Foxconn Quantum Force Black Ops X48 OC Guide (56k Warning)

[raptor1]

should there be much of a difference between the 790i and x48 chipset

i have noticed that when i had an SEII 790i, the few times it did manage to get in to windows with out crashing i got an everest score of 12006 read and 15806 in 3d mark 06

on my blackops i am getting a read 11114 in everest and a 3d mark 06 score of 11110

surely this can't be right

any suggestions please

flanr

Edit: Answered my own question - Should Have RTFM - i had my graphics card in the white PCI Express slot which only runs at 4x, was using this slot to make room to use a fan to keep the nb cool

i have moved it to the red slot which runs at x16 and now i am only down 60 in 3D Mark06 from the 790i

Update: After a bit of tweaking i have now a read of 11408 in everest and a score of 15960 approx in 3D Mark 06

[systemviper]

So is this board worth keeping or should i sell it and concentrate on the Evga Ultra Sli
I am interested in getting rid of one of them and i thought it was the Evge. but this
conversation is really making me think.

[Lu(ky]

For some reason I can not get my new Everest Ultimate to work. It keep saying "Invalid floating point operation" and I just bought it 3 days ago?

[spikerules]

So is this board worth keeping or should i sell it and concentrate on the Evga Ultra Sli
I am interested in getting rid of one of them and i thought it was the Evge. but this
conversation is really making me think.

Others would probably tell you different, but I would get rid of this one. Another silly design fault I have noticed is the second PCI X port blocks 2 SATA connections if you install a large GPU in the socket... hmm great idea! lol

[gmcg]

gmcq,

3. Use 177.26 driver for you videocard. It requires some modification of nv_disp.inf file, described in 3D guru thread.

And why? I used the same drivers as I am now under the Asus and was getting excellent scores

Caz I got +900 point with it in 3dmark vantage (P13084 vs P12178), for example. If you don't like some more points use whatever you like. Get rid of this board and use Asus, it is up to you.

4. Tighten your memory settings - look which ones people use
LOL - this board wont even let me go one step up from 1066, when my memory is 1333 capable.

Add some voltage to your memory, it is pretty safe to use 1.8 or 1.9V, with some cooling I would say it is pretty safe up to 2.1 V on DDR3. My memory has in specification 2.0V

Update: After a bit of tweaking i have now a read of 11408 in everest and a score of 15960 approx in 3D Mark 06

here you are

So is this board worth keeping or should i sell it and concentrate on the Evga Ultra Sli
I am interested in getting rid of one of them and i thought it was the Evge. but this
conversation is really making me think.

Such as you can't use SLI with BlackOps and according to your signature you want to use SLI, get rid of BlackOps and use 790i (good luck to get it stable) or try Dreadnought.

For some reason I can not get my new Everest Ultimate to work. It keep saying "Invalid floating point operation" and I just bought it 3 days ago?

Use Everest Ultimate BETA 1383 or upper (1403, for example http://download.softpedia.ro/dl/17a0...build_1403.zip), it should help.
Some boards are too new for a release version ...

[spikerules]

Caz I got +900 point with it in 3dmark vantage (P13084 vs P12178), for example. If you don't like some more points use whatever you like. Get rid of this board and use Asus, it is up to you.

Yeah and If I used the Asus, I woul be getting 3k more +900. I dont think you're getting my point.

Add some voltage to your memory, it is pretty safe to use 1.8 or 1.9V, with some cooling I would say it is pretty safe up to 2.1 V on DDR3. My memory has in specification 2.0V

Again not getting my point.... My memory has heatpipes on it. So you would assume I could get to a higher voltage, especially as my basic voltage should be 1.85v! Yet the motherboard undervolts my memory at 1.64v and whenever I try to get it to the right voltage and settings, the system goes nuts and starts to beep like a psycho on caffeine! Now does this explain my problem?

Such as you can't use SLI with BlackOps and according to your signature you want to use SLI, get rid of BlackOps and use 790i (good luck to get it stable) or try Dreadnought.

You DO realise you can get SLI on one card nowadays? If not, then I'm not sure if I, or anyone else for that matter, should be taking your advice.

Update - Tried the drivers you suggested and I get around 400+ more and not the 900+ you claim, and that was WITH a GPU overclock, whereas before the GPU with in preset.

