Official ASUS X38 Boards: P5E, P5E3 - Info/BIOS Thread

[DJBUDDY]

hey MMaster23 how long did your RMa take, i just sent in my board and ups aid they have recived it today, how long should it take before i get to back?

[DJBUDDY]

Hey guys, ive been reading alot on forums lately, it has be said that running ram 1:1 gives you best performance, currently this is my set up
q6600
p5e(rma in process)
4x1 Cruciall Ballsitix 6400 800mhz 4-4-4-12
8800gt
520 crosair psu

now im running everything stock settings, i have never overclocked, but is it possible to get my memory running 1:1 witout overclocking the cpu becuase i have a stock cooler, or is it possible to run the memory at faster speeds like 8500 1066mzh and get better performance?

[panfist]

DJBUDDY,

Generally speaking your memory speeds effect your system performance very little on a day to day basis. If stability is what you are after, just leave everything at default. If you don't want overclock your processor, you will have to underclock your to your memory. You processor is running at 266MHz x 4 = 1066MHz FSB, so to get your memory in a 1:1 ratio then underclock it so that it equals 266MHz x 2 = 533MHz. At 533MHz you should be able tighten up your timings, but in all honesty it's not worth the effort. By underclocking your memory you will be putting a little less stress on your northbridge, maybe, but you're also losing a significant amount of bandwidth. Any advantage you might get from running in 1:1 you lose due to the fact that you're underclocking your RAM by about 30%.

If you were going to take the time to tweak your board for optimal 1:1 performance, I would lower the multiplier on your processor, and raise the FSB to match your RAM. That way, your processor is still running at it's rated speed, albeit with an overclocked FSB. Still...I doubt this is worth the time for you as the only time you will notice a difference is in synthetic benchmarks.

Making a choice to run in 1:1 is best made at two times in the life of a system:
a.) When you buy it you can plan on buying RAM of the appropriate speed and the tightest latencies you can afford, or
b.) When you're overclocking, if you can somehow find a sweet spot when you're close to maxing your processor's speed and it's convenient to adjust your RAM to put in 1:1.

Originally from a Tom's Hardware Ultimate RAM Speed Tests

The results must look disappointing for the memory vendors, as the largest performance differences we found amount to 7-8% with DivX and WinRAR, while almost all other benchmarks and applications perform alike: a 1-3% performance delta cannot be noticed at all. Some games showed several per cent performance difference between low-latency high-speed memory and conventional high-latency average speed DIMMs. The synthetic benchmarks on the memory revealed even more differences, but these clearly aren’t very relevant in everyday life.

[DJBUDDY]

ok, thank you, how bout tunning a everday system, i see options in bios somtin called transiscion booster and ai twister do these settings effect defualt options for everday use and gaming?

[panfist]

ok, thank you, how bout tunning a everday system, i see options in bios somtin called transiscion booster and ai twister do these settings effect defualt options for everday use and gaming?

Honestly I have no idea what these settings do, the documentation on them is practically non-existent. When a motherboard manufacturer includes these features they tend to be more like marketing bullcrap than anything actually useful. If they did actually do anything, I would bet that ASUS would be more eager to share exactly what it does and how much it helps. Honestly, the performance difference you will get from turning on transaction booster or ai twister will most likely be less than if you just disable them and overclock your processor by as low as 5%. They probably won't help you in day to day tasks or multitasking, they are just in there to give the motherboard a few extra points in synthetic benchmarks.

When it comes to real world performance, core clock speed is king. Increasing your core clock speed nets you the biggest boost by far, and tweaking pretty much any other settings is only worth your time if its a hobby to get as many points in benchmarks as possible.

edit: for gaming, the benefit you get from minor tweaks like transaction booster or twister will really depend on the game, but you're still just better off increasing your core clock speed. that's a proven method to increase your performance.

[De1337]

Don't know what transaction booster does, but the clock twister will lower the "Performance Level" memory option, granting better memory bandwith, albeit, at the potential loss of stability.

and by the way, with 0605, setting my ai clock twister to light, leads me directly to CrashFree bios recovery... i have no clue why.. after i save, that's the first thing i see, and it will just loop until i feed it a bios file. Happened twice (had to try again :P)

[necron66]

Don't know what transaction booster does, but the clock twister will lower the "Performance Level" memory option, granting better memory bandwith, albeit, at the potential loss of stability.

and by the way, with 0605, setting my ai clock twister to light, leads me directly to CrashFree bios recovery... i have no clue why.. after i save, that's the first thing i see, and it will just loop until i feed it a bios file. Happened twice (had to try again :P)

Transaction booster sets PL, if you have say PL6 on enable 0, going to enable 1 will give you PL5, enable 2 PL4 and disable 0 would be PL7 ect.

[necron66]

Hey guys, ive been reading alot on forums lately, it has be said that running ram 1:1 gives you best performance, currently this is my set up
q6600
p5e(rma in process)
4x1 Cruciall Ballsitix 6400 800mhz 4-4-4-12
8800gt
520 crosair psu

now im running everything stock settings, i have never overclocked, but is it possible to get my memory running 1:1 witout overclocking the cpu becuase i have a stock cooler, or is it possible to run the memory at faster speeds like 8500 1066mzh and get better performance?

If I run 1:1 at 500 fsb I get PL8, 500FSB with 5:8 I can use PL7.