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

[dinos22]

very nice

what RAM are you using Tony (LOL i mean what ICs )

[Gunslinger]

I am struggling big time getting my EVGA up to speed. Can't seem to get past about 1550 on FSB, get all kinds of boot errors. That is also as far as I can get my Dom's to go at this point. Very frustrated.

[saaya]

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...

i wouldnt get an 8200, some people received duds that didnt really clock well at all, plus the low multi... id say go for an 8400 or 8500.

do did you manage to get the striker2 extreme stable?
completely stable at an oced speed? if yes, at what speed.
cause thats what i heard as negative about the S2E, just like the earlier striker boards its crashing randomly, for 2 days something is stable, then it wont even boot, then it boots again but crashes after a few hours, then works fine for a day again etc...

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

well, trd/performance level seems to have no impact on performance for nvidia chipsets... either that or its not really trd...
id say use baredit from felix88 and make register dumps at different fsb speeds and when the perf drops big time, check what registers changed and try to set one register after the other to what they were like at the lower fsb that performed better.

its annoying work, but it does work usually to improve perf notably

and actually, people with both ref and S2E, you could make dumps of both boards at the same configurations and compare them. im sure you can set the same registry settings as on S2E and gain all the perf back that the ref boards seem to be lacking compared to the S2E

thx for the infos sonofander!
so whats the max speed you got your S2E completely stable at?
if its not too bad i might give it a try as well...
but what you said is what i heard about the previous striker boards too, new bios releases and tweaking will make them stable... but i never ever managed to get any of the 3 striker boards i had entirely stable... one day it was stable for a week, then just rebooting without changing anything didnt work. after several attempts i gave up and reduced the ocs and it worked semi stable, then could oc higher again and it seemed stable again, after a few reboots, same thing again...

my conclusion was that for benching its a great board, but its too much of a pita to maintain an oc on this board... id rather have a slower slightly worse ocing board that works stable at a high oc than a slightly higher slightly faster oc that requires me to play with the settings again every few days to get it to work stable or to get it to at least boot!

P03r2? you may need a better version of awdflash and the correct command line.
AWDFLASH BIOSNAME.BIN /F/PROT

cheers tony!

[saaya]

I am struggling big time getting my EVGA up to speed. Can't seem to get past about 1550 on FSB, get all kinds of boot errors. That is also as far as I can get my Dom's to go at this point. Very frustrated.

hmmm try to jump up 10mhz fsb or more, maybe its an fsb hole?
did you try a lower cpu multi?
did you try different mem dividers to make sure its the mem that limits you?
if it is, what timings are you using? maybe the board sets one of them too tight?

[funkflix]

Don't forget to set your memory to 2T, bcs. default is 1T. I know it sounds stupid, but i spend more then 6 hours to find out that was the problem..

[webwilli]

i wouldnt get an 8200, some people received duds that didnt really clock well at all, plus the low multi... id say go for an 8400 or 8500.

do did you manage to get the striker2 extreme stable?
completely stable at an oced speed? if yes, at what speed.
cause thats what i heard as negative about the S2E, just like the earlier striker boards its crashing randomly, for 2 days something is stable, then it wont even boot, then it boots again but crashes after a few hours, then works fine for a day again etc...

i received the board at 18.03.2008 and since this day the board work ROCKSSTABLE (EXTREME STABLE) with 400 MHz FSB/800 MEM 8-7-6-18 1T 1,6 Volt.
All Boardvoltages at minimum.
I play lot of games, use VMWare and Prime at the same time.
LAN + eSATA + USB at the same time. Windows XP SP2. Never use shice Vista
I never have the crashing randomly problem and the board runs 8 hrs a day. The last week 12-14 hrs a day.

400 MHz FSB is not much, but you know that my CPU is so crap.

[Gunslinger]

hmmm try to jump up 10mhz fsb or more, maybe its an fsb hole?
did you try a lower cpu multi?
did you try different mem dividers to make sure its the mem that limits you?
if it is, what timings are you using? maybe the board sets one of them too tight?

I've left the memory at 1333 and even 1066 unlinked when trying to run the FSB up, but still wouldn't post. So now
it seems to be relatively stable at 1550, 7-7-7-20 linked and synced. I'll try in 10mhz increments and see where the threshold is.

