nForce 790i SLI/Ultra chipset mobos - Reviews/OC/Guides

[Lu(ky]

EXACTLY!! My Asus S2E was BSOD all over the place, often after passing prime stably for a few hours, then starting a game, opening a web browser etc... and had to install vista several times cus system file integrity check fails right after installation and could not fix the corrupt files... system processes randomly stops responding... VCore was dead stable though.. but means all.

Now my EVGA 790i Ultra seems absolutely stable. But having a 0.1V droop kinda sux... Guess can't have it all

nice to know I'm not alone in situations like this.

So which board do you like best then eternal_fantasy? Asus S2E or the eVGA?
eVGA is working a 790i FTW board with a N/B water block with a 8-phase.

[pinto]

You ask the question? Nvidia ref design of course!

[eternal_fantasy]

So which board do you like best then eternal_fantasy? Asus S2E or the eVGA?
eVGA is working a 790i FTW board with a N/B water block with a 8-phase.

You ask the question? Nvidia ref design of course!

Aye, the EVGA is definitely the lesser of the two evils. By a LARGE margin.

you have a link to that 8 phase EVGA mobo? sounds intresting!

[MrHydes]

what is the best chipset 790i vs X38?

[Big Myke]

Man, is anybody having great experiences with the Striker II Extreme boards?

all this negative feedback is killin me.

[dinos22]

Man, is anybody having great experiences with the Striker II Extreme boards?

all this negative feedback is killin me.

those guys are all having a good time enjoying the system lol
no time to online

[TheHardCase]

Man, is anybody having great experiences with the Striker II Extreme boards?

all this negative feedback is killin me.

Answer this? can you find a Striker II Extreme 790i?
I'll answer for you, there all SOLD OUT lol...
There selling like hot cakes, I got mine today & man I must say OMG Striker II Extreme FTW 100%.
What a difference night & day...

[canislupy]

Answer this? can you find a Striker II Extreme 790i?
I'll answer for you, there all SOLD OUT lol...
There selling like hot cakes, I got mine today & man I must say OMG Striker II Extreme FTW 100%.
What a difference night & day...

O RLY?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131274

[Big Myke]

O RLY?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131274

Newegg doesn't ship to his location

[TheHardCase]

Newegg doesn't ship to his location

Yeah whats up with that place, I've tried everything to get product from them. Sure lost alot of sales from Canada...

[Lu(ky]

you have a link to that 8 phase EVGA mobo? sounds intresting!

Here is what it says on the eVGA press release
And they said it was going to be a 780i and 790i as well. But I think they may scrap the idea now.

eVGA 780i FTW

[canislupy]

Newegg doesn't ship to his location

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec....4&RSKU=BA24814
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-STKR2EX (in stock?)
http://www.excaliberpc.com/ASUS_MB_C...id-585384.html

And so on and so forth....

Anyway... update on my 4x1GB Cellshock 1800 DIMMs in the EVGA 790i.

I just went for hours with Orthos and Super PI runs, then raiding in WoW (which was failing miserably last night) with no issues on 4 sticks with the following settings.

E3110 1.3v @ 4050MHz (450x9)
4x1GB Cellshock @ 2.0v 1800MHz 8-7-7-21-2t
CPU FSB 1.35v
SPP 1.45v
MCP 1.65v

Basically upped some voltages vs. auto settings I was using last night and seems solid so far. I am going to try getting the RAM timings tighter next.

[xt0m]

Sowwy, but I cant find links to the newer revision bios's anywhere. Somebody got em?

(Striker II Extreme 0504/0507)

[safan80]

O RLY?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131274

$469.99

[saaya]

The problem is that the CellShock modules only have one SPD setting, 1800/8-7-6-21/1.5V. don't know about other brands, but I'd guess they have more relaxed timings in their SPD too.

some do, some dont...

Those wacky Germans....

Oi! wa-kee? huz shermaz? yu mass bee kittin mein herr

Will this be a problem with all memory (not just cell shock) that need more than 1.5v on the initial post? I have ocz ddr3-1800 that has 1.95 volts. Will I and others have a problem with the board since it is set at 1.5v on auto?

im not sure, but i think ocz is using a ref spd as well now so if the BIOS works properly it should read the lowest spd profile for 1.5v bootup and it should work fine. if your not sure just visit the ocz support forums or contact any of their staff members here on the forums and im sure they will help you



when ddr3 came out there was no final ddr3 spd standard and asus and then other board mfgs started doing what they already did for ddr2, they just set timings according to a bios table/formula and ignore the spd.
at that time memory would run fine and boot fine even if you only programmed some few timings in the spd and left the rest blank

so we figured, why try to program a multi profile spd that MIGHT not work on all boards since the final ddr3 spd spec might be diferent. what do people want from an spd anyways? it has to boot, check, it should show the name and speed of the modules... ok. so we programmed an 1800 876-21 profile.
i sent memory with this spd to asus and they tested it on all their ddr3 boards and said it works fine.

