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

[tomb18]

Just a little study I did with 8GB of ram on the 780i.
Here: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=177712

[Hughyhunter]

Evga 780i Bios P03 Windows XP SP2
Intel Core 2 Q6600 G0 D-Tek Fuzion/Swiftech MCP655/120mm Dual RAD
Corsair Dominators PC8500/Corsair Dominator RAM Cooling
Evga 88...............................com/albums/f18/paulxmn/EVGA%20780i/4000.jpg[/url]
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f1...80i/034000.jpg

Removed the NB assembly and removed all the foam spacers...applied A5. Replaced the NB fan with a 16mm Spire CPU fan/Antec Spot Fan on the Mosfets. Spire is blowing down to stop moving the heat of the GPU's up.. temps of NB now range from 56C to 65C which is acceptable.

Very impressed with older GPU's. With it at 4000mhz what was 3Dmark06 score?

[Cptn Vortex]

I've got this board with 4GB Crucial BLX Tracer 1066MHZ, QX9650 and dual 8800GTX's, and I am getting BSOD after BSOD with SATA DVD drives. I take the Optical drive out and the system works fine. I NEED SATA optical, otherwise that nice HD/BluRAY player will just be sitting there.....

Anyone have a fix????

[truehighroller]

I've got this board with 4GB Crucial BLX Tracer 1066MHZ, QX9650 and dual 8800GTX's, and I am getting BSOD after BSOD with SATA DVD drives. I take the Optical drive out and the system works fine. I NEED SATA optical, otherwise that nice HD/BluRAY player will just be sitting there.....

Anyone have a fix????

Install Vista ,,, I never thought I would say that to any one but, it is true. That's the fix , the issue is xp for a change.

[Hughyhunter]

Whats the purpose of people setting there command rate to 2T? I thought that 1T was faster and as long as you are running just two sticks why would people set it to 2T? I have this EVGA board and 2x2gb set of memory set to 4-4-4-15 2T.

[lopri]

Things to know when OVERCLOCKING

- The Vdroop mod above is suggested and does not harm the board, very simply reversible.
- Users with 4GB of memory, (4 sticks, or 2 sticks) use 1.5V on the NB when going over 333FSB or else you will run into stability problems.

Hope you don't take it personal, but I came back here to see if there is any new info and saw that in the first post of this thread. (Not sure if that was there when I first posted about it, but I just saw it today) I am sure that your experiences were genuine, but you're overly generalizing. 780i board runs hot, and there is no reason to recommend unnecessarily high voltages. Less experienced users might just follow what's stated without testing it out themselves.

I have run Prime95 64-bit BLEND, just for you. (OK we're getting personal )









Blend, right? And SPP voltage 1.4V. While I am not using a quad-core, I am using 8GB of RAM, along with two video cards and 2 x 250GB in RAID0 / 2 x 500GB in RAID1, so my SPP/MCP are quite stressed. Still, I didn't try 4GB (2 x 2GB), but I might even be able to get by with even less voltages for SPP.

What I'm trying to say is that everyone's configuration is different and every board/SPP will be slightly different. And temperatures can also make differences. A few just off my head:

• It's very possible that SPP might need higher voltages for quad-cores
• If you run NB fan faster, or swap the fan with a better one you might be able to lower vSPP
• Even for the same 4GB configuration (2 x 2GB), it's likely that DDR2-1000/CL5 with dividers requires more voltages than DDR2-800/CL4 under 1:1. And different memory ICs could have different characteristics.
• And so on..

Again, I have no doubt that your finding is legit for system configuration similar to yours. But you have to be careful when you generalize it beyond that because as you can see, not everyone is going to use the same CPU, memory, GPU, or even cooling.

Hopefully my post will be considered a contribution to the thread, not a personal attack. This was quite an effort on my part because I hate Blend!

[lopri]

NM man, whatever works for you.

BTW my previous screenshots (#439) were LargeFFT, not SmallFFT..

[GFDuke]

Whats the purpose of people setting there command rate to 2T? I thought that 1T was faster and as long as you are running just two sticks why would people set it to 2T? I have this EVGA board and 2x2gb set of memory set to 4-4-4-15 2T.

I was wondering the samw thing. I used to run my socket 939 at 1t all the time but that was the old DDR. I'm new to DDR2 so i've been just following what i've seen in forums. Is there a big difference?

[lopri]

From my observation, the performance difference between 1T and 2T isn't as big as in 680i. 680i performed meaningfully better with 1T than with 2T, albeit mostly noticed in benchmarks.

It looks like achieving 1T is easier with 780i, but the performance improvement isn't significant. I'm guessing that NV loosened the internals for better compatibility. I don't think it matters a lot since current trend is going towards capacity than performance, when it comes to DDR2.

[paulxmn]

Very impressed with older GPU's. With it at 4000mhz what was 3Dmark06 score?

Still have not found the right combination of voltage settings to get through the benchmark, will post when I do.

[icon57]

From my observation, the performance difference between 1T and 2T isn't as big as in 680i. 680i performed meaningfully better with 1T than with 2T, albeit mostly noticed in benchmarks.

It looks like achieving 1T is easier with 780i, but the performance improvement isn't significant. I'm guessing that NV loosened the internals for better compatibility. I don't think it matters a lot since current trend is going towards capacity than performance, when it comes to DDR2.

agreed, however i was never able to set 1T on my 680i, nor have i tried on the 780i, but in general, i would say the 780i is a much better oc'er.

