My SB750, HD4850 x-fire, 9850, H20 Build...

[informal]

Hmm must be a lemon of a CPU then .Hold on for the next bios release,maybe things change,who knows..

[xPliziT]

Well, so far my experience with the ASUS M3A78-T has been pretty much pants. ACC offers me no improvement over no ACC. I'm still not stable above 2800MHz no matter where I adjust ACC to. I do like how this board's bios doesn't have to be cleared before each boot though. That's an improvement over my K9A2, but of course I still don't have all the fancy add-in cards on this board yet.

What ACC has shown me so far is that it doesn't seem to do jack for helping OC. It just seems to prevent crashes due to "clock interrupt not received" bull without actually decreasing the frequency of computational errors. At 2.9GHz I don't instacrash but it's only like 5 seconds Prime stable until I jack the voltage above 1.425V. Then, it's only stable for a few minutes. It doesn't just crash like on my old board, but rounding errors spoil the usefulness.

Anyway, my review so far would be as described below.

Pick one of the following:
- Well, I guess my CPU is just a bona fide lemon.
- ACC reduces total system failure but doesn't really help computationally stable overclocks.
- ASUS's current BIOS is still just immature.
- ASUS's M3A78-T has an absolute pants implementation of ACC.

Could it be that maybe the ACC function is not correctly working on your board yet. As you said the bios is still immature, so there will be a couple of bios updates soon i guess.

[Daveburt714]

Charged:Glad to see you have it up and running! Nice results so far..

Particle:After only a few hours with the Asus board I've gotten and extra 300Mhz (2.6max to 2.9max) on an old 96BE. I was testing it first because I didn't really want to tear down my main rig to remove the 9850. Stability seems to be MUCH better, IE: it either works or it doesn't, no strange crashes so far.

The bios is very imature, for one the NB/HT Multi's don't seem to work.

I just set ACC to "auto" in bios if that helps you any. I have to OC through bios, the new AOD keeps giving some "1721 error" on install and I haven't figured it out yet. Vers 2.1.1 works, but it seems flakey.

One thing that amazes me is how cool the PWM section of the board stays compared to the K9A2, at least thats comforting...

[oldpueblo]

Charged:Glad to see you have it up and running! Nice results so far..

Particle:After only a few hours with the Asus board I've gotten and extra 300Mhz (2.6max to 2.9max) on an old 96BE. I was testing it first because I didn't really want to tear down my main rig to remove the 9850. Stability seems to be MUCH better, IE: it either works or it doesn't, no strange crashes so far.

The bios is very imature, for one the NB/HT Multi's don't seem to work.

I just set ACC to "auto" in bios if that helps you any. I have to OC through bios, the new AOD keeps giving some "1721 error" on install and I haven't figured it out yet. Vers 2.1.1 works, but it seems flakey.

One thing that amazes me is how cool the PWM section of the board stays compared to the K9A2, at least thats comforting...

Remember that 2.1.2 is out, have you given it a shot?

[charged3800z24]

well sorry I have been away .. I had family stuff to do.. I won't be on till late tonight, I am going to Muncie Speed way to watch the drags... WooHoo...

[Daveburt714]

Yeah, 2.1.2 is the version that keeps erroring on install..
BTW, I got this rickety old 96BE up to 3Ghz... Woohoo!

It takes 1.425v to get there, but NOTHING on the board or CPU feels warm.

[Oliverda]

now, my next question is.. has anyone found info on how to change the ACC setting manually?.. I wonder if it will help het better clocks.. since each core seems to have there onw quirks...

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...x,1988-13.html

"Mainly, that step involves enabling ACC, either through a motherboard BIOS or using the OverDrive utility, and choosing a “value” corresponding to ACC. The value in question ranges from -12% to +12% and starts at zero. What exactly does it represent? Good question — AMD is staying deliberately quiet on the exact definition. However, all indications point to the loosening and tightening of tolerances. With a Phenom X4 9950 or 9850, AMD recommends opening ACC up to +2% or so. A slower chip, like an older 9600, might be able to withstand +4% or +6%. You get the idea."

[Particle]

I noticed that about the PWM section too, Dave. On the K9A2 I have, at full load even the heatsink on the MSI would hit above 75C. There is no telling what the MOSFETs were running under it. On the ASUS, even when the PWM section is receiving 166W it wasn't too warm to keep a finger on.

