[Team.AU] Gigabyte EP45 EXTREME motherboard on test bench

[bingo13]

So This board doesnt like 4gig Ram Kits 2gx2 ? What Ram works in this board I need 4gigs

They will work fine at lower FSB speeds along with some fine tuning on the skews and delays, just finding that right balance above 450FSB (9x450, DDR2-900 4-4-4-12 is my limit on some very good GSkill or OCZ 2x2GB kits) is hard right now but solvable with BIOS updates.

I am getting 7x550 at DDR2-1100 with 5-5-4-15 (GSkill 2x2GB 1100 kit, E8400/stock cooler) on the ASUS P5Q-E after the last BIOS update (would not post before), but tRD is so relaxed (13) for 24/7 operation that 9x427 (tRD 7) is actually faster and of course easier to do.

Most of the P45 boards have suffered from this but the suppliers are coming around now with proper 4/8GB support. I just think everyone got carried away with the single channel 600+FSB races instead of remembering what 95% of the owners will do with the boards.

[truehighroller]

Motherboard arrived yesterday, still waiting on case and gpu,
but I just upsized the gainward 8800gt 1gb to a Ge Cube 4870 for $24
bypassing the 8800gts, 9800gtx and 4850! Good timing
Now the long wait till July 10th

How did you pull that off? I want to do that with my 8800gts 512.

[X2beach]

bingo,

can u give me some skews to start out with and delays.. bios f6A did nothing here is what they fixxed "Improve energy saving for DES Advanced"

Got a link to a beta bios?

[Alcibiades]

How did you pull that off? I want to do that with my 8800gts 512.

The 8800gt was on backorder so I cancelled it and changed my order to the new 4870.

I never had the 8800gt to begin with.

[Alcibiades]

L2 Cache latency is terrible
does the same or lower than my Q6600 clocked @ 3.6 with 1100mhz ddr2
Anyone experiencing similar results? Also to the right DPC latency not good either.

Hope we don't wait 10 or more bios revisions to sort these and previously mentioned issues like they did with the x38 series.


p.s. seems solid at this setting, stressed for 30mins

[Alcibiades]

Finally got it stable at 575FSB 1:1 on F6a
What you put in the bios IS NOT what comes out in Windows!
I will put up my bios settings tomorrow to show you guys how the figures translated for me.
Just received my brothers upgrade parts:
Gigabyte EP45T-Extreme
Intel E8500
OCZ 2GB (2 x 1024mb) DDR3 2000 Platinum Enhanced Bandwidth Edition PC16000
Start on that one tomorrow

[terrornoize]

Finally got it stable at 575FSB 1:1 on F6a

In dual channel?

What you put in the bios IS NOT what comes out in Windows!

[Alcibiades]

In dual channel?

These bios entries gave me the ET6 settings I posted above

Keep in mind these settings are a guide only and might be particular to my hardware components and cpu batch#
But it's interesting to see just how out of wack these values are from bios (f6a) to ET6

CPU Vcore - 1.44375v affected by vdrop to 1.408v in ET6 and under load droops to 1.376v lowest
CPU Termination - this value changes correctly
CPU PLL - this value changes correctly
CPU Reference - 800 in bios shows 720 in ET6
CPU Reference2 - 876 in bios shows 800 in ET6
MCH Core - this value changes correctly
MCH Reference - 736 in bios shows 660 in ET6
MCH/DRAM Ref - 910 in bios shows 760 in ET6
ICH I/O - this value changes correctly
ICH Core - this value changes correctly
DRAM Voltage - this value changes correctly
DRAM Termination - 910 in bios shows 760 in ET6
Channel A Reference - 910 in bios shows 760 in ET6
Channel B Reference - 910 in bios shows 760 in ET6

I had vMCH at 1.380V but had to move it up a notch to 1.400V.
CPU CLock 900mV
PCI CLOck 900mV
CPU CLocK 50ps (100 works 2)
MCH cLOck 0ps





I've handed this PC off to my friend now so I'm back on my trusty X38-DQ6
oh wait I forgot I get to play with the EP45T-EXTREME tomorrow

[terrornoize]

Well, next week i try with my 9650... the last bios is f6a?

[DoObs]

@Alcibiades

I see your 32m PI you could have dropped the tRFC to 24 your pc should still should have been stable, and you PI time would have broken 11:50min.

Will post a pic of my time later

[Alcibiades]

@Alcibiades

I see your 32m PI you could have dropped the tRFC to 24 your pc should still should have been stable, and you PI time would have broken 11:50min.

Will post a pic of my time later

I've since handed this PC over to my friend, but I'll try it when I next visit him.

[terrornoize]

Some pics of this mobo from my flickr... http://www.flickr.com/photos/2684528...7606350054090/

[jooney]

What about your NB Temps with using waterblock?Everest 1460 told me 42° in idle and 44° with prime after few minutes.
Did anyone put the Pipe off and looking for the paste?

[eva2000]

These bios entries gave me the ET6 settings I posted above

Keep in mind these settings are a guide only and might be particular to my hardware components and cpu batch#
But it's interesting to see just how out of wack these values are from bios (f6a) to ET6

CPU Vcore - 1.44375v affected by vdroop to 1.408v in ET6 and under load drops to 1.376v lowest
CPU Termination - this value changes correctly
CPU PLL - this value changes correctly
CPU Reference - 800 in bios shows 720 in ET6
CPU Reference2 - 876 in bios shows 800 in ET6
MCH Core - this value changes correctly
MCH Reference - 736 in bios shows 660 in ET6
MCH/DRAM Ref - 910 in bios shows 760 in ET6
ICH I/O - this value changes correctly
ICH Core - this value changes correctly
DRAM Voltage - this value changes correctly
DRAM Termination - 910 in bios shows 760 in ET6
Channel A Reference - 910 in bios shows 760 in ET6
Channel B Reference - 910 in bios shows 760 in ET6

I had vMCH at 1.380V but had to move it up a notch to 1.400V.
CPU CLock 900mV
PCI CLOck 900mV
CPU CLocK 50ps (100 works 2)
MCH cLOck 0ps

can confirm same ET6 misreports some values

First time with P45 chipset board, GA-EP45 Extreme !