[raptor1]

Hi All

I know i keep saying i will post my screenshots and settings but i promise by tomorrow evening i will have - its just that every time i make a change i have to create new screenshots as i will be only posting one set and i dont want numerous posts with only minor changes

these settings and screenshots will be my only and final ones as i have reached my target and am very happy - i know i could go higher on the overclock but to be honest, after taking taking this long to get this far i don't have the time as i have a load of other work to catch up on that fell behind while i was working on my blackops

i too was going to give up on this board as it is a compared to other boards to setup correctly, but i kept at it until I succeeded

thanks to everyone here and the anandtech preview article, i used a combination of settings from different people and now i am there

my settings can be used if anyone wishes but i cannot guarantee they will work for every one

the only remainig issue is the method i'll use to cool the nb

good luck to the rest of you

flanr

[gmcg]

Yeah and If I used the Asus, I woul be getting 3k more +900. I dont think you're getting my point.

I've got your point of course. Only you can answer why you've got more points on Asus than on this board, caz we all don't know what did you do with it

Again not getting my point.... My memory has heatpipes on it. So you would assume I could get to a higher voltage, especially as my basic voltage should be 1.85v! Yet the motherboard undervolts my memory at 1.64v and whenever I try to get it to the right voltage and settings, the system goes nuts and starts to beep like a psycho on caffeine! Now does this explain my problem?

Well, Foxcoon is not designed for inpatient people ... or you've got a faulting board.

You DO realise you can get SLI on one card nowadays? If not, then I'm not sure if I, or anyone else for that matter, should be taking your advice.

If you will take a look on my signature, you will find out that I currently have 9800GX2, which uses inner SLI, but it is not equal to SLI for 8800GT and/or 8800GTS cards, used in systemviper's signature. If he wants to replace them to 9800GX2, that is another story, but he has never told us about such intention.

Update - Tried the drivers you suggested and I get around 400+ more and not the 900+ you claim, and that was WITH a GPU overclock, whereas before the GPU with in preset.

I claim it on overclocked 9800GX2 - and that is MY SCORE difference, not yours, lol ... here are my scores:
Former one with 175.80: http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dmv=166556
Current one with 177.26 http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dmv=167675

Man, lets finish this discussion, I wanted to help you and now I don't want it anymore ... OK?

[saaya]

spikerules, i know what its like to run into problems with hardware and how frustrating it can be, but please calm down man. if its really giving you such a hard time then just send it back, but please stop bashing it here and poking at people who like the board and are happy with it.

1. about the memory performance, your comparing 790 with x48 here, thats not a board thing, its a chipset thing
memory wise 790 is faster. if you check out reviews you will see that this advantage in memory performance doesnt really translate into faster system performance... unfortunately... i think the fsb is limiting here.
well, im pretty sure actually, seeing as single channel on nehalem gets you 50% more mem perf than dual channel on x48

2. thats why god invented 90 degree sata cables
but yeah, we will hopefully have 90 degree plugs on the board there in future

3. everything else you ranted about i didnt really understand.
please post more details in a calm way so i can try to help you fix those problems :P

Because, with all due respect, this isnt what we paid for, and it certainly isnt what we were told from reviews, including this site I might add.

what are you referring to? what did a website or review show or say about the blackops that is not true or not possible etc?

4. Tighten your memory settings - look which ones people use
LOL - this board wont even let me go one step up from 1066, when my memory is 1333 capable.

could you please post more details about this?

Update: After a bit of tweaking i have now a read of 11408 in everest and a score of 15960 approx in 3D Mark 06

congrats!

For some reason I can not get my new Everest Ultimate to work. It keep saying "Invalid floating point operation" and I just bought it 3 days ago?

everything else works fine? try to reinstall... if that doesnt work them pm "fiery" ,he works for lavalys and migh be able to fix it

[Lu(ky]

Use Everest Ultimate BETA 1383 or upper (1403, for example http://download.softpedia.ro/dl/17a0...build_1403.zip), it should help.
Some boards are too new for a release version ...

Thank you very much

[FuriousSalesman]

In the Everest memory benchmark, which is more important? A Higher Read, Copy, Write score, or, A better L1 and L2 cache score?

[raptor1]

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...d.php?t=204133

[Telo]

Flanr, I'm guessing you assigned the VTT a 1.50v value because it is "not really 1.50v but 1.40v"? Do we have any updates on this? I have seen a lot of BIOS versions coming out lately, is it guaranteed to be off by .10v even in the newer BIOS versions?

