctuating between 1.440v to 1.456v cpuz load)

First 2 hrs of Prime95 showed 1.440v constantly



Then changed to 1.456v in CPUZ...



1.440v - 1.408v = 0.32v more vcore needed than on Asus Blitz Extreme water cooled.

Leaving the cpu oc'ing aside for the moment, decided to figure out the divider and timing performance of the Gigabyte X38-DQ6 and I must say end result is pretty good even if the dividers don't always work on all straps variations.

Here's Super Pi 32M @9x445FSB (2.5A divider = 4:5) 556Mhz 4-4-4-8 at 2.48v (don't know why it needs so much vdimm as Corsair 10000C5D did 570Mhz 4-4-4-x at 2.35v on Asus P35 chipset boards.

Straight boot from bios (NO memset changes in windows)







Only 6.172 seconds slower than QX9650 @9x445FSB 1:2 DDR3-1780Mhz 7-6-5-18 1T on Asus Blitz Extreme (P35 chipset)



Still confused about dividers they have in bios some just refuse to work even at lower clocked memory speeds that some dividers with higher memory clocks.. but if i try to keep to similar Asus board strap to divider arrangements I have a bit more predictability i.e. 4:5 divider on Asus only is selectable on 266FSB strap

[Severance]

Thanx eva Im picking up a qx9650 in a couple of days and also will be using a dq6 so your tests are a great help One question..Did the f3 bios work fine for you? or were you able to overclock higher with newer bios?

[eva2000]

Still both a X38 chipset and Gigabyte X38-DQ6 newb myself... i didn't have F3 on long enough to find out.. went straight to F6B then to F7D bios

Oh have a newb question for all of yas...

what's the default voltages for when set to Normal ?

PCI-E OverVoltage Control :
FSB OverVoltage Control :
(G)MCH OverVoltage Control :
MCH Reference Voltage Control : Normal
DDR Reference Voltage Control : Normal
DDR Termination Voltage Control : Normal
CPU GTLREF1 Voltage* :
CPU GTLREF2 Voltage* :
CPU Voltage Control :
Normal CPU Vcore :

[Severance]

Still both a X38 chipset and Gigabyte X38-DQ6 newb myself... i didn't have F3 on long enough to find out.. went straight to F6B then to F7D bios

Ok very good eva, I will stay with f3 bios and see where that gets me It seems to be the best stable bios for me.

[mjb1206]

eva2000, Here are my results, just for kicks!!

[eva2000]

eva2000, Here are my results, just for kicks!!
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e132/mjb12065/untitled-15.jpg[/IMG]

Nice.. high FSB helps bandwidth

Looks like Gigabyte X38-DQ6 vcore droop gets worse the higher you set vcore in bios. At 1.55v bios set vcore you get 1.54v idle but 1.488v load. Still for 4.1Ghz mark, X38-DQ6 is requiring around 0.05v more vcore than what I needed on Asus Blitz Formula/Extreme.

Still depressing to see this QX9650 needing this amount of vcore just for 4100Mhz

Straight boot from bios (NO memset changes)

[Richard Dower]

Where can you download CoreTemp 0.95.6?

[Caped Crusader]

Hello!

I acquired this motherboard two weeks ago and so far I'm very pleased with its performance. I have an intel E6750 on it and the rest of my specs and config are:

BIOS F5h (I'm waiting for a new official non-beta before flashing an update)
E6750 435x8 (3480Mhz) with 1.34vcore
4x OCZ SLI Ready PC6400 at 1044Mhz (2.40B multiplier) with 5-5-5-16 timings and 2.27vcore
EVGA 8800GTS KO ACS3 320Mb at 650/1600/2200Mhz with +0.05v on the overvoltage control

I can't remember the rest of the overvoltage settings... and I'll try to post some screenies soon.

This motherboard rocks!

[eva2000]

Where can you download CoreTemp 0.95.6?

