Official Gigabyte X48T-DQ6 Info Thread

[loonym]

Nice setup MagnumMan. It sure seems like you're right when you say the heatsink might not be making full contact. Keep an eye on those temps. I've started using 100 for cpu skew and I think it's helping stabilize my highest overclock attempts. I also use the GTL settings that Supershanks was kind enough to give me and that made a difference too. If you press Ctrl F1 at the main bios screen you'll see those GTL settings available when you go in MIT section.

[Ace-a-Rue]

Unfortunately Core #1 (numbered 0 through 3) dies above 3.8GHz at any voltage and quickly too. Since temps are already 80C (175F) !! I prefer to keep that where it is. Took me 5 days to stabilize this rig, I'm done doing that. This is a development rig for my office which I will be using to build an app that takes over an hour to compile/link on an Opteron 248 (2.2GHz) system. I expect that time to be around 20 minutes with this new hardware. Keys to stabilizing were:

1. running memtest to find the memory stable settings (DDR3-1640 8-7-7-20-2T), anything over that was failing frequency-wise.

2. running prime95 small FFT to isolate the CPU's potential, which seems to be 3.8GHz (this is pretty lame because other people have gotten to 4.0 GHz, so I think I got a bad CPU, but it's still well within engineering tolerance, I suspect).

3. upping voltage on the FSB and MCH, FSB at +.30V locked up the system; MCH at +.40 locked up the system.

4. setting the CPU drive to 900mV

5. Manually setting all the secondary memory timings to be one higher than the auto selection was, i.e. 5 became 6.

The Scythe Mugen heatsink is so large it rests on coils too, which may be preventing it from getting the tightest fit possible on the CPU... 80C seems pretty excessive even at 1.38750V to me. Then again I am used to water cooling (see sig) and this doesn't have it.

i got it!...you are P95 limited...that bench is a stopper for a lot of people trying to maximize the overclock.

the high temps, i presume, are from the P95 runs..right?...if so, they might be about 7-8C higher than i would expect from a 3.8 ghz overclock which was P95 capable...what kind of thermal paste did you use and what is the fan speed set to?

[MagnumMan]

Thermal paste: Arctic Silver V
Fan: BIOS driven, I think it runs 1200rpm (120mm fan) + the rear exhaust fan which is about 2 inches from the heatsink is a new Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F 64cfm fan.

I do not like the SCINF-1000 Mugen's locking clips, I don't have a good feeling they are "secure". I would have preferred a backplate with screws. It came with a Air Flow: 46.5CFM fan.

My guess is a very thin copper plate would be best to get the cooler from sitting on the choke coil blocks too. It looks like a good fit, but my guess is it is marginal - working, but not as good as it could be. The bottom of the SCINF-1000 is huge for compatibility with lots of CPUs.

[|Oc|REvO_HsArC]

Hi guys

any reports about issues with this mobo + OCZ PC3-14400 PLATINUM ? Or issues using the 4 slots?


The default SPD Vdimm settles at 1.728v, which sucks.
Every tiny increase in Vdimm = lots and lots of memtest errors and boot lockups. So much for the 1.95v on the sticker. I can't even go past 1.8v.

considering this is all at 1333mhz (pretty good for 1800mhz mem and x48t, right? right? ), I'm off to a greaaat start with this combo.
edit: F5D

[Ace-a-Rue]

have you tried F5A bios?

[Ace-a-Rue]

Thermal paste: Arctic Silver V
Fan: BIOS driven, I think it runs 1200rpm (120mm fan) + the rear exhaust fan which is about 2 inches from the heatsink is a new Scythe S-FLEX SFF21F 64cfm fan.

I do not like the SCINF-1000 Mugen's locking clips, I don't have a good feeling they are "secure". I would have preferred a backplate with screws. It came with a Air Flow: 46.5CFM fan.

My guess is a very thin copper plate would be best to get the cooler from sitting on the choke coil blocks too. It looks like a good fit, but my guess is it is marginal - working, but not as good as it could be. The bottom of the SCINF-1000 is huge for compatibility with lots of CPUs.

i would recommend the TRUE 120 heatsink and then a panaflo 38MM fan.

i used to use AS5 but i transitioned to MX2 paste...it might be a tiny bit better and WAY easier to apply.

[MagnumMan]

Hi guys

any reports about issues with this mobo + OCZ PC3-14400 PLATINUM ? Or issues using the 4 slots?


The default SPD Vdimm settles at 1.728v, which sucks.
Every tiny increase in Vdimm = lots and lots of memtest errors and boot lockups. So much for the 1.95v on the sticker. I can't even go past 1.8v.

considering this is all at 1333mhz (pretty good for 1800mhz mem and x48t, right? right? ), I'm off to a greaaat start with this combo.
edit: F5D

See my QX97770 post above. You cannot rely on Auto settings for this to work especially with 4x memory sticks. You didn't mention if they are 1gb or 2gb, single or dual rank memory.

