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

[slim142]

slim try the following settings man:

NB GTL = +40mV
CPU GTL = -21mV
CPU GTL = -24mV
CPU GTL = -24mV
CPU GTL = -21mV
CPU VTT = 1.4V
NB Voltage = 1.66V
SB Voltage = 1.65V
Place a fan over the northbridge cooler to keep it cool, and try various FSBs.
The following settings should be ok for FSBs up to 475MHz ( QDR1900 )

Are you trying to blow my board? or do you think Im on LN2? O_O!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1.66v for NB would just fry it right there. 1.65 for the SB would kill the SB as well. As I mentioned before, I still do not have the small fan, Im still testing with no cooling on top of the NB.

Thanks for the settings but, there is no way Im using more than 1.50v on my NB.

BTW, are you still on LN2?

[BenchZowner]

Are you trying to blow my board? or do you think Im on LN2? O_O!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1.66v for NB would just fry it right there. 1.65 for the SB would kill the SB as well. As I mentioned before, I still do not have the small fan, Im still testing with no cooling on top of the NB.

Thanks for the settings but, there is no way Im using more than 1.50v on my NB.

BTW, are you still on LN2?

Those are settings that I've been using on air for ages.
Notice I'm saying to put a fan over the northbridge.

[andymg350]

Try again with a fan over the northbridge heatsink.

Are you using a Dual-Core or a Quad-Core CPU ? 45nm or 65nm ?

p.s. I wouldn't run my 790i NB at 1.6V without a fan even for a single second, if that means something to you ( you know I'm crazy... I'm running 1.8Vcore 1.9Vpll 1.65Vtt on 45nm chips on air cooling )

dont mean to be rude but read his previous post.

edit: you beat me to it benchz :p

before i flew to america i had my striker II running 3.6ghz ram 1800 linked & synced and hadn't noticed any kind of corruption with the 0703 bios compared to the previous versions i never really had much chance to test stability either but i just thought i would throw it out there. its possible that asus are on the right track at least but we'll see with future bios releases.

[toyzruz]

Hi slim,
I know you're still testing your configuration ... but are the settings (posted in your signature) stable? Can I give them a try?

[slim142]

EDIT: Celebrated too early and when watching movies, had freezes ! I thought it was because of failed Overclocks from before but I got BSoD while installing XP, so I thought, maybe the SB needs a boost? Went to BIOS and put 1.55v for SB and now everything works like it should be, no more BSoDs with movies or while installing XP. Im a happy SIIE owner now! Should I say thanks ASUS?

TODAY IS Victory-DAY (V-day)

Im finally (Yes! Finally!) estable with my Striker II Extreme at 1800mhz FSB with 1600mhz RAM WITH (yes! WITH!) P1 and P2 enabled!... 25 Hours!!!!



--------------------------------



Now that I know my system is ROCK estable with Prime 95 running for more than a day, is time to stress the RAM
BTW, reading should be 11256Mbs but I think after 25 hours of priming, the RAM is really loaded :P

Ill post my settings as soon as I finish eating lunch

Those are settings that I've been using on air for ages.
Notice I'm saying to put a fan over the northbridge.

Yeah but you have your stuff out on a desk dont you? Plus an 80mm fan on top of the NB. Thanks anyways for the settings but I really dont need to try this since Im 100% estable now

Hi slim,
I know you're still testing your configuration ... but are the settings (posted in your signature) stable? Can I give them a try?

Yes, what I have on my signature is 100% estable for me, except that I couldnt tolerate 8800mbs of reading from memory (this, of course, was the result of having P1 and P2 on Auto), but now, I can guarantee to you that 0703 is so far the BEST BIOS for me and Im 100% estable with P1 and P2 enabled.
Try my signature settings if you want to give them a try... Im on air so it should be safe to anyone.

[raptor1]

Hi! All

Success On Two Fronts

1. Getting my account here activated here at xtremesystems at last
almost took a month and thanks to BenchZowner for Helping With This

2. After Recieving my SIIE on 17/4/08 and trying all the different bioses and ending up keeping 0703 i am fairly stable without corruption. i will be posting a detailed report on my settings, which i am in the middle of preparing at the moment, which I hope will help some of you with your set ups

I almost had given up on this board and had gone ahead and got an Asus Maximus Extreme X38 board but had more bad luck with that board then i had with SIIE

I been following this forum since I got my board and would like to thank every one here for all their advice and suggestions and the article that anandtech did on the SIIE, and Steveocz AT OCZ Technology, all of which got me up and running

best regards
flanr

[Dezio]

Hello, that's my first post
I've a problem on my oc test with:

Enermax 720W
Q6600
XFX790i
OCZ PC-3 14440 8-8-8-24 1800MHz (ram working at 1600MHz actually)
XFX9800GX2 black edition

these are my original config informations:



and these my new setting to overclock it:






When I join on a windows I've 5 sec. and after that the system freezing up.
I've already tried to set vcore hight or lower FSB but it not work.
Anyone can help me to fix this issue?

[tekjunkie]

Im finally (Yes! Finally!) estable with my Striker II Extreme at 1800mhz FSB with 1600mhz RAM WITH (yes! WITH!) P1 and P2 enabled!... 25 Hours!!!!

Good job Slim and here I am still waiting for my S2E to come back to me

[DR3]

Well with a little assistance from my lightspeed I got my EVGA 790i Ultra to 4.987 Ghz.



