Official eVGA 780i Discussion/Review/Overclock/Guide Thread

[Nostromo]

Gar--

I was starting to think about popping the P5K back in, but spent a little more
time with the 780i ..

There is as you found out a HUGE hole of some sort, where rebooting causes the A0 code on reboot. thats why I was having such a hard time. once you pass the hole, reboots are normal.

I could not get over 3.6 stable with thing until i did the vcore pencil mod.
setting higher volts to compensate for vdroop did not seem to work.

I am typing this with my quad at 4.2 (waiting for blue screen any second).
I played through the crysis demo at 4.1 no problem.

running my memory at 5-5-5-18 2t unlinked 1000

I am only running 2 of my 4 1 gig ballistix at the moment though.

can anyone point me to a read about the HT settings, I remember back in the athlon days having to keep ht in a certain range for stability, but not sure about it now, seems 5 is the loosest setting, and 4 and 3, so on is tighter? but how do you figure tha range to keep it at?

Nostromo

[Nostromo]

Sorry for re-post, but hey all, try this.

Lock your memory at 800, make sure timings and mem volts are ok, then see what you can do with overclocks.

Nostromo

[101]

I also see the A0 soft restart issue starting at around 1640 MHz. I'm using the evga bios, anyone try the xfx?


EDIT: Okay, I went and found the exact range for my board. From 1627-1721 MHz (inclusive) I get the A0 soft restart problem, while above and below is fine. I'll tool around and see if I can find any sensitivity to the breaking points.

[gmod]

I have the XFX and have not gotten the A0 problem....Ive booted to windows got 06 to run at 8x500 but it failed the cpu test...I run 1600x9 and my crucial balistics 8500 @ 1100mhz 24/7.....Ive benched 06 at 8x1925....

[RottenMutt]

... quad at 4.2...
Nostromo

what mutiplier, fsb, and voltages are you running?

I've suspected a memory hole but haven't had an opportunity to see if i can get around it.

[101]

gmod, does the shipping XFX bios still have the half mullti? as shown here:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/616/4/
It is missing from the EVGA, although the "setting" column under fsb and mem config shows it (although it doesn't actually boot up that way)

[GAR]

well, one of my boards had the A0 error, the other didnt, and one of them couldnt get a stable clock with 4gb if its life depended on it, no matter what fsb............the board is too imature, but it seems like we are going to have some issues again that nvidia will sort out with bios updates, if not we will have a new revision soon.

[Nostromo]

UGH!
I had been running small fft's with no problem, didnt even think to try blend.
so now with blend I blue screen reboot..

running 9 multi, 1823 (455 fsb) all voltages maxxed green except mcp 1.6
and cpu 1.5..

nostromo

[GAR]

yeah that was my story, run blend and blue screen, i have put my X38 back in for now.

[Nostromo]

whew! and i was about to pull the trigger on another ultra, glad I didnt.

Nostromo

[RottenMutt]

http://www.lavalys.com/beta/everestu...wel3fkdm5c.zip

New beta that works with the 780i. It now correctly recognizes it and read the sensors properly.

Shawn

it reads my mcp at 90 degrees C!!

[gmod]

gmod, does the shipping XFX bios still have the half mullti? as shown here:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/616/4/
It is missing from the EVGA, although the "setting" column under fsb and mem config shows it (although it doesn't actually boot up that way)

Nope dont get any 1/2 multi's here...

[Robilar]

My fresh install with the board went fine.

Couple of things though

Only two onboard usb headers (my asus P5N32-E and striker had 3, sucks with a stacker 830 and a internal usb card reader)

firewire port is between the video cards??? The fact that I have a removable motherboard meant that I had already installed my video cards and sound card, slid it in and voila no way to access it

also the usb headers are placed beside the digital bios display, the wires I connect with run right across it blocking the view

Most annoying, again with a removable motherboard tray, video cards installed, the stupid front panel connectors are actually under my second video card with about 2 1/2" clearance to bottom of the case. spent half an hour with a pair of small pliers before i got them plugged in. Fired it up and then realized that the chart in the manual was wrong. grrrrr

Other than that the board has been stable and booted first shot.

I pre-ordered the E8500 (should be receiving it Jan 24) so I'm looking forward to the combination.

btw the nb fan is freakin loud!

[RottenMutt]

P02 bios is now on XFX site http://www.xfxforce.com/web/support/...oductCode.jspa

does the shipping XFX bios still have the half mullti?