You will need to set the Vdimm to +.30V => 1.88V or +.35V => 1.93V. I was able to use +.30V. You will need to set the northbridge (MCH) voltage much higher than stock, I am using +.30V on the northbridge, note though I slapped an active cooler fan on it, 40x40x20 about 9CFM quiet, with some hollow .5" spacers and some 2" drywall screws going right into the NB heatsink fins (between them). You will probably need to start with 9-9-9-30-2T and all the secondary memory timings set to be +1 over the Auto value, except for the one that defaults to 60, try 75 or 80 on that. Good luck, it took me about 5 days to stabilize my QX9770 rig, and seriously countless reboots.

First I would run memtest on the memory and get it stable. Then push it to the highest speed / lowest latencies you can stable. This will take a couple days... second use Prime95 Small FFT to isolate the CPU and make sure it'll run at the FSB, Vfsb, Vcore, Multiplier. Finally, once those pass, run Prime95 "Blend" and give each instance of the app a different CPU to run on (it is in one of the options) and give each instance 1/4 of the available free memory in the "Custom" section.

If you can get all of these to run 6+ hours straight I would say you have it stable... the last one should run 24+ hours without a hitch as it tests everything.

Ryder at OCZ support (on the forums) is responsive and has one of these boards for testing. He suggested leaving all the secondary timings at Auto... I found they had to be tweaked in order to stabilize the platform.

[|Oc|REvO_HsArC]

I'm about to. I was delaying it because F4 and F5D behave exactly the same, making me think its something else


Will try that (well I did, kinda, FSB overvoltage at max, but mch only a bit above)

[Ace-a-Rue]

Hi guys

any reports about issues with this mobo + OCZ PC3-14400 PLATINUM ? Or issues using the 4 slots?


The default SPD Vdimm settles at 1.728v, which sucks.
Every tiny increase in Vdimm = lots and lots of memtest errors and boot lockups. So much for the 1.95v on the sticker. I can't even go past 1.8v.

considering this is all at 1333mhz (pretty good for 1800mhz mem and x48t, right? right? ), I'm off to a greaaat start with this combo.
edit: F5D

what about your sub-voltage support like MCH?

[|Oc|REvO_HsArC]

yes I'm about to try bigger values. But Its really weird that everything is stable at 1333mhz 1.78vdimm, but at 1333mhz >1.78vdimm is very unstable. Like the classic syndrome of mems not liking voltage.

[loonym]

It's true to some extent that the mem will puke on the voltage until you start getting more agressive with the fsb as well as timings and other board voltages like Ace said. I wouldn't have thought this until I read the 'safe micron DDR3 voltage' thread in the bw section. I learned tons from it.

[Ace-a-Rue]

that link is interesting...many have their opinions...i kept my ddr3 mem at 2.05 and below....i haven't found the ddr3 read point on this board..have you?

[dinos22]

good news!...which bios are you using?

i wasn't the bios
it was the power supply 100%

also i am now on F5a
good bios
was benching some sick speeds with this board....really like the board a lot

have a look at these RAM timing
this mobo is a crazy MOFO i tell ya




if you guys are trying to get my FSB out of the board try using 150ps CPU Clock Skew...........it should help at least on dual cores...maybe quads too

[Supershanks]

Yep I lost a set of cellshock on the Asus P5E3 Deluxe went exactly as described, had Corsair dominator memory cooler on and never went over rated volts, was still learning Nice going Dino

[MagnumMan]

Gigabyte technical support, on the other hand, takes about twice as long as MSI to reply and when they do it wasn't very helpful... the Gigabyte technical support staff is not integrated with their Engineering staff, which is rather annoying. MSI technical support could supply the latest BIOS and even get a custom feature into a BIOS like PCIe frequency select on the K9A2 Platinum. So I'll score Gigabyte low on the technical support, but very high for a very stable motherboard. I went through 4 MSI K9A2 Platinum (AMD) boards before I got a stable one, I only bought one GA-X48T-DQ6!

Answer - 616325
Answer : We do not have it on our database, we will need to check with our bios team for availability

Question - 616325
From : ME
Sent : 6/10/2008 09:21
Question : Are you telling me you are unaware of the Beta BIOSes F5a, F5c, F5d out there? That doesn't make sense...

Answer - 615271 (on 6/10/2008 around 1am)
Answer : Where did you get this bios from?
According to our website only F4 bios is available

Question - 615271
From : ME
Sent : 6/7/2008 03:09
Question : I am looking for a newer BIOS than F5c. I have F5c stable on 4x2gb DDR3-1600 memory and I want to move the FSB to 450, but I cannot because in BIOS F5c the FSB selector is always disabled. Do you have a F5d or F5e you can send me?


