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

[fadetoblack]

did you check vdroop? i dont know if you've done the mod or not

[Furiøùs]

Furious - from your sig:

eVGA 780i @ 445FSB

Is that about as far as a 780i can go ? What would be the limit with a q6600 ?

No its not, i used to do 2000QDR (500FSB) but the new BIOS tightened internal timings so i had to lower it. im currently testing 4.1 on my E8400 and having problems atm trying to get it stable. any ideas?

[Zefram0911]

did you check vdroop? i dont know if you've done the mod or not

yep, did that.... It's strange. I can Prime95, play games, do regular things 24/7. But Folding locks it up anywhere between ten minutes and 10 hours. It's just not stable for folding. Any tips?

[drnick79]

When I first bought my evga 780i (soon after its retail release), I was running it orthos 12 hr stable at 1800 fsb bus with memory linked and synced. I was using 4x1gb sticks of crucial ballistix (the good ones with the memory chips on both sides of the PCB) at 2.1v.
I shelved it for a while to tinker with an intel chipset board, and recently hooked it back up to my watercooling setup and flashed to the p03 bios. I tried to run 2x2gb gskill 1066 sticks in it (which work fine in another mobo), and I can't seem to get anything stable over 1600 fsb. I wonder if the 780i isn't as fond of the 2gb ram sticks, or if the p03 bios has something to do with it?

[DavidNJ]

Has anyone had a problem where there board won't go over 369FSB?

PO4 BIOS/Vista x64

Q6700

Works at 10x360...have benched at 10x365...but won't run...freezes...at 400x9 or 450x8 or 370x9, 8, 10...

[Hughyhunter]

No its not, i used to do 2000QDR (500FSB) but the new BIOS tightened internal timings so i had to lower it. im currently testing 4.1 on my E8400 and having problems atm trying to get it stable. any ideas?

I find that it's consistently the memory that keeps my overclock from stable 4ghz+. Try unlinking memory and keeping stock timings on memory. Then raise to 1800mhz and try from there. I got it perfectly stable with 1.375v in bios.

[Hughyhunter]

When I first bought my evga 780i (soon after its retail release), I was running it orthos 12 hr stable at 1800 fsb bus with memory linked and synced. I was using 4x1gb sticks of crucial ballistix (the good ones with the memory chips on both sides of the PCB) at 2.1v.
I shelved it for a while to tinker with an intel chipset board, and recently hooked it back up to my watercooling setup and flashed to the p03 bios. I tried to run 2x2gb gskill 1066 sticks in it (which work fine in another mobo), and I can't seem to get anything stable over 1600 fsb. I wonder if the 780i isn't as fond of the 2gb ram sticks, or if the p03 bios has something to do with it?

I have 2x2gb sticks. First I would recommend P04 bios. Doesnt do anything for memory but for cpu it does. I have had no luck running linked with my memory. However unlinked @ 800mhz with all stock timings (4-4-4-15-2T) @ 2.2 volts I can run at 1800mhz no problem. It gives it a nice unlinked ratio of 5:4... I think that it's as stable as it will get. Anything over 1800mhz it fails orthos.

[DavidNJ]

I've tried unlinked and slowing the memory way below spec...no help

[aussie-revhead]

Can anyone tell me what the fsb ceiling is on these motherboards with a q6600 ? It seems nearly all of you are running 45nm dual cores now . I just want to know if I can get to 470-480 NHz or will this motherboard limit my cpu clocks ? I was told its more like 430-450 . I have an EVGA 780i and I really want a pair of GTX's but I have a Maximus Formula coming and may have to get a gx2 for it instead.

Any help would be great.

[DavidNJ]

I am have not been able to get my Q6700 above 369. Am running 360x10.

[GAR]

I am have not been able to get my Q6700 above 369. Am running 360x10.

Lower the Multi to 9X

[Hughyhunter]

Has anyone had a problem where there board won't go over 369FSB?

PO4 BIOS/Vista x64

Q6700

Works at 10x360...have benched at 10x365...but won't run...freezes...at 400x9 or 450x8 or 370x9, 8, 10...

Lowering the multi may help. Also give more CPU FSB voltage. Bump up everything. I have mine set to: 1.4, can go to 1.5
Set MCP 1.65v
SPP: 1.5 or 1.45

Read GAR's original post!