[Tony]

very nice

what RAM are you using Tony (LOL i mean what ICs )

1600EB, all OCZ's ram officially 1600 and higher is micron, some gets pushed to lower bins as we are able to buy so cheap at the moment due to the huge volume we ship.

so the dimms were the 1600EB 2GB for 4GB kit (2X2) and we used 2 kits.

Remember this was on the Asus, P1P2 at auto for over 1800 and I had tweaked the crap out the timings, you also look to have to do it linked and sync, 2000fsb was key.

[sonofander]

Very nice mini review I have seen. How is the Vdroop on the Asus vs eVGA board?

vdroop is terrible on the ref board... thats the only reason I moved to the SIIE. I still can't believe that I paid $150 for loadline calibration

sonofander, Which version BIOS are you using? can you do a file integrity check in vista? and also can you post your BIOS settings on the S2E, as I can duplicate your setup with CellShock Memory and QX9650 CPU. Lastly can you run PCMark Vantage on your overclock setup? it always seem to bring my S2E system down with any sort of FSB overclock. Thanks!!

bios 507 at 450 FSB:
PLL - 1.56
VTT - 1.44
NB - 1.44
SB - 1.6

[sonofander]

saaya -

thanks for the spd!!!
now I get to take the $100 POS kit of ddr3 back to Fry's
(putting $100 back in the pocket is always a good thing)

thanks again

[slim142]

Hey guys one question real quick

How good is tankguys.biz for buying stuff? Im asking cause I just pre-ordered a Q9450 Retail and I would like to know if this guys have their word on items like this (hot, limited items). I know Im probably on a pretty long list but... will they really ship my cpu once they get them in stock? will it take them a long time?

Please somebody give me a comment about this! I want to know if I made the right decision and if I should wait and be patient.

[sonofander]

all my dealings with tank guys have been positive

[OBR]

with 45nm cpus i did not found any FSB holes ... i tested with E8400 and QX9650 ... but i am not able to overclock Q6700, system hangs at 350MHz FSB at any settings ... but with 45nm Quad i reached over 470MHz FSB ...

[LockBreaker]

OBR: Do you think the ASUS Striker II Extreme is a good board for the everday-user? I am not a overcloking pro, so I guess I won't be pushing the board to it's limits. I am thinking about taking my Q9450 to about 3.5-3.6 ghz.

[webwilli]

OBR: Do you think the ASUS Striker II Extreme is a good board for the everday-user? I am not a overcloking pro, so I guess I won't be pushing the board to it's limits. I am thinking about taking my Q9450 to about 3.5-3.6 ghz.

the STRIIEX is a very good board for every day use. Buy it and love it

[Anemone]

X38/48 or 790...

Those are always the questions.

[slim142]

The answer is on the user... SLI or XFire?

[dinos22]

1600EB, all OCZ's ram officially 1600 and higher is micron, some gets pushed to lower bins as we are able to buy so cheap at the moment due to the huge volume we ship.

so the dimms were the 1600EB 2GB for 4GB kit (2X2) and we used 2 kits.

Remember this was on the Asus, P1P2 at auto for over 1800 and I had tweaked the crap out the timings, you also look to have to do it linked and sync, 2000fsb was key.

TRFC makes a bit of difference i'm sure

what was it set at?

got a test my 4GB kit to see what it scales to

[Lu(ky]

The answer is on the user... SLI or XFire?

Well after seeing a couple of reviews on the new 9800GTX it was not very good. Compared to my current eVGA 8800GT SSC cards. I may wait for TRI-SLI setup review or wait for the new 9800GT's... SO much new stuff out there to keep track of, 790i or x48, 9800GX2, 9800GTX or 3870X2. I have a headache..

[slim142]

Well after seeing a couple of reviews on the new 9800GTX it was not very good. Compared to my current eVGA 8800GT SSC cards. I may wait for TRI-SLI setup review or wait for the new 9800GT's... SO much new stuff out there to keep track of, 790i or x48, 9800GX2, 9800GTX or 3870X2. I have a headache..

