Asus M4a79 deluxe up close and personal

[jamesrb]

this is ddrII era? 667/800/1066?

Yeah. It is less of an issue if you have 1066 or even 800mhz RAM. Also not an issue with the black edition's.

With my old AM2 board, I overclocked from 1.9ghz to 2.7ghz. I just dropped the divider so the RAM was running at 675mhz. With this board, to get the same 2.7ghz, the lowest I could run the RAM is 900mhz.

The M3A79-T Deluxe seems like it had all of the dividers, but on the M4A79, the only options I have are 667 and 800.

I've been wondering if a bios mod is possible.

[chew*]

might not be, may be do to the difference in the denebs memory controller. I would just pick up a cheap set of 1066 if i were you .

[chew*]

I assume you mean that the Gigabyte lacks bios options? Memory timings perhaps? that would be bad indeed although I guess if its OCes to the same level at the of the day then it wont matter too much.
The quadfire is no big deal for me as I use Nvidia.
I still have two days to make up my mind. :-)

Doesn't lack options in bios, the options just arent working currently with current bios. etc NB clocking, ram over 1600......gigabyte has been very lazy in memory tweak department, this board is a nice change.

[Final8ty]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/produc...d=5&subid=1377

[Jethro]

Chew, thanks for all the time you have/will put into examining this board!! Very good info's man. Im excited to put this board thru its paces. Hope my tagan 480 doesnt hold me back for now!

I ordered one of em from the egg + kuma 7750 BE and 2gb x 2 gskill 800 4 4 4 12. Should be up and running midweek and will post findings. No more water atm but i do have a solid copper zerotherm butterfly type cooler that works really well and should allow for some 1.5v+ clocking. Question: Are the mosfets flat enough for thermal paste? I have a custom case with 3 120mm fans that should compliment the passive sinks nicely provided they actually work!

[chew*]

I personally don't like paste directly on mosfets, having no cushion between a metal object and a source of power other than paste gives me the heebee jeebee's. I ended up bolting the PWM part of the heatsink down to ensure good contact.

Sinking the PWM for the memory is a good idea as well..

[shaolin95]

chew, so I assume you have experience with both this and the Gigabyte...is this in your opinion a clear victory for the Asus or are they pretty much equal?

[FoxRacR17]

Anyone know if this board is able to run 4x2GB sticks of 1066MHz ram? I already have it running 4GB of OCZ 1066 Platinums (OCZ2P10664GK) no problem, passes memtest and everything, but I want to get another 4GB so I can run a RAMdisk. I know that OCZ2P10664GK is not on the QVL for this motherboard, but the 1066 Reapers are and I read over at the OCZ forums that these are the same as the reapers, just different heatsinks (I hope this is true). If I have to run all 8GB at 800MHz, is there really a big difference between 800MHz and 1066MHz?

[soundood]

i am running the same sticks as you, i also have 2 x 2 gig, and as far as i am aware this is the exact same chips that are in the reaper 1066's.

as for 8 gig? im not sure, i would expect it to work on this board, as it seems solid enough, and also has no disclaimer as such in the manual to suggest there could be issues.

the differance between 800 and 1066? from what i have seen not a lot, tighter timings can companstae for the mhz differance (i have both the gold OCZ 800 mhz(8 gig) and plats 1066's(4 gig))

@chew* did you notice any noticeable differance with the mem clock skew set to +300?, i remember you mentioning it somewhere?

i currently have it set to -300 on channel A (mem slots) and all seems good, did you get higher clocks with the advance 300?

[chew*]

chew, so I assume you have experience with both this and the Gigabyte...is this in your opinion a clear victory for the Asus or are they pretty much equal?

Depends on what boards your comparing, this is a ddr II variant FX, versus my GX gigabyte, I think this board has alot more potential.

I can get the gigabyte to do some preety crazy stuff but that is not the norm for most users.

I think this asus will surpass it in the right hands.

As far as ddrIII boards the jury is still out. Bios's for all of them are to fresh atm.

The gigabyte has the "potential" to be better than the asus ddrIII variant because of the better quality compenents used to make it (namely PWM ) whether they can get the bios to play nice though is another question.

Not sure about the MSI, havent seen a shot naked of the PWM yet. I hear the bios is usable in it's current state though.