Now I need to work on cooling the north (SPP) and south (MCP) bridge.
The SEII does have a better off the shelf cooling system for the bridges.
The hard part is going to be getting a water block or something to cool the south bridge (MCP) because of the very small clearance with a decent video card. Only have about a half to three fourths of an inch.

Also the SEII has better bios adjustments compared to the EVGA.

[BenchZowner]

The Swiftech MCX159-CU sounds ideal for your case

[toyzruz]

Wow. Congratulations slim and thx for your answer...
Where are the exact differences between your signature and your new "FINALLY" and new stable config?
Im still on 0511 ... switch to 703 is necessary, isnt it?

[slim142]

Good job Slim and here I am still waiting for my S2E to come back to me

Sorry to hear that tek, but hopefully this 2nd board will be worth the wait and time you are spending on!

Wow. Congratulations slim and thx for your answer...
Where are the exact differences between your signature and your new "FINALLY" and new stable config?
Im still on 0511 ... switch to 703 is necessary, isnt it?

Exact differences are
BIOS 0701->0703
P1 and P2 from Auto->Enabled
SB voltage 1.50->1.55 EDIT: I just upped this to 1.60v reason below

And thats it

I recommend changing to 0703, but you can always try with the BIOS you have right now, however, I think my OC is now 100% estable because according to the user named Bingo, he said 0703 has a small portion of the corruption fixed, so probably has something to do with the GTLRefs... (remember how on 0701 core#0 and #3 used to fail but pc would still keep running?)

Hope that helps

[toyzruz]

thx to florida! I'll try tomorrow

[toyzruz]

... ah, and NO data corruption? don't wanna blow up vista

[slim142]

thx to florida! I'll try tomorrow

... ah, and NO data corruption? don't wanna blow up vista

Well, like I said I cant verify that, I get no results after I run sfc/scannow for some reason, it just finishes checking the files and thats it, it doesnt show me any result lol. However, I tried copying this folder of 6.67Gbs from my WD Caviar GP to my Raptor and everything went smooth, no BSoD no freeze no nothing. So I guess Im good?

Also, for some strange reason I got a freeze while playing a video, it seems that the SB might get a little stressed with all 6 ports in use plus SLI so I upped the SB voltage to 1.60v and so far, no trouble everything seems to be as it should be running perfectly and super fast too

[DR3]

The Swiftech MCX159-CU sounds ideal for your case

The Swiftech MCX159-CU looks like a great cooler, but there is no way it is going on this board with a 9800GX2 in slot 1.


Half of the south bridge (MCP) is covered by the 9800GX2 with only about a half to three quarters of an inch clearance.



Also, I will probably be going with liquid cooling.

Thanks for the idea anyway.

[BenchZowner]

Oops, sorry DR3, I was thinking about the NB, not the SB.

But...here's another idea... ThermalRight HR-05 SLI

[Roger_D25]

DR3 - Are you thinking about watercooling the SB? Granted it gets a bit toasty but there might not be much of a benefit to watercooling it, especially given the complexity and flow restrictions of adding a block down there. Given that you don't have much clearance down around the SB you might want to consider a great block (I've tried it myself and was very impressed with it. Enzotech makes a few waterblocks and also makes some great heatsink & fan combos. I would highly recommend THIS heatsink & fan combo for your SB, its small, low profile, is quite, and cools very well even compared to larger and noisier units. Although the company is not well known (yet) their hardware is actually very decent and of a high quality as far as design and materials go I think. Below is a thumbnail picture of it on my old Blitz Extreme along with a whole bunch of other Enzotech blocks (both waterblocks and heatsinks). Let me know what you think.



As you can see from the picture, I removed the little screw tabs on the SB block because I used some thermal adhesive to mount it (instead of using the hardware as the holes didnt' line up).

[DR3]

Oops, sorry DR3, I was thinking about the NB, not the SB.

But...here's another idea... ThermalRight HR-05 SLI

This SB cooler is great if you are staying with air cooling.


I think I will go with liquid.
The Koolance GPU-180-H06 should work.


Thanks for the reference.

[DR3]

DR3 - Are you thinking about watercooling the SB?
...
As you can see from the picture, I removed the little screw tabs on the SB block because I used some thermal adhesive to mount it (instead of using the hardware as the holes didnt' line up).

If the Koolance block does not work then this looks like another good option.



Will let you know how the Koolance block works out.

[Roger_D25]

Although I don't particulary like that Koolance block its certainly a very low profile block (especially with those side inputs/outputs). Do you think you'd be able to make it work with those inlet/outlet ports being on the sides instead of on the top?

[DR3]

Although I don't particulary like that Koolance block its certainly a very low profile block (especially with those side inputs/outputs). Do you think you'd be able to make it work with those inlet/outlet ports being on the sides instead of on the top?

Should be able to move it around enough to get the smaller 6mm tubes under everything.

If not then either of these two air cooling options should work.

Just sent my board back to NewEgg for a replacement, and ordered the blocks so it will be a little while till I find out.

[OBR]

Slim - post your stable voltages ...

[slim142]

Slim - post your stable voltages ...

Vcore 1.32500
LLC enabled
PLL AUTO
VTT 1.30
vdimm 1.86
NB volt 1.44
SB volt 1.60

GTLrefs in auto
NB ref in auto

[OBR]

for me AUTo GTLs does not to work at any conditions ... but i am waiting for new SiiEx my first is RMAed ...