X48 Rampage Formula Preview.

[zlojack]

4 cores are better than 2, 8 cores are better than 4, 16 cores are better than 8.... I hope I don't have to go on.

In some cases, yes.

[Zucker2k]

4 cores are better than 2, 8 cores are better than 4, 16 cores are better than 8.... I hope I don't have to go on.

4 cores... running at what frequency?

[Brama]

It's a moot point; and look how far I could push my G.Skill 1066s with my not so good E8600:

Many, many compliments!

Which strap have you used and which voltage on NB?

Can you post a list of yours BIOS settings?

Thanks,

[ElAguila]

I posted this on the wrong thread yesterday. I had a lot of issues with my DFI X38 and the Q9400. Bottom line is that I could not get it to oc past 3.2GHz. After dropping it in a friends rampage and seeing it go prime stable at 3.7GHz, I have decided to pull the trigger on a Rampage Formula ROG mobo since I want to go crossfireX later this year. I have a couple of questions about this mobo. Is the stock nb/sb cooler good enough after removing the stock paste and replacing with AS5 or do I need 3rd party coolers? How is the supremesound module that comes with it? I am ready to dump my x-fi xtrememusic because of endless issues. Also are there any issues using the RAM that is listed in my sig? And last but not least, which bios seems to be the preferred bios with a Q9400 and G Skill memory?

[traveler]

I posted this on the wrong thread yesterday. I had a lot of issues with my DFI X38 and the Q9400. Bottom line is that I could not get it to oc past 3.2GHz. After dropping it in a friends rampage and seeing it go prime stable at 3.7GHz, I have decided to pull the trigger on a Rampage Formula ROG mobo since I want to go crossfireX later this year. I have a couple of questions about this mobo. Is the stock nb/sb cooler good enough after removing the stock paste and replacing with AS5 or do I need 3rd party coolers? How is the supremesound module that comes with it? I am ready to dump my x-fi xtrememusic because of endless issues. Also are there any issues using the RAM that is listed in my sig? And last but not least, which bios seems to be the preferred bios with a Q9400 and G Skill memory?

I am currently using the stock heatsink setup. I did replace the stock thermal material with Ceramique on the Northbridge and the Southbridge. I have a Antec SpotFan mounted and aimed over the Northbridge heatsink. And I have a Yate Loon high volume 120 case fan aimed over and at the Southbridge from about eight inches away just sitting at the bottom of my case at the far edge of the hard drive rack area by the case side. The Yate Loon is there blowing onto the Southbridge only temorarily during building. The air flow directly onto the Southbridge is needed. Temps are the same for the North and South bridges for me. At startup they are 34C. After warming to idle they are 37C. At load under BioShock (the only app I have installed ATM) they are 42C. Hope this info helps you.

I ran the onboard sound for a while. There is no EAX support with the onboard soundcard. What issues were you having with your X-Fi card?



__________________
Asus X48 Rampage Formula / Intel Q9450 / 2 x 2GB OCZ Reaper HPC PC2 8500 / VisionTek Radeon HD3870X2 OverClocked Edition /
Western Digital Raptor X Hard Drive / Two Western Digital Caviar RE2 WD5001ABYS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives /
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Elite Pro 7.1 / Creative Gigaworks S750 7.1 Speaker System /
Lian Li 343B cube case / PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Crossfire Edition

[ElAguila]

I have amountain mod cube case so I have 3x120mm fans that are blowing from front to back across the motherboard so that should take care of that. The sound card loses surround speaker for no reason intermittently. Also intermittently I can't change mode from game to entertainment. Somtimes I get crackling from the speakers. I have rebuilt my windows many times and tried many different drivers. I have just had it with this card.

[bigslappy]

Yeah the SupremeFX 2 is a dog . mine works better on the Marvel native drivers than the Asus driver I'm getting the new Asus Zonar HDMI card as soon as the reports come back on how it REALLY is .... Creative cards just suck ...

[mikeyakame]

Xonar HDMI card is simply like a daughterboard card used with the Xonar D2X Ultra or the likes. It's not a pure sound card on its own.

[ElAguila]

I have a question about the raid controller. I have 2 raid 0 arrays right now. When I went from the P35 with the ich9r controller to the x38 with the ich9r controller, I enabled raid in the bios settings and it detected the arrays without me having to rebuild them. Are the chance good that I won't have to create the arrays again(thus wiping my data) when switching to the rampage formula?

[bigslappy]

Xonar HDMI card is simply like a daughterboard card used with the Xonar D2X Ultra or the likes. It's not a pure sound card on its own.

