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

[jcniest5]

I just pulled the trigger on that kit also.

[eternal_fantasy]

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

Well just tried those settings, and after some stress tests all seems stable. I done a system file integrity check after Vista installation without any overclocks, and all files are fine. After the stress tests and a few 3DMark06 later, another file check resulted in this:



My inner child just died a little more.....

[LockBreaker]

Do someone have some information about the Foxconn Dreadnought? Release date etc? I saw the video at Hexus, but thats all I know. I've also seen lots of pictures, good ones and bad ones.

[saaya]

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

hmmm too bad... well for it to be stable at 400fsb really isnt a big achievement

so your fsb limited at 400 already?
what cpu are you using again?

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 ...

hmmmm so with 65nm chips the fsb doesnt clock that well? hmmm

[OBR]

with bios 0507 problems with Ocing 65nm Quads gone, this Extreme II is greatest mobo i had in last year, FSB 500MHz without touching anything in BIOS, is easy to set all to AUTO and 500MHz is fully stable with pretty low temps of chipset ... i have no watercooling connected yet, and mobo is cool only with air cooling ... great stuff here from nvidia, my new toy 3x 9800 GTX in TriSLI works great ...

[sonofander]

SO I think I found a FSB hole on my board... 425-440 don't work for me

I can post, but BSOD immediately on hitting the welcome screen

[saaya]

wellll you know that leaving it all on aut means the voltages and settings are NOT at default, but increased to whatever asus programmed the bios to set, right?

setting ddr3 timings to auto means the timings get adjusted depending on strap, fsb and speed. setting ddr3 voltage to auto means it gets adjusted according to speed and timings. setting chipset voltage or cpu vcore to auto does the same... i can get 500fsb with everything on auto on my p5e3 as well, but its good to hear that the striker 2 extreme isnt worse in that regard

but im really not sure what to think of the striker 2 xtreme...
several people are now saying its not all that bad or that its a great board, but at the same time, thats what many people said about the striker 1 as well and i had 3 boards of it and it was a nightmare... and most people i know made the same experience while all review sites and many guys here praised it as the greatest board... so i guess ill get one to know what its all about and to have my own opinion

[sonofander]

I found another little quirk with the SIIE...

It seems that if I set my vcore over 1.5v in bios (1.47 real w/ loadline enabled) that I cannot run small ffts in prime. Upon beggining small FFT testing my computer immediately freezes.

Any ideas on this one??? its the strangest thing! lol
1.5v in bios = no probs
1.506 (whatever the next setting is) = freeze

the whole reason I migrated to this board was for high cpu clock ocing and now I get a hard lock above 1.5 (1.47 real)!!! this is almost worse than the vdroop of the ref board

wellll you know that leaving it all on aut means the voltages and settings are NOT at default, but increased to whatever asus programmed the bios to set, right?

setting ddr3 timings to auto means the timings get adjusted depending on strap, fsb and speed. setting ddr3 voltage to auto means it gets adjusted according to speed and timings. setting chipset voltage or cpu vcore to auto does the same... i can get 500fsb with everything on auto on my p5e3 as well, but its good to hear that the striker 2 extreme isnt worse in that regard

but im really not sure what to think of the striker 2 xtreme...
several people are now saying its not all that bad or that its a great board, but at the same time, thats what many people said about the striker 1 as well and i had 3 boards of it and it was a nightmare... and most people i know made the same experience while all review sites and many guys here praised it as the greatest board... so i guess ill get one to know what its all about and to have my own opinion

Saaya, this board is not perfect, but it is good. I don't have the experience that some are having of turn up the clocks, leave the volts on auto and everything is fine... NOT AT ALL! Sure it was like that on the ref board, but not this one.

After some work, I have found stability and the PERFORMANCE of the SIIE > ref board... across the board, clock for clock, the SIIE outperforms the ref board by a serious margin. That in conjunction with some of the small touches they put on the thing make it a keeper in my book. The clear cmos on the back is huge for me. I watercool and the idea of having to rip out my GPUs to pull the jumper horrifies me! lol

anyway, this board ain't perfect, but it is good

[OBR]

wellll you know that leaving it all on aut means the voltages and settings are NOT at default, but increased to whatever asus programmed the bios to set, right?

Yes, this is clear and every new asus boards do this ... but this board work with auto better then other boards (maximus extreme, p5n-t, striker 2 formula). I had few nF680i board and my first Striker Extreme works from purchase till today without any problem! Many months with sli setup, support of 45nm quads was only one my problem. I bought Maximus Extreme with DDR3 and i am dissapointed, that mobo is crap ... this Striker 2 Ex made me finally happy and will stay in my gaming rig some next monts ...

sonofander - you problem is in bios, last bioses are in some ways very immature ... we need finally stable and official bios ...