I did some power testing with a Fluke clamp style ammeter.

This is at 2900MHz (200 x 14.5):

vCore, Idle Current, Idle Power, Load Current, Load Power
1.375V 7.0A 84W 11.8A 142W
1.400V 7.3A 87W 12.4A 149W
1.425V 7.7A 92W 13.1A 157W
1.450V 8.2A 98W 13.8A 166W

These numbers represent the power going to the PWM section. On the ASUS board, the AUX12 connector by the PWMs seems to be the sole source of power for the CPU while the ground plane seems shared. As such, these numbers represent the amount of power being used by the CPU in addition to the loss (as heat) in the PWM section. Since the PWMs stay so cool though, I'd say not a whole lot is lost there as heat.

For ACC, I tried -12, -2, 0, 2, 4, 6, 10, and 12. Nothing seemed to actually help anything for me.

[RiverRicer]

My experience with the Gigabyte MA790GP-DS4H is about the same as charged3800z24 so far. My 9850BE would only do 2.8ghz reliably on a Jetway HA04 Extreme. This is what I'm getting (@1.36 vcore) on the Gigabyte....stable.

http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=400966

And no, cpuz 1.46 doesn't ID the chipset correctly.....shows as 790G/SB700.

[oldpueblo]

Can either of you tell me what your bios settings are set to for the ACC? And are you running in AHCI mode? I just noticed that unless I'm mistaken AOD 2.1.2 acts as if it can't see the southbridge. When I do the diagram it actually shows the southbridge as greyed out, and of course so is ACC as I mentioned earlier. Maybe I'll try the beta 2.1.1.

[soundood]

My experience with the Gigabyte MA790GP-DS4H is about the same as charged3800z24 so far. My 9850BE would only do 2.8ghz reliably on a Jetway HA04 Extreme. This is what I'm getting (@1.36 vcore) on the Gigabyte....stable.

http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=400966

And no, cpuz 1.46 doesn't ID the chipset correctly.....shows as 790G/SB700.

mine sits at 2.8 nicely too, although i have had it 3 gig stable recently, but dropped back down

i will be very happy with a clock of 3.2 gig

great results guys

[Mechromancer]

ASUS has great hardware but crap BIOSes. I'm thinking about giving the Foxconn a spin next week. My old s939 Opty185 system is showing wear and tear from all these years of overclocking. 790GX+SB750 for $130 sounds like a good time to build, huh?

[vengance_01]

Yea not bad at all. I really wish I had the cash to give these new Quads and boards a spin. Happy with whats in my sig, but AMD is getting there.

[charged3800z24]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...x,1988-13.html

"Mainly, that step involves enabling ACC, either through a motherboard BIOS or using the OverDrive utility, and choosing a “value” corresponding to ACC. The value in question ranges from -12% to +12% and starts at zero. What exactly does it represent? Good question — AMD is staying deliberately quiet on the exact definition. However, all indications point to the loosening and tightening of tolerances. With a Phenom X4 9950 or 9850, AMD recommends opening ACC up to +2% or so. A slower chip, like an older 9600, might be able to withstand +4% or +6%. You get the idea."

thanks for the link.. helps me out a bit...

[charged3800z24]

Can either of you tell me what your bios settings are set to for the ACC? And are you running in AHCI mode? I just noticed that unless I'm mistaken AOD 2.1.2 acts as if it can't see the southbridge. When I do the diagram it actually shows the southbridge as greyed out, and of course so is ACC as I mentioned earlier. Maybe I'll try the beta 2.1.1.

I have ACC mode turned on in bios and set to auto .. I am using 2.1.2 AOD. But have have did all my clocking in the bios so far.

[Titan7171]

Man this is some good results so far. I hope it will do something for me also, Im running 3.2ghz 24/7@ 1.4v and Ive run benchies at 3.36ghz, and the highest suicide boot I could get was 3.48ghz..........3.4ghz stable would be nice

btw this is on air...

[keithlm]

Man this is some good results so far. I hope it will do something for me also, Im running 3.2ghz 24/7@ 1.4v and Ive run benchies at 3.36ghz, and the highest suicide boot I could get was 3.48ghz..........3.4ghz stable would be nice

btw this is on air...

Keep the results coming.