Nope it's a NEW sound card ..unlike the previos Xonar DX2 cards

check out these links


http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=11638

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/9050/a...rds/index.html


http://www.planetx64.com/index.php?o...1284&Itemid=21

actually has it's own processor on board ,the Splendid HD chip .
& the card offers Swappable Operational Amplifiers

[bigslappy]

I have a question about the raid controller. I have 2 raid 0 arrays right now. When I went from the P35 with the ich9r controller to the x38 with the ich9r controller, I enabled raid in the bios settings and it detected the arrays without me having to rebuild them. Are the chance good that I won't have to create the arrays again(thus wiping my data) when switching to the rampage formula?

Yeah I think soo as it did for my switch from a P5E(x38) to a R/F(x48)
it even keeps the raid array when i reformated the HHD's on a fresh Vista64 instal on the R/F last week

[ElAguila]

Thanks for the info. I am running backups anyway just in case. It takes a couple of hours to backup all of the data but better safe than sorry. I got the board in this morning. I removed stock cooler to replace the thermal paste. Man I thought the workers the put the heatsinks on the dif mobo's were bad. Both the NB and the SB had thermal paste and a thermal pad on them. So I removed and put as5 on the nb and ac on the sb. Since the heatsink looks nice I thought I would try the stock one before thinking of pulling it for my aftermarket coolers. I should have it up and running this evening. One last question here. I see tha there are 8 fan connectors on the motherboard. That seems like quite a bit. I always went by the rule of not connecting a 120mm fan to the mobo. Is it safe to connect a 120mm fan to this motherboard?

[traveler]

[snip]

One last question here. I see tha there are 8 fan connectors on the motherboard. That seems like quite a bit. I always went by the rule of not connecting a 120mm fan to the mobo. Is it safe to connect a 120mm fan to this motherboard?

Good question! I should have asked Asus tech support that one when I had them on the phone a few weeks back.

I'm with you on this one. Only my CPU fan is plugged into the MB ATM. Why stress the motherboard circuits when you can plug a fan directly into the PSU.

Anyone have multiple fans plugged into the MB?



__________________
Asus X48 Rampage Formula / Intel Q9450 / 2 x 2GB OCZ Reaper HPC PC2 8500 / VisionTek Radeon HD3870X2 OverClocked Edition /
Western Digital Raptor X Hard Drive / Two Western Digital Caviar RE2 WD5001ABYS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives /
Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Elite Pro 7.1 / Creative Gigaworks S750 7.1 Speaker System /
Lian Li 343B cube case / PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Crossfire Edition

[mikeyakame]

Nope it's a NEW sound card ..unlike the previos Xonar DX2 cards

check out these links


http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=11638

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/9050/a...rds/index.html


http://www.planetx64.com/index.php?o...1284&Itemid=21

actually has it's own processor on board ,the Splendid HD chip .
& the card offers Swappable Operational Amplifiers

Wow thats nice, guess I've found my next sound card then! I was under the impression it was a daughterboard type card, guess it's not after all!

[ElAguila]

I got he board installed last night. I put a 40mm fan on the nb to just help the air circulate a little more. After my new windows build I will start oc'ing and see how far I can get. I had to update to the 0410 bios to stop the unknown cpu error on post.

[ElAguila]

Hopefully you can help me out. I have a Q9400 that I know will do 3.6GHz on air(It was in aP35 mobo and did that).So far I have not been able to get prime stable past 3.52GHz. I am going to post my settings and I hope you can give me some tips.

Multi and FSB - 8x438
RAM - 1052MHz @ 5-5-5-15(the ram is stable thru 1075)
All DRAM Skews - Auto
DRAM Static Read Control - Auto
Ai Clock Twister - Auto
Ai Transaction Booster - Auto

CPU Voltage - 1.3v(reading @ 1.280v)
CPU PLL Voltage - 1.54v(reading@ 1.632v)
NB Voltage - 1.39v(reading@ 1.408v)
DRAM Voltage - 2.0v(reading@2.064v)
FSB Termination Voltage - 1.28v(reading@ 1.216v)
South Bridge Voltage - 1.075v(reading@ 1.104v)
SB 1.5 Voltage - Auto(reading@ 1.552v)

Loadline Calibration - Enabled
CPU GTL Voltage Reference - 0.67x
NB GTL Voltage Reference - 0.67x
DRAM Controller Voltage REF - Auto(reading@ 1.040v)
DRAM Channels A and B Voltage REF - Auto

[ThugsRook]

Anyone have multiple fans plugged into the MB?

fan ports are rated for 24W max, but i wouldnt run more then 1 fan off each port.

[zlojack]

Hopefully you can help me out. I have a Q9400 that I know will do 3.6GHz on air(It was in aP35 mobo and did that).So far I have not been able to get prime stable past 3.52GHz. I am going to post my settings and I hope you can give me some tips.