You need to email the author of coretemp it's an internal build he prefers not to release publicly.. as he as a public build coming out soon

[Kashelz]

Hey, realy good result, damn fast Can you please post here BIOS settings for those timings @ 4-4-4-8? I mean all subtimings with F7D BIOS, they in real life are not the same as seems in MemSet

Here is timings tham Im looking for:
Standard Timing Control
CAS Latency Time :
DRAM RAS# to CAS# :
DRAM RAS# Precharge :
Precharge Delay(tRAS) :
Advanced Timing Control
ACT to ACT Delay(tRRD) :
Rank Write to READ Delay :
Write To Precharge Delay :
Refresh to ACT Delay :
Read To Precharge Delay :
tRD :
tRD Phase Adjustment :
Command to #CS Timing:

[eva2000]

IIRC

Standard Timing Control
CAS Latency Time : 4
DRAM RAS# to CAS# : 4
DRAM RAS# Precharge : 4
Precharge Delay(tRAS) : 8
Advanced Timing Control
ACT to ACT Delay(tRRD) : 4
Rank Write to READ Delay : 4
Write To Precharge Delay : 7
Refresh to ACT Delay : 30
Read To Precharge Delay : 5
tRD : 7
tRD Phase Adjustment : 1
Command to #CS Timing 2T

[dinos22]

What are those LEDs??

that's just one of the things we suggested they add to the new boards because of the functional aspect of extreme OCing

[freqy]

hello

does anyone know when the F7D bios will be available on the gigabyte site or where to d/l?

im waiting for my parts to arrive, thought best to be ready bios wise.

freqy

[Kashelz]

hello

does anyone know when the F7D bios will be available on the gigabyte site or where to d/l?

im waiting for my parts to arrive, thought best to be ready bios wise.

freqy

As its beta BIOS I don't think it will be officially on Gigabyte website, but you can download it from here: http://rapidshare.com/files/72285542/X38DQ6.F7D.html (link was already posted by mjb1206)!

I flashed mine yesterday, today I am going to do some testing more how strong is it

And thanks eva2000 for timings, will test them on my Teamgroup mems

[M@deira]

Hi

Times just getting back a Gigabyte X38 - DQ6 and noticed that the Vdroop it reacts strangely giving a jump in the very high voltage.

It would have a MOD to stabilize this disabilities?

Sorry for my bad English

[dinos22]

yeah a mod would be nice

[rbsmontemor]

Yeah...let's call Hipro5

Rbs.

[dinos22]

he's an Asus man
i don't think he'd care about these

[boblemagnifique]

Few Benchs with X38T-DQ6 :
















The Review (in French) : http://www.ixtremtek.com/forums/showthread.php?t=214

[Richard Dower]

that's just one of the things we suggested they add to the new boards because of the functional aspect of extreme OCing

Are they gonna finlly dump the clear CMOS jumper the FINALLY give us a clear CMOS button?....what about a proper location for the CMOS battery.

[Richard Dower]

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/...&GetDown=false

New Realtek 8111B drivers, version 6.199.

[GAR]

Hi

Times just getting back a Gigabyte X38 - DQ6 and noticed that the Vdroop it reacts strangely giving a jump in the very high voltage.

It would have a MOD to stabilize this disabilities?

Sorry for my bad English

Yeah thats the only thing i dont like about this board, is the jumps in vcore.....wish there was a pencil mod to stabilize it.

[M@deira]

yeah a mod would be nice

It would be of great help someone able to post this mod because many people must be with this problem. The Hipro5 could help and much.; =)

[DStealth]

Ye i've made a tread in VR-zone in 2 mounts and even Shamino, who tested the board at that time didn't replayed
http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=193965
Why, o why GB boards are never getting nice Volt mods in opposite to Asus
New F6 and F7 bioses are peace of crap, couldn't even fire 2.66 c/d fastest strap with my memory over 400fsb , while f5H can do PL6 up to 472 fsb with tightest timings memory can with these MHZ
11min 29.390 sec with water cooled Q6600

Loadline calibration is also not working and tnx GB for making even crappy and crappier alfa and beta with state to official and download links on offical site BOISes

[dinos22]

Ye i've made a tread in VR-zone in 2 mounts and even Shamino, who tested the board at that time didn't replayed
http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=193965
Why, o why GB boards are never getting nice Volt mods in opposite to Asus
New F6 and F7 bioses are peace of crap, couldn't even fire 2.66 c/d fastest strap with my memory over 400fsb , while f5H can do PL6 up to 472 fsb with tightest timings memory can with these MHZ
11min 29.390 sec with water cooled Q6600

Loadline calibration is also not working and tnx GB for making even crappy and crappier alfa and beta with state to official and download links on offical site BOISes

i have a friend of mine on the case for FULL mods