Mine doesn't, but i only have a q6700 and maybe it only shows up with quad extreme cpu (qx96xx).

[Robilar]

Can anyone tell me if there are vrm's or mosfets that are cooled at the top of the heatpipe assembly? I was planning on stripping the pipes off and putting a nb and sb cooler on the board. I noticed there is a separate heatsink at the top of the cpu (covering vrm's I assume) but what about the taller stack just right of the cpu? I've read that the whole assembly is tricky to remove and reset so I don't want to take it apart without some advice.

[RottenMutt]

it reads my mcp at 90 degrees C!!

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=213464

I removed the stock heatsink to find out it wasn't making good contact with the SB Chip! The SB appears to be using the same crappy thermal compound as was used on the 680i boards. I had to straighten the SB Arm relative to the NB portion, I placed the heatsink on grannite and worked in until all the legs contacted the surface. now I'm getting 68 degrees C.

Update:

second attempt, I'm now down to 48 idle and 50 degrees C under load.

i did as dilburt suggested and peeled off the sides to leave just four posts of foam. I also filed down the standoffs on the heat sinks. i didn't remove much material other then remove burrs and made them flat.

[Gleevec]

started

Hey all, first post. Working on putting together up my 1st wc box.

DarthBeavis, what are you using to connect your 8800's to each other? I have the EK blocks and the barbs are too long for the 3-way. Should I grab a stubby or two or perhaps give the DD male-to-male nipple a whirl? (Man, that last sentence just doesn't sound right...)

[101]

My fresh install with the board went fine.

Couple of things though

Only two onboard usb headers (my asus P5N32-E and striker had 3, sucks with a stacker 830 and a internal usb card reader)

firewire port is between the video cards??? The fact that I have a removable motherboard meant that I had already installed my video cards and sound card, slid it in and voila no way to access it

also the usb headers are placed beside the digital bios display, the wires I connect with run right across it blocking the view

Most annoying, again with a removable motherboard tray, video cards installed, the stupid front panel connectors are actually under my second video card with about 2 1/2" clearance to bottom of the case. spent half an hour with a pair of small pliers before i got them plugged in. Fired it up and then realized that the chart in the manual was wrong. grrrrr

Other than that the board has been stable and booted first shot.

I pre-ordered the E8500 (should be receiving it Jan 24) so I'm looking forward to the combination.

btw the nb fan is freakin loud!

Why don't you just make some extension cables for all the on board headers? That way you can easily pull it without hassle.

[shawn1998]

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=213464

I removed the stock heatsink to find out it wasn't making good contact with the SB Chip! The SB appears to be using the same crappy thermal compound as was used on the 680i boards. I had to straighten the SB Arm relative to the NB portion, I placed the heatsink on granet and worked in until all the legs contacted the surface. now i'm getting 68 degrees C.

Mine reads about 54-56 degrees C at idle. Wow, glad you looked into that and figured it out! I had thought about checking mine out before I installed it, but I decided to chance it. It would seem that it all worked out this time. I did, however, swap out the stock (f'ing loud) fan and tie-wrapped a Vantec Stealth 60mm in it's place. Temps stayed the same, but the niose level dramatically dropped.

Shawn

[Robilar]

Why don't you just make some extension cables for all the on board headers? That way you can easily pull it without hassle.

I may have too. Apparently EVGA never bothered to try out something similar to the asus Q-Connector.

[Robilar]

The ntune beta 6.0 is pretty neat. Seems to work well with the 780i board

[DarthBeavis]

Hey all, first post. Working on putting together up my 1st wc box.

DarthBeavis, what are you using to connect your 8800's to each other? I have the EK blocks and the barbs are too long for the 3-way. Should I grab a stubby or two or perhaps give the DD male-to-male nipple a whirl? (Man, that last sentence just doesn't sound right...)

I would do stubbies . . .I found the little play u get with them and tubing makes it easier to get the sli bridge on.

[GAR]

I may have too. Apparently EVGA never bothered to try out something similar to the asus Q-Connector.

This isnt an eVGA board, this is a reference board designed by nVidia and made by Foxconn......eVGA is just the distributor, think of nvidia as the production studio and evga as the publisher.

[101]

Found a little feature I didn't know about, If you hit reset 5 times it'll default back to stock FSB.

[Mk]

Hey GAR remember me :P:?
i just finshed with my frist overclock ever

What do you think?

if you have some tips i would be realy thankful