[chew*]

i am running the same sticks as you, i also have 2 x 2 gig, and as far as i am aware this is the exact same chips that are in the reaper 1066's.

as for 8 gig? im not sure, i would expect it to work on this board, as it seems solid enough, and also has no disclaimer as such in the manual to suggest there could be issues.

the differance between 800 and 1066? from what i have seen not a lot, tighter timings can companstae for the mhz differance (i have both the gold OCZ 800 mhz(8 gig) and plats 1066's(4 gig))

@chew* did you notice any noticeable differance with the mem clock skew set to +300?, i remember you mentioning it somewhere?

i currently have it set to -300 on channel A (mem slots) and all seems good, did you get higher clocks with the advance 300?

-150 for D9's
will get to the OCZ golds and plats later.

Gotta put something together for the wife to keep her happy and off my highly sensitive setups in my room....

[FoxRacR17]

Well it does say in the manual for the mobo on page 2-11 that it is primarily due to a cpu limitation of the IMC that they will run at 800 with 4 sticks. Oh well, I just ordered another 2 sticks anyways so we will see what happens. I'll post back here to let you guys know if I can get all 4 sticks running at 1066MHz.

[shaolin95]

Depends on what boards your comparing, this is a ddr II variant FX, versus my GX gigabyte, I think this board has alot more potential.

I can get the gigabyte to do some preety crazy stuff but that is not the norm for most users.

I think this asus will surpass it in the right hands.

As far as ddrIII boards the jury is still out. Bios's for all of them are to fresh atm.

The gigabyte has the "potential" to be better than the asus ddrIII variant because of the better quality compenents used to make it (namely PWM ) whether they can get the bios to play nice though is another question.

Not sure about the MSI, havent seen a shot naked of the PWM yet. I hear the bios is usable in it's current state though.

Thanks for the reply...yeah I am actually talking about DDR3 mobos so since both are still new I guess I would go with Gigabyte this time because it has extra Sata and the higher build quality you mentioned.

[afireinside]

Anyone notice voltage oddities with the 0903 bios? 1.55v bios = 1.55v windows, 1.565v bios = 1.465v windows, 1.6v bios = 1.5v windows. When I first got the board 1.5v BIOS set would pass OCCT at 3.7ghz. With this new BIOS it will insta BSOD. 1.6V is going fine so far (4 minutes LOL) so I have my fingers crossed...

[dennilfloss]

That's odd indeed.

[walno1]

Anyone notice voltage oddities with the 0903 bios? 1.55v bios = 1.55v windows, 1.565v bios = 1.465v windows, 1.6v bios = 1.5v windows. When I first got the board 1.5v BIOS set would pass OCCT at 3.7ghz. With this new BIOS it will insta BSOD. 1.6V is going fine so far (4 minutes LOL) so I have my fingers crossed...

Yes, I have 1.375 in bios. CPU-Z shows 1.275

[mattkosem]

Anyone notice this board overvolting by .05v? I've got 1.55 set in the bios and I see 1.60 at idle and 1.57 under load.

--Matt

[chew*]

that bios 0903 matt?

Fwiw asus has always overvolted on me regardless of socket/cpu brand etc etc...my maxximus overvolts the PLL voltage by a hell of a lot..even when set manually to 1.5 it measures 1.6v

[Jethro]

cpu/ram arrived today! Board tomorrow woooT!

[mattkosem]

that bios 0903 matt?

Fwiw asus has always overvolted on me regardless of socket/cpu brand etc etc...my maxximus overvolts the PLL voltage by a hell of a lot..even when set manually to 1.5 it measures 1.6v

It happened on the 0801 that came with it and in 0903. Temps are only breaking 41C under load at 3.7, so I'm probably okay with that voltage.

It might be my imagination, but 801 seemed to clock better...

--Matt

[Lathode]

Pretty sweet deal: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.165049

[HardCode]

My M4A79 tends to overvolt by about .025v but I don't mind because it still provides a much much better vcore than my mATX gigabyte board I was running. I've also noticed that I don't need as much voltage with this board as I did with my gigabyte. I haven't finished fully testing it yet but 4.0GHz now boots and is stable at 1.5v instead of 1.55v like it required before, and my daily OC only requires 1.4v instead of 1.45v.

I'll post more results in my own thread

[Hudson]

Has anyone found chipset drivers for this board other than from the cd or asus website?

[G0ldBr1ck]

Has anyone found chipset drivers for this board other than from the cd or asus website?

I think the newest chipset drivers will be in the catalyst install suite if your using a ATI card youve probly installed them.

[xman01]

Pretty sweet deal: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.165049

thanks for pointin out that deal
was in 2 minds about whether to go ddr3 or ddr2 route. that sealed it off
also ordered ocz plat 1066 and a core contact freezer