Multi and FSB - 8x438
RAM - 1052MHz @ 5-5-5-15(the ram is stable thru 1075)
All DRAM Skews - Auto
DRAM Static Read Control - Auto
Ai Clock Twister - Auto
Ai Transaction Booster - Auto

CPU Voltage - 1.3v(reading @ 1.280v)
CPU PLL Voltage - 1.54v(reading@ 1.632v)
NB Voltage - 1.39v(reading@ 1.408v)
DRAM Voltage - 2.0v(reading@2.064v)
FSB Termination Voltage - 1.28v(reading@ 1.216v)
South Bridge Voltage - 1.075v(reading@ 1.104v)
SB 1.5 Voltage - Auto(reading@ 1.552v)

Loadline Calibration - Enabled
CPU GTL Voltage Reference - 0.67x
NB GTL Voltage Reference - 0.67x
DRAM Controller Voltage REF - Auto(reading@ 1.040v)
DRAM Channels A and B Voltage REF - Auto

From what I've been reading lately, you might want to do some tweaking of your GTLs. Try 0.63 for the CPU and see if that helps.

[ElAguila]

I will try that and see how it does.

[ElAguila]

I tried a lower GTL Ref but the system was no longer stable. I put the GTL Ref back to 0.67x and then bumped the vcore up to 1.31250v(reading@ 1.288v). With this vcore bump I am now prime stable for 4 hours now at 3.6GHz(8x450). In roder to do this at this voltage I have the LLC enabled. I have read a few threads on this and basically my best understanding of it is that controls the vdroop. I have alsways looked for vdroop mods if there is a lot of droop on a motherboard. I found on this one with the LLC disabled and the vcore set at 1.31250v the actual voltage is at 1.256v which isn't stable even at 3.5GHz. I have decided to the leave the LLC enabled as I am an overclocker and frying a cpu is the chance I take everytime I run a cpu at other than spec speed and settings. Tomorrow I will try upping the vcore to 1.4v and turn off LLC and see how high I can get this chip.

[ElAguila]

Okay I got my cpu stable at 3.7GHz. I would like to turn to the ram at this point. I have DDR2 1000 ram but because of the bus speed the strap I have to use puts it at 900MHz. What should i do adjust other than the ram timings for improvement with this mobo? I have the settings listed above but I have changed the DRAM Static Control to disabled. These are the scores I am getting in everest right now and I am not sure how good they are:

Memory Read 7693 MB/s
Memory Write 9765 MB/s
Memory Copy 7553 MB/s
Memory Latency 67.6 ns

[mikeyakame]

Enable DRAM Static Control, AI Clock Twister to Strong or Stronger, Manual AI Transaction Booster -> Common Performance Level [06], vNB to around 1.53 or 1.55V, NB GTLREF to 0.63 or 0.62x. vTT to real voltage of 1.40-1.42V.

tRFC = 60 or 65
tRRD (Act to Act Delay ) = 3,
tRTPD (Read to Precharge Delay) = 3
tALL_PRE_TO_ACT / tALL_PRE_TO_REF = 4 or 5.
tWR (write recovery) = 4
tWTPD (write to precharge delay) = 10 or 11 (tWR + tWL (tRL or tCWD [ tCAS - 1 ]) + BL/2 [ 8 / 2 == 4 ] ) note BL aka burst latency is always 8, so BL/2 always equals 4.
tPTP (PRE to PRE delay) = 1
tRTW (Read to Write delay same rank) = 6 or 7
tWTR (write to read delay same rank) = 5 ( in everest tWR [total receovery time ] = tWR + tWTR )
tWR_RD_DR (write to read delay diff rank) = 4
tRTR (read following burst read same rank) = 4
tRD_RD_DR (read following burst read diff rank) = 6
tWTW (write following burst write same rank) = 4
tWR_WR_DR (write following burst write diff rank) = 6
tRAS (row activation strobe period) = 11 (tWR + tRCD + tCAS)
tCAS (column address strobe) = 4
tRTP (read to precharge) = 3
tRCD (row activation to column strobe delay) = 3
vDIMM = 2.0-2.2V or so. This should be pretty damn quick at 900MHz.

Might not all work off the mark but you should get it working with a little adjustment to the values or slightly higher vDIMM. Use memtest86+ before booting into OS to get memory timings stable first. Run test #5 in memtest86+ which you can run manually through the configure menu once it boots. [ C -> Tests -> Manual test -> 05 -> 0 (ok)

[ElAguila]

Thanks. I will work from there.

[ElAguila]

I noticed this warning in my event log from earlier today. It was a WHEA Logger error. The ram is good. Could it be the nb voltage too low for the high fsb I am using?

A corrected hardware error occurred.
Error Source: Corrected Machine Check
Error Type: Bus/Interconnect Error
Processor ID Valid: Yes
Processor ID: 0x3
Bank Number: 5
Transaction Type: N/A
Processor Participation: Generic
Request Type: Generic Error
Memory/Io: Generic
Memory Hierarchy Level: Generic
Timeout: No

[mikeyakame]

Could be to do with vDIMM actually. make sure Memtest86+ completes a full pass free of errors. If it does it is more than likely vNB