a couple of months ago they changed the way they adjust timings though, and for the first time started to use parts of the spd to configure things.
this of course caused problems since our original spds mess up whatever asus had in mind, causing problems.
we then switched to a reference spd that most mfgs are using now and will eventually add an xmp and epp2 profile, depending on how much sense it makes and if people really want one.

im sorry about the problems, asus didnt inform us about the changes they did so we couldnt react immediatly, and i guess it would have been better to deploy the mem with a boring reference spd instead of a fancy 1800 profile.
again, my apologies to everybody who had problems caused by this.
we are shipping all ddr3 with the new spd for months already, but the problem is the kits we sold before still have the older spd.

here is the new reference based spd which should work on all boards regardless of how tight the bios tries to set the timings during boot up.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=274

you can flash it in windows with spdtool or systool, and also with typhoon burner i think. if you cant get your memory to boot at all, check if you can use somebody elses memory or system to flash the spd, if you cant, just send me a deaththreat via pm or email and ill swap the kit for you

about xmp or epp... if any of you really care and want a profile let me know, so far nobody told us they want one...

[saaya]

Anyway... update on my 4x1GB Cellshock 1800 DIMMs in the EVGA 790i.

I just went for hours with Orthos and Super PI runs, then raiding in WoW (which was failing miserably last night) with no issues on 4 sticks with the following settings.

E3110 1.3v @ 4050MHz (450x9)
4x1GB Cellshock @ 2.0v 1800MHz 8-7-7-21-2t
CPU FSB 1.35v
SPP 1.45v
MCP 1.65v

Basically upped some voltages vs. auto settings I was using last night and seems solid so far. I am going to try getting the RAM timings tighter next.

congrats, 4gb at that speed and timing at only 2v is really nice!
yeah, i think with 4 sticks your most likely frequency limited and less timing limited. what PL are you running?
could you post all the timings you set to get 4gb working at those speeds?

those guys are all having a good time enjoying the system lol
no time to online

i dont think so man... the only guy i know who likes his striker 2 xtreme is webwilli, and he said there ARE bios problems and fsb holes, and he hasnt tried an evga or other reference board.

i know 3 people who tried the asus and the ref boards and they all say the ref boards are definately better. one of them had 3 asus boards and 2 ref boards and he said the asus boards all had the typical striker xtreme issues of some settings working and then suddenly not working and then working again without actually changing anything but just rebooting.

i havent tried any 790 board yet, so this is all hear say... but after all the "not so good" things i heard about the asus board i will just get an evga i think.

[webwilli]

...i dont think so man... the only guy i know who likes his striker 2 xtreme is webwilli, and he said there ARE bios problems and fsb holes, and he hasnt tried an evga or other reference board...

I still like my STRIIEX

I found two FSB Holes (400 + 475) thats right. No other issues yet. My cellshock RAM works very well on the STRIIEX. No Problems.

But i still have only a crap E6600 and no SLI.
Don´t forget: i´m completely nvidia-n00b... only use intel-boards before. I must learn a lot.

Next week i get two 9800GTX i hope. No E8500 is available Should i buy the E8200? I don´t know...

[canislupy]

Ran Orthos overnight with stock memory timings.



OK, I R Nub. What is PL?

Other memory timings I leave at auto in the bios, which gives me these values.

tRRD 5
tRC 27
tWR 12
tWTR 17
tFAW 28
tREF 7.7uS

Also interestingly, when I set CAS to lower than 8, it shows it still running 8 at post, even if it is in fact lower.

[SaiNRuB]

OK, I R Nub. What is PL?

From dinos22
some more

[canislupy]

From dinos22
some more

Thanks man. So I am not crazy, EVGA just doesn't have these settings exposed in the BIOS yet.

[xt0m]

Sowwy, but I cant find links to the newer revision bios's anywhere. Somebody got em?

(Striker II Extreme 0504/0507)

Here is the Bios

http://www.awardfabrik.de/images/pic...ds/s2e0507.rar

GL

There we are

[dinos22]

Thanks man. So I am not crazy, EVGA just doesn't have these settings exposed in the BIOS yet.

not yet

you will have to be patient for a bios release that has these settings

[sonofander]

just replaced my reference board with the SIIE... thought I'd throw up some impressions and observations.

The reference board is definately easier to oc. DEFINATELY! lol
while the Striker is taking a bit more work, I've noticed some performance improvements. Seems like clock for clock, the STriker has better mem performance as well as 3D performance.

My mem read/write/copy are all up by at least 1000 (per everest) and latency is down by 30ns or so

3D benches are up by about 400 points or so

this is a great board... lots of nice touches tha the ref board doesn't have and increased performance from my experience. Again, it is definaely harder to work with, but it seems to me that the time spent in really figuring out your overclock is time well spent

sending my ref board back this afternoon

[Big Myke]

What are the difficulties that you are talking about? What makes the evga board an easier overclocker? Fill us in bro

[Leeghoofd]

just replaced my reference board with the SIIE... thought I'd throw up some impressions and observations.

mem read/write/copy are all up by at least 1000 (per everest) and latency is down by 30ns or so

I hope ya mean 3ns, 30ns that's an awesome difference... maybe a setting you forgot with the reference board...