More photos here

Managed Super Pi 1M bench run @7x564FSB 4-4-4-15 but needed PL10 and 2.48v to do it ! Not fully stable as only had EP45 Extreme setup less than 48hrs ago

System:

• E8500 Q740A479T 2L7 / 1313
• CPU Cooling: Dtek Fuzion Rad Tower Box
• Gigabyte GA-EP45 Extreme rev 1.0 F6a bios
• 128MB Gainward FX5200 PCI
• 2x1GB Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500 dual channel kit
• Memory cooling: 120x25mm Thermaltake 81cfm fan
• 74GB Western Digital Raptor
• Pioneer 215 DVD-RW
• 1200W Silverstone OP1200
• WinXP Pro SP2 Nlite Fully Updated.

Super Pi 1M


Everest Bandwidth & Chipset
Seems that read memory bandwidth and latency are quite low for 564Mhz 4-4-4-15 memory clocks and timings but write and copy bandwidth look decent. Probably due to the loosened Static tRead (what DFI/Asus users would of known as tRD or performance level) of around 10. Gigabyte Easytune6 utility misreports, the values set in bios for CPU Reference, CPU Reference2 and MCH Reference. Easytune6 reports the default normal values instead they should be 0.853, 0.868 and 0.828 respectively.

[Sauron_Vie]

it would be nice to see how a quad works on this board. the wolfdale´s and so on are clocking on every board very well. so lets c some action.

[Alcibiades]

can confirm same ET6 misreports some values

First time with P45 chipset board, GA-EP45 Extreme !

Managed Super Pi 1M bench run @7x564FSB 4-4-4-15 but needed PL10 and 2.48v to do it ! Not fully stable as only had EP45 Extreme setup less than 48hrs ago

Everest Bandwidth & Chipset
Gigabyte Easytune6 utility misreports, the values set in bios for CPU Reference, CPU Reference2 and MCH Reference. Easytune6 reports the default normal values instead they should be 0.853, 0.868 and 0.828 respectively.

I've been slightly paranoid about the build I handed over to my friend recently, with regards specifically to the cpu voltages and subvoltages.
Well the sub voltages are not bad but the vcore is a worry, or is it?
I've googled for answers and know 3 things for certain;
1) Max safe VID is 1.3625 with no degradation
2) The range 1.3625 - 1.45 represents the rising scale and rate of degradation.
3) Over 1.45v accelerated degradation and potential death.

So I put in 1.44375 in BIOS and it comes out drooped at 1.408 in ET6/CPU-Z
I should really only be worried about the latter number, right? anyone?

Anyway I really like your cpu voltages for vcore, PLL and VTT, waaay lower than mine, even though you have the e8500.
I only wish I had the system for another week of testing.

eva what's the vdroop and vdrop like on yours?
'Cause I couldn't get close to 4000Mhz do spi32m AND finish a round of Prime95 unless I stayed over 1.360 vcore when stress testing.
So droop and drop was bad for me, 1.44375 vdroops to 1.408 and vdrops to 1.3756,
bear in mind I cannibalised his old pc and the power supply is a noname 550w, Could this have something to do with it? anyone?

From the tests I did with the board, I found that the higher you go FSB wise,
you have to lower the MCHref (660 and lower for 550+fsb),
forums show people doing 600+ fsb with MCHref showing 600 or 620 in ET6.

Also keeping all DRAM voltages close to the standard bios defaults helped around 760.
These numbers are the ET6 numbers so the bios numbers will be higher.

[terrornoize]

Do you know when a new bios goes out?
Have problems to keep ram to the standard frequencies (1066) just overclocking my cpu a little... My vdrop is of about 0.1v under stress on my qx9650.

Sorry for my bad english...

[@rne]

You guys checked the dividers and strap: any problems?

[eva2000]

starting to tame this beast that is EP45 Extreme

7.5x533FSB 2.40B 640Mhz 5-5-5-15





tRD 9


tRD 9 + Tweak 1


tRD 9 + Tweak 1 + 2


Super Pi 1M with Tweak 1 + 2


Super Pi 32M with Tweak 1 + 2


32M time still around 20-25 seconds slower than P35/X38/X48 but getting there

rest of it at http://i4memory.com/93994-post4.html

8x500FSB 2.40B (5:6) 600Mhz 5-5-5-15





Full report http://i4memory.com/93993-post3.html

[Supershanks]

Great stuff Eva
How to drop Everest Latency by 10.6
Think this is one of the highest stable FSBs I've hit but SuperPi is disappointing.
4,310 7.5x575@2B 1,150 5-5-5-20

still progress

[eva2000]

thanks new F6c bios

[Supershanks]

Thanks to Eva just got the F6C bios.
Compared it to previous bench with some pretty decent results
Bios F6C - 4,310 7.5x575@2B 1,150 5-5-5-20 Revisited

[eva2000]

Yup F6c bios looking good



Still around 35-40 seconds slower than P35/X38/X48 I estimate but getting there.

[Supershanks]

Yup F6c bios looking good

Just got F6H BTA courtesy of Eva
Looking Better still new bios options as well

[terrornoize]

Yeah!