[BenchZowner]

Looks like I'm going to take the plunge and grab one Striker II Extreme.
Hope it's good and heavy.
If it's not good, let it be heavy at least.
Guess I'd make good use of its weight when I'd ( hopefully not will ) be bashing Asus's engineers heads with it

[sonofander]

Looks like I'm going to take the plunge and grab one Striker II Extreme.
Hope it's good and heavy.
If it's not good, let it be heavy at least.
Guess I'd make good use of its weight when I'd ( hopefully not will ) be bashing Asus's engineers heads with it

put your broken nose pic back... I liked it

[BenchZowner]

put your broken nose pic back... I liked it

Are you implying that I'm a engineer working for Asus ? hahaha [ just kidding ]

Ok, for real now... I would put the pic back...if you were...a pretty...very pretty and smart girl and you were hitting on me

But for now... I won't

[xt0m]

Meh.. Im stuck between SIIE and XFX790

[jugeen]

Meh.. Im stuck between SIIE and XFX790

i vote for XFX

[OBR]

its about price and preferrences ...

SiiEx is very solid, stable and very expensive board - but has only quality capacitors, have a great quiet cooling system ...

Referrence nvidia has cheap capacitors, noisy colling but is cheaper ... and ocing is better then on asus today ... but will see with next bioses

It is up to you ... but both has the same good chipset ...

[xt0m]

I can't really relate to "how good it might be with a better bios"

I'll agree to the SIIE being quite "sturdy" but far, far from stable when overclocking beyond 1800/450. Bios 0504 and 0507 helped a bit, but eve tried various settings even the "1.6v" ones Elmor posted earlier, and not getting anywhere.

I'm not all pro-ref nv/xfx tho, it has some SPD issues with OCZ DDR3.
At least the overclocking is way easier.

[LockBreaker]

Do someone have some information about the Foxconn Dreadnought? Release date etc? I saw the video at Hexus, but thats all I know. I've also seen lots of pictures, good ones and bad ones.
__________________

[Pedro Rocha]

Tony

i emailed the bios i have to Pedro. He tried to flash his eVGA and could not flash it

I thought they are the same but maybe there are some slight differences
don't think pedro would have issues following simple instructions lol

Sorry for the lack of news Dino, but I have been quite busy in my work

I could flash the Reference Board Bios, but I have to force - using /F switch

In fact this bios, with P1 and P2 enable, seems to have very good bandiwth

Here is a result with the E8500 air cooled and the blue Cellshocks




Everest seems to be a bit buggy, if I boot at more than 950 the readings on Read/Write/Lantecy all go very bad in Everst ..this is quite strange, maybe is due to mem multipliers

[slim142]

Anybody here with a Striker II Extreme with a 45nm Quad?? (Not QX9560)
How good is it overclocking?

[webwilli]

hmmm too bad... well for it to be stable at 400fsb really isnt a big achievement

so your fsb limited at 400 already?
what cpu are you using again?

FSB limit with this CPU is ~490

i have ordered an E8500 8 (!) Weeks ago. And i´m waiting....

[OBR]

Anybody here with a Striker II Extreme with a 45nm Quad?? (Not QX9560)
How good is it overclocking?

tomorrow i will test Q9300 and Q9450, wait for results ...

[slim142]

tomorrow i will test Q9300 and Q9450, wait for results ...

Nice!
I really want to see how the Striker II performs with main-stream quads.

Btw, you are gonna use BIOS 0507 right?

[Gunslinger]

I think i have the SATA problem figured out. I did not get a floppy disk with my retail board. I don't have the jmicron drivers installed.
Anyone send it to me, or post it up here?

[Lu(ky]

tomorrow i will test Q9300 and Q9450, wait for results ...

I am still waiting for a Q6600 GO test as well.. I know all you guys and gals have the Extreme stuff but it would shed some light on guys wanting to move up to this board if they can get a PRIME95 stable @ 3.6GHGz or higher since 1600fsb is no problem with this board. I see you having problems with your QX6700 cpu with this board which I was planning on buying but not now. You saved me some $$$. Thanks you...

[saaya]

FSB limit with this CPU is ~490

i have ordered an E8500 8 (!) Weeks ago. And i´m waiting....

wow! what shop?
cancel it and buy it somewhere else!

tomorrow i will test Q9300 and Q9450, wait for results ...

cool! thanks