[GAR]

BTW my previous screenshots (#439) were LargeFFT, not SmallFFT..

I understand, why dont you open up task manager and see how much of your ram is being run when running large, then run blend, you will see blend uses about 1.6gb

[Furiøùs]

Hi everyone, i just got my new eVGA 780i board after 5 days of total horror with the Asus P5N-T Deluxe and my E8400. So far im having some problems getting it past 4 seconds of Prime95 alone at 1800(QDR) 1088 on the memory with --1.34 on the chip and the CPU FSB at 1.4v, SPP at 1.55, MCP at 1.6, SPP->MCP at 1.5-- and thats all i can remember off the top of my head. OCCt fails as soon as i press start (Yes the chicken noise scared the out of me) Im using Vista Ultimate x64, Now my question is what is the recommended setting for 4GHz and this board? I noticed on the first page the first post says 1.5 on the CPU FSB but i can only go up to 1.4? Im using the latest bios P03.

Also, is the Vdroop mod really necessary? I'd rather not start penciling my new board within the first day, but if it must be done so be it. What are you guys using to monitor your NB and such temps with this board? I have been a dedicated Asus but the P5N-T was just a piece of crap. I couldnt even read voltages in the bios, oh man it was terrible. Can you guys please post all your voltage settings if your 400+ on the FSB with a E8400 or something like that? Im not sure if its the Mobo just being a biatch with my chip or what, but man i've been fighting for the past week with the Asus and im not returning this eVGA so i hope it turns out good


Oh and PS - How do i get Everest to show me the MCP temp?

[lopri]

Furios, try 1760, 1780, 1820, 1840 instead of 1088. Memory Linked-Synced first. You want to find out if there is a difficult spot in terms of FSB.

GAR, I don't know what to say. It's kinda eye-opening.

[usafwilson]

I can't get my board to turn on.

I hooked it up properly.. the blue light turns on.. but the power button won't turn on the computer!

I know I had it set up properly!

Even pressing the power button on the board does nothing.. no fan spinning, no hard drive noises.. nothing.

EVGA technical support was horrible. He kept yawning and laughing with the guy in the cubicle next to him!

[Hughyhunter]

I dont even see an option for NB volts... is it called something else?

[msgclb]

This should give you a clue...



nForce SPP

[Furiøùs]

Oh i see, For now i have it rock-solid at 3.83GHz with 1700(QDR) with linked and synced at 850 on the memory, right now im tweaking CPU voltage, got it down to 1.325 (1.26-1.27 according to my Everest) with Prime95 and OCCT at the same time. Gonna let her go overnight and then when i wake up tomorrow im unlinking the memory and gonna crank it to 1000, Might have to wait for a few BIOS updates before i can achieve my 4GHz, but save that for another day. Night everyone, waking up in 4 hours to check haha.. Cell phone alarms for the win


Oh yea, and i give major props to the board. I manually set my CPU and memory voltages and left the rest AUTO and everything is REALLY nice, The Asus board is a piling piece of silicon compared to this one, I love this board! Wooo!!

[Furiøùs]

I dont even see an option for NB volts... is it called something else?

Yea, the MCP voltage is the Northbridge from what i've read (the whole dang thread) and the SPP is the Southbridge. On my Asus there was a 1.2v HT voltage which is the SPP -> MCP voltage on the eVGA, much easier to understand on this i must admit.

[Hughyhunter]

So what is the cpu fsb? I understand the the cpu core is the one we crank for the cpu but what about the cpu fsb?

[Fitseries3]

no, it's the other way around.

SPP is the north bridge
MCP is the south bridge

just remeber.... S=system M=media

[Hughyhunter]

The reason why I ask all this is for better understanding... Currently I just do what all you do and it works... crank this up and then that... and bench check it with prime95. I want to understand a little bit more about some of these "things" we are giving volts too.

Also if anyone is interested in enlightening me... why crank pci-3 mhz to 125? and why crank spp mcp ref clock to 250mhz?

[Hughyhunter]

no, it's the other way around.

SPP is the north bridge
MCP is the south bridge

just remeber.... S=system M=media

cool... thanks... makes a bit more sense as to what that is... what about the rest?

[Furiøùs]

OH! So i had it wrong, i was cranking the voltage on the Southbridge.. hahaha im a tard. Anyway that solves one error, thanks.

CPU FSB is the CPU VTT, It says it in the Details in the BIOS. Not sure what it does but you have to balance it with the Vcore

I havent touched the SPP MCP ref Clock yet, im trying to get this Vcore lower, it just failed at 1.325 (1.26-1.27 underload) so im back to 1.350 (1.30 on load) So this is stable pretty much. I have a good chip, 1.1125 VID so this baby can do it. I'd leave those SPP MCP ref clocks alone, and the PCI-3 I havent touched either so meh, I dont really think it'll do much in terms of gaming performance, the Ref clock from what i've read gives you a few more points in benchmarks which doesnt mean much unless your a hardcore benchmarker trying to go for records and stuff.

[Fitseries3]

i had my e8400 @ 4.32ghz @1.38v(actual, set 1.4v in bios) on my pencil modded 780i(fixed vdroop). my q6600 ran at 3.6ghz @ 1.5v and 3.9ghz @ 1.56v

the NB was set to 1.5v, ram was set to 2.3v(your's may be lower, and probably should be). everything else is set to auto.