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Model Name : GA-X48T-DQ6
--------------------------
M/B Rev : 1.0
BIOS Ver : F5c
Serial No. :
Purchase Dealer : newegg
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VGA Brand : ATi Model : 3870
CPU Brand : Intel Model : QX9770 Speed : 3.2
Operation System : Win2k8 x64 Enterprise SP :
Memory Brand : OCZ Type : DDR3
Memory Size : 4x2gb Speed : DDR3-1600
Power Supply : 750 W

[Ace-a-Rue]

Gigabyte technical support, on the other hand, takes about twice as long as MSI to reply and when they do it wasn't very helpful... the Gigabyte technical support staff is not integrated with their Engineering staff, which is rather annoying. MSI technical support could supply the latest BIOS and even get a custom feature into a BIOS like PCIe frequency select on the K9A2 Platinum. So I'll score Gigabyte low on the technical support, but very high for a very stable motherboard. I went through 4 MSI K9A2 Platinum (AMD) boards before I got a stable one, I only bought one GA-X48T-DQ6!

Answer - 616325
Answer : We do not have it on our database, we will need to check with our bios team for availability

Question - 616325
From : ME
Sent : 6/10/2008 09:21
Question : Are you telling me you are unaware of the Beta BIOSes F5a, F5c, F5d out there? That doesn't make sense...

Answer - 615271 (on 6/10/2008 around 1am)
Answer : Where did you get this bios from?
According to our website only F4 bios is available

Question - 615271
From : ME
Sent : 6/7/2008 03:09
Question : I am looking for a newer BIOS than F5c. I have F5c stable on 4x2gb DDR3-1600 memory and I want to move the FSB to 450, but I cannot because in BIOS F5c the FSB selector is always disabled. Do you have a F5d or F5e you can send me?


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Model Name : GA-X48T-DQ6
--------------------------
M/B Rev : 1.0
BIOS Ver : F5c
Serial No. :
Purchase Dealer : newegg
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VGA Brand : ATi Model : 3870
CPU Brand : Intel Model : QX9770 Speed : 3.2
Operation System : Win2k8 x64 Enterprise SP :
Memory Brand : OCZ Type : DDR3
Memory Size : 4x2gb Speed : DDR3-1600
Power Supply : 750 W

at least you are getting some feedback although it sounds like the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing...hahahahahaha

agree with a good stable board!

[Ace-a-Rue]

i wasn't the bios
it was the power supply 100%

also i am now on F5a
good bios
was benching some sick speeds with this board....really like the board a lot

have a look at these RAM timing
this mobo is a crazy MOFO i tell ya




if you guys are trying to get my FSB out of the board try using 150ps CPU Clock Skew...........it should help at least on dual cores...maybe quads too

that is a damn good 32M SuperPi!!!

[loonym]

|Oc|REvO_HsArC, which strap I set makes a huge difference too in what I can do with my mem. My best luck on the F5D bios has been with 400b.

[loonym]

that link is interesting...many have their opinions...i kept my ddr3 mem at 2.05 and below....i haven't found the ddr3 read point on this board..have you?

This is one...

[|Oc|REvO_HsArC]

|Oc|REvO_HsArC, which strap I set makes a huge difference too in what I can do with my mem. My best luck on the F5D bios has been with 400b.

I'm not to that point yet.
First I need voltage, and anything above 1.78vdimm = thousands of errors in memtest, at stock speeds (1333mhz). These mems are rated at 1800mhz 1.95v, so this is a problem.

edit: after 38h of memtest:
1333mhz 1.72v rock solid.
1333mhz 1.8v Thousands of errors

see my point?

[|Oc|REvO_HsArC]

I think this board was a mistake. I don't have a voltmeter, but i'm pretty sure when I "increase" the vdimm, it actually decreases.

just now I increased 0.10v over the default 1.728, and it reads 1.680v. I increase another 0.05v and it reads 1.775v... lol

bios tested: f4 f5A f5D

[Supershanks]

think this board was a mistake. I don't have a voltmeter, but i'm pretty sure when I "increase" the vdimm, it actually decreases.

It overvolts slightly I've run my cellshock at +0.35 24/7 giving 1.85v this generally appears on everest & bios as 1.90v

Interestingly enough i'm waiting for a replavement set after a stick died on me last week., exactly as described, no fade out , dead. it was the 2GB CellShock DDR3 PC3-14400 1800MHz (8-7-6-21) CS3222580
Dealer confirmed yesterday they were out of stock so is repacing them with 2GB CellShock DDR3 PC3-15000 1866MHz (8-8-8-16) It is a bit disturbing as this wil be my 3rd set. My 1st went back after memtest errors on Asus P5E3 Deluxe Wifi

I've had a temp sensor on the inner side of a module connected to my mcubed and tempos have been cool . The heatsinks have always felt pretty cool. I've continued the habit fronm ddr2 days of running with a Corsair dominator memory cooler . so I've not been a cruel master

[|Oc|REvO_HsArC]

Well then my guess would be this board really fails to read my mem spd.

either way I'm stuck with this setup because DDR3 is new and I don't have any different components to test either thing.
at least ddr1300 is stable with that spd voltage.

thanks once again.
bye

[Ace-a-Rue]

This is one...

can you tell me where that is on the board?

EDIT:..ok, i found the location...i will give it a try.

[Supershanks]

EDIT:..ok, i found the location...i will give it a try.

Aye X marks the spot matey Zoomed in out & around some of my pics to find it

Thanks loonym