[raptor1]

Flanr, I'm guessing you assigned the VTT a 1.50v value because it is "not really 1.50v but 1.40v"? Do we have any updates on this? I have seen a lot of BIOS versions coming out lately, is it guaranteed to be off by .10v even in the newer BIOS versions?

i tried a few diferent settings and found 1.50 was right for me

[Telo]

i tried a few diferent settings and found 1.50 was right for me

Since at least 3 BIOS revisions have been released in the last 2 weeks, I wouldn't advise you to set the VTT that high as it will fry your CPU if it is in fact a real 1.50v going through it. You should really bring it down a notch and even run your PC slower if you have to until HiPro or Lard tell us that it is indeed off by 0.10v at the VTT.

[saaya]

In the Everest memory benchmark, which is more important? A Higher Read, Copy, Write score, or, A better L1 and L2 cache score?

drawing conclusions from everest or other memory benchmarks to real world performance is not easy... the fsb a bottleneck once again, just like in the p3 days where ddr wasnt really any faster on p3 compared to sdr since the p3s fsb couldnt make use of the bandwidth.

just look at nehalem, single channel is 50% faster than x48 dc

from what ive seen read and latency are the important scores.
copy and write dont seem to have that big of an impact on gaming perf or other real world apps.

[saaya]

Since at least 3 BIOS revisions have been released in the last 2 weeks, I wouldn't advise you to set the VTT that high as it will fry your CPU if it is in fact a real 1.50v going through it. You should really bring it down a notch and even run your PC slower if you have to until HiPro or Lard tell us that it is indeed off by 0.10v at the VTT.

it is, i just checked it
its spot on .1v less than what you set in bios for 45nm cpus.
for 65nm the vtt setting in bios is spot on

hes running a 45nm cpu, so real vtt is indeed only 1.4v when he sets 1.5v in bios

[LardArse]

Check out some of Raja's settings for 2100MHz Memory:

http://www.benchtec.co.uk/forums/sho...?t=1423&page=8

[gmcg]

Check out some of Raja's settings for 2100MHz Memory:

http://www.benchtec.co.uk/forums/sho...?t=1423&page=8

Hmm, will 1.71V Vnb be possible with a stock air cooling?

[saaya]

depends on the temperature...
are you using an open stand or case?

[gmcg]

depends on the temperature...
are you using an open stand or case?

Case, but I modified my NB cooler a bit ... Of course I will use WC as soon as will get a copper cover ... or make an acrylic one. Even with this pretty good mod (at stock clocks and voltages temps are lower than 42C under load) with 1.35V, 430 MHz FSB and Prime95 long run load NB temp is around 57C ... with 1.5 V it is around 62C (Prime95 or Everest stress test long run), that is why I have asked ...
With open stand it should be another story though, you are right, saaya.
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=143

[saaya]

what nb temps do you get according to the bios?

[gmcg]

what nb temps do you get according to the bios?

Both BIOS and Everest show me 50C with 1.35V and 430MHz FSB with more or less idle mode - standard operations like browsing, etc.
I also have a temp sensor right on NB cooler, it shows 10-11C less, i.e. 39-40C while Everest shows 50C.
During load test Everest NB temp goes up to 57C and stabilizes there for hours ... but it takes like 15 min to get
there.

Such as I used to have pretty high temps with 780i and 790i on a NB (up to 67C), the above mentioned temps don't worry me at all, but 1.71V on a NB ... hmmm, may be with WC or using an open stand.

[saaya]

at cellshock i always ran the asus p5k3 deluxe boards at 1.7v nb voltage with a 80mm fan blowing on the mem and the stock heatsink.
i ran them like that for months... like 8 months i think?
and they didnt degrade at all...

then again, this was on open stands and not inside a case...
your nb temps sound really high considering you have a fan blowing on the heatsink
what case temp do you have?
is that fan on the nb blowing at full speed?

[gmcg]

at cellshock i always ran the asus p5k3 deluxe boards at 1.7v nb voltage with a 80mm fan blowing on the mem and the stock heatsink.
i ran them like that for months... like 8 months i think?
and they didnt degrade at all...

then again, this was on open stands and not inside a case...
your nb temps sound really high... what case temp do you have?
is that fan on the nb blowing at full speed?

Case temp - I think it is below 32C (temp of my memory), it should be fine. That fan is blowing at full speed, it is 1800RPM only (to lower the noise) though it has like 32CFM (twice more comparing to a stock one) ... should be enough. I hope to use WC for NB soon anyway.

Regarding ASUS - well, may be it has a different construction of NB cooler with more dissipating surface? And you have used a stand, here is a huge difference ... If I would locate my case on the floor instead of close to the ceiling, it should make a huge difference as well.