[Codeman05]

I've run into an FSB wall at ~400fsb apparently and I'm hoping someone might have some insight.

I've been Prime stable for 12hrs @ 9x400 synced w/ 1.4Vcore. Based upon this, I felt I had a pretty good setup going.

SO, next I moved up to 9x412 (3.7GHz), everything else the same.
Prime was stable for ~20 minutes...then the system froze (prime did not error). I incrementally upped Vcore significantly and everytime the O/S would lock after anywhere from 5-15 minutes, lowering the FSB to ~402 still did the same thing...again, prime would never error.

Upping MCP to 1.65 and VTT/FSB to 1.5 did not seem to have an effect, nor dropping the multi.

Since the ram is rather underclocked and memtests fine, I don't suspect it to be the cause, and I'm skeptical that the CPU is maxing out as well.

Anyone have any suggestions for what I might try next? Can I do up another tenth or two on the MCP for a short while run to see if that gives me stability?

As a heads up, I've already done the basics (all spread spectrum off, exec bit, thermal throttling, etc... etc....) and running P03

PS
Another observation.
Each time the System froze, the board would not POST with a reset. Cutting power and powering back up, POSTing instantly.
Thought that was a bit odd as well.

[Hughyhunter]

@ Codeman05,
You are not at a motherboard FSB max. This board will hit 535mzh no problem. I am very stable at 450mhz and can boot and pass 3dmark06 at 500mhz.
I'm pretty sure you are cpu bound ATM. In order to surpass the 3.6ghz you are at you are going to need quite a bit more than 1.4vcore. In fact you may need up to a hole .1v more or maybe even more. My wall was 450mhz at first with my E8400 @ 1.375vcore. To get it to budge past and on up to 500mhz I needed to give it up to 1.6vcore. You should try the same but IMO 3.6ghz for Q6600 G0 is good enough.

[Codeman05]

Your very likely correct. I did try up to 1.5v but temps started getting a bit out of hand, even with the watercooling. I think I'll just drop the multi and bring my DDR speeds up a bit.

Thanks for the input.

[Hughyhunter]

@ Codeman05. I've never heard of B0 stepping. I am only aware of G0 or B3. Your sig say's B0.

[Codeman05]

whoops, bit of a typo. It is the G0, vid of 1.2

[aussie-revhead]

@ Codeman05,
You are not at a motherboard FSB max. This board will hit 535mzh no problem. I am very stable at 450mhz and can boot and pass 3dmark06 at 500mhz.

HH do your quoted figures apply to quad core also ? I was under the impression that dual cores clock much higher on this chipset , and not to expect any more than 430-450 on a quad .

[jas420221]

HH do your quoted figures apply to quad core also ? I was under the impression that dual cores clock much higher on this chipset , and not to expect any more than 430-450 on a quad .

Im at 450 right now no problems with a Q9450. My E8400 did hit 500. Dual core and the amount of ram (banks) seems to have a direct reflection on teh FSB and how high it can go with X amount of volts. Your thinking is correct though, in general, duals will o/c higher on this board. Dont expect to get 535 FSB with a quad.

[Hughyhunter]

HH do your quoted figures apply to quad core also ? I was under the impression that dual cores clock much higher on this chipset , and not to expect any more than 430-450 on a quad .

To be honest I really dont know I do however think that if you lower your multi far enough that you can hit 500mhz with a Q6600. I dont see why anyone would ever want to do that though. This board requires too much NB/SB voltage to get up to 500mhz IMO. I dont like the heat the the NB produces. I wonder if the duals have better bandwidth due to less watts requirements. Probably has something to do with that.

[paulxmn]

MCP Temps are before TIM replacement

[Hughyhunter]

Good job Paulxmn

Here is mine:

[paulxmn]

Good job Paulxmn

Thanks, never hit 4000 with the Q6600 on the 680i, Gigabyte P35/X38. Nice results with the E8400.

[jas420221]

Anyone with a Q9x50 on this board yet????? What are your GTLvref settings?

[saphirex7]

Anybody experiencing the graphic card artifact problem that seems to be more chipset related thats talked about in this thread?

http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.asp?m=253891

SaphireX