Well, I just got 2 eVGA Geforce 8800GT Superclocked Editions both come with Quake Wars Enemy Territory for free with a $20 rebate each for $180 on ClubIT. GOING SLI FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE!!!! CANT WAIT!!!! (of course I spent some time looking around for the best price and ClubIT seeme to had it)

I too want to see what the 9800GT cards will look like. I love single slot cards they are just powerful and small. Hopefully they will be too single slot cards like the 8800GT and will be worth the money (Ill probably step up my 2 8800GT SCs to to 9800GT's once they come out) By then I might have my 24 inch screen and will probably like to try out Tri-SLI

Now I just need to get a motherboard, case, cpu (pre-ordered from tankguys), dvd drive and Im ready to go

[tekjunkie]

1600EB, all OCZ's ram officially 1600 and higher is micron, some gets pushed to lower bins as we are able to buy so cheap at the moment due to the huge volume we ship.

so the dimms were the 1600EB 2GB for 4GB kit (2X2) and we used 2 kits.

Remember this was on the Asus, P1P2 at auto for over 1800 and I had tweaked the crap out the timings, you also look to have to do it linked and sync, 2000fsb was key.

I guess this is the RAM you are talking about.
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch...iteria=BA24815


If this is the kit(that can do 2000), this is a good deal. They are throwing in a RAM cooler too. Hmm, makes me push that buy button. Must resist. Already spent too much.


ARGH!!! I broke down and ordered it.

[Lu(ky]

Well, I just got 2 eVGA Geforce 8800GT Superclocked Editions both come with Quake Wars Enemy Territory for free with a $20 rebate each for $180 on ClubIT. GOING SLI FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE!!!! CANT WAIT!!!! (of course I spent some time looking around for the best price and ClubIT seeme to had it)

I too want to see what the 9800GT cards will look like. I love single slot cards they are just powerful and small. Hopefully they will be too single slot cards like the 8800GT and will be worth the money (Ill probably step up my 2 8800GT SCs to to 9800GT's once they come out) By then I might have my 24 inch screen and will probably like to try out Tri-SLI

Now I just need to get a motherboard, case, cpu (pre-ordered from tankguys), dvd drive and Im ready to go

Sweet you will like the 8800GT cards. Very powerful cards for the price. I scored in 3DMARK06 a 19,256 on my current setup in Vista x32

[Tony]

I guess this is the RAM you are talking about.
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch...iteria=BA24815


If this is the kit(that can do 2000), this is a good deal. They are throwing in a RAM cooler too. Hmm, makes me push that buy button. Must resist. Already spent too much.


ARGH!!! I broke down and ordered it.

its the kit we hit 2000 with yes, now 2000 is not guaranteed

Also 1800MHZ P1P2 enabled is faster due to you having to looooooose P1P2 much over 1850 if you are lucky. All these guys running 2GB (2x1) are going to be playin' a much different ballgame once they move to DDR3 4GB and higher.

Also just so you know we are workin on a new SPD to help kits clock higher on the reference design due to the lack of tRFC, unless NVIDIA step up with a bios update that adds the option (and yes i asked them thru many different channels) you will be wanting this file to flash.

I also asked W1zzard to update spdtool for DDR3 as its a little different than DDR2, I passed him the Jedec specs a while back but he has been a little busy of late

[seamumc]

I guess this is the RAM you are talking about.
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch...iteria=BA24815


If this is the kit(that can do 2000), this is a good deal. They are throwing in a RAM cooler too. Hmm, makes me push that buy button. Must resist. Already spent too much.


ARGH!!! I broke down and ordered it.

Under $400 is pretty nice, seems prices on DDR3 for 1600 and below are dropping daily.

[slim142]

Sweet you will like the 8800GT cards. Very powerful cards for the price. I scored in 3DMARK06 a 19,256 on my current setup in Vista x32

Wow, nice score, but thats with your killer system! Q6600 at 3.8Ghz with nice OC on those SSC cards and raptors on RAID sure helped you on that score

We will see how good my system OCs and scores

BTW, why is so many people interested on that OCZ kit? Why is it so amazing? Because 1 person got it to 2000mhz doesnt mean every single kit will do that... or am I missing something?