Three months ago any of us would have been happy with 3.2Ghz-3.3Ghz. Now we want 3.6Ghz. (I'll accept 3.2Ghz at 1.4V if it will prime95 for a few days. A 28% overclock is very acceptable for 1.4V.)

What temperatures?

GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO.

[SocketMan]

Well, so far my experience with the ASUS M3A78-T has been pretty much pants. ACC offers me no improvement over no ACC. I'm still not stable above 2800MHz no matter where I adjust ACC to. I do like how this board's bios doesn't have to be cleared before each boot though. That's an improvement over my K9A2, but of course I still don't have all the fancy add-in cards on this board yet.

What ACC has shown me so far is that it doesn't seem to do jack for helping OC. It just seems to prevent crashes due to "clock interrupt not received" bull without actually decreasing the frequency of computational errors. At 2.9GHz I don't instacrash but it's only like 5 seconds Prime stable until I jack the voltage above 1.425V. Then, it's only stable for a few minutes. It doesn't just crash like on my old board, but rounding errors spoil the usefulness.

Anyway, my review so far would be as described below.

Pick one of the following:
- Well, I guess my CPU is just a bona fide lemon.
- ACC reduces total system failure but doesn't really help computationally stable overclocks.
- ASUS's current BIOS is still just immature.
- ASUS's M3A78-T has an absolute pants implementation of ACC.

ASUS's current BIOS is still just immature.
- ASUS's M3A78-T has an absolute pants implementation of ACC.

my picks

I am sure Asus will improve it,just not sure how many months it might take.
M3a took at least a couple (of months) to get 'stable", solid
BIOS

[SocketMan]

Can either of you tell me what your bios settings are set to for the ACC? And are you running in AHCI mode? I just noticed that unless I'm mistaken AOD 2.1.2 acts as if it can't see the southbridge. When I do the diagram it actually shows the southbridge as greyed out, and of course so is ACC as I mentioned earlier. Maybe I'll try the beta 2.1.1.

I saw that on my dfi m2r and uninstalling AOD, then a reboot (I think)
Install again and SB is back on the diagram

[oldpueblo]

I saw that on my dfi m2r and uninstalling AOD, then a reboot (I think)
Install again and SB is back on the diagram

You don't think it'd be anything wierd like the fact that I'm using AHCI instead of native IDE SATA mode do you? I get the impression that most don't use that mode since it's troublesome, though I don't know why this being my first phenom.

[charged3800z24]

I don't suppose you could take some pics of your bios options and post them? I still can't get ACC to work and I'm starting to wonder if gigabyte somehow turned it off for the x3's. And incidentally I was having issues running 8GB in all four slots, so after a ton of memtesting where I almost got through multiple passes stable after upping northbridge and DDR voltage, I finally decided to drop to 4GB (2x2) and start playing more with overclocking.

I will take some pics if you still need them...

[charged3800z24]

You don't think it'd be anything wierd like the fact that I'm using AHCI instead of native IDE SATA mode do you? I get the impression that most don't use that mode since it's troublesome, though I don't know why this being my first phenom.

I am using Native IDE mode since it was what I ha on the K9A2 Plat...I did not reload the OS. But I am tomorrow.

[keithlm]

I saw that on my dfi m2r and uninstalling AOD, then a reboot (I think)
Install again and SB is back on the diagram

I installed it and it worked... then the next day it started crashing.

So I uninstalled... rebooted... manually made sure all AOD files were deleted... then rebooted and reinstalled. Now it works like it should.

[charged3800z24]

Yeah, 2.1.2 is the version that keeps erroring on install..
BTW, I got this rickety old 96BE up to 3Ghz... Woohoo!

It takes 1.425v to get there, but NOTHING on the board or CPU feels warm.

nice job...Hey I noticed u'r sig looks just like my old build... I sold my 9600 to my cousin this weekend, or I would have gave it a try. Most I could get out of it was 2.8ghz on a Sapphire 780g /SB700...

[Titan7171]

Keep the results coming.

Three months ago any of us would have been happy with 3.2Ghz-3.3Ghz. Now we want 3.6Ghz. (I'll accept 3.2Ghz at 1.4V if it will prime95 for a few days. A 28% overclock is very acceptable for 1.4V.)

What temperatures?

GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO.

Its 25c in the room cpu idling at 33c and load at 45c with no ac on