ASUS Striker II Extreme

[Trigger5521]

I had to use the 1 run trial version. Hope this helps.

http://service.futuremark.com/home.a...&resultType=19

Not much difference vs 2 285's

[owcraftsman]

hmmm that's not very promising. I see you have 4x2GB memory and from what I know on the subject,
very few are able to run 8GB all four Dimm slots loaded at rated spec above 1100 8-8-8- timings.
So what is your memory running at and was PhysX disabled?

[Trigger5521]

hmmm that's not very promising. I see you have 4x2GB memory and from what I know on the subject,
very few are able to run 8GB all four Dimm slots loaded at rated spec above 1100 8-8-8- timings.
So what is your memory running at and was PhysX disabled?

My Mem settings are in my sig(also in the everest widget on the screen shot)...8GB's was not easy to overclock on the SIIE but I have had it nice and stable for a while now. Can't see how that would affect Vantage.

I did not disable PhysX. Free Vantage will not allow you to change any settings at all..so what ever the default is what I ran.

Edit: screen shot with more sys info

[slim142]

Trigger
1280x1024 everything default please. Thanks!

[owcraftsman]

Would you run Heaven DX10 at default setting and post up results for that please.

[Trigger5521]

Owcraftsman, don't have Heaven 1.0 installed. Ran 2.0 at the same settings you had for 1.0 1024x768 DX10.

Slim 3DMark06 at 1280x1024 all default

Also interesting to note the GPU fans hardly spin up at all on these demos, heaven does a bit 3Dmark 06 is quite.

Probably have to wait from drivers to mature a bit to see better results, one thing is for sure I can run games at 2560x1600 a hell of a lot better than my 8800Gt's ever could.

[slim142]

I expected 3dmark to be higher than that. But again, true game performance is what matters at the end.

[Trigger5521]

I expected 3dmark to be higher than that. But again, true game performance is what matters at the end.

Well they do beat the more expensive GTX 285's in SLI with a 320bit bus vs 512 on the 285's.

I would compare the 470's to GTX 275's from last generation. 480's are more comparable to the GTX 285.

I also think you need to run at higher res to stretch their legs. Min framerates are also a strong point.

[owcraftsman]

I didn't catch that and didn't realize Heaven V2 was out I'll have to try that for comparison sake but I don't think there will be much difference
Thanks for posting that!

[Trigger5521]

I didn't catch that and didn't realize Heaven V2 was out I'll have to try that for comparison sake but I don't think there will be much difference
Thanks for posting that!

Please post that result with heaven 2.0.

Are you able to run 2560x1600 heaven 2.0 on the 285's?

[owcraftsman]

My desktop extends to 1920x1200 max but I hope this helps.

[Sangrak]

I finally ordered an SSD this last week and I should receive it mid next week. I decided on the OCZ Vertex LE 100GB. Got a pretty sweet deal on it through Amazon.

I've got a couple question for you Trigger. Did you encounter any hiccups when installing Win 7? Did you disable superfetch?

[Trigger5521]

No issues at all installing Win7 in the Intel's I flashed them to the latest BIOS first. Setup the raid 0 in bios and ran the install right off the DVD. I did not have to disable superfetch.

Still loving them too, OS is so much faster... OS IO operations were killing your WIN 7 experience. SSD's save the day.

[Sangrak]

I'm happy to hear the SSD's are working out well. Are you using the default Windows 7 sata drivers or the nvidia ones?

Edit: Never mind. I forgot that you're using it in an array. Thanks for the info. I'll post my outcome once I get the SSD. Hopefully it'll have the latest bios installed as I've heard OCZ's flash utility doesn't play nice with nvidia controllers.

[Sangrak]

Got my Vertex LE a couple of days ago. Flashed it to the newest FW, which was a pain. I had to do it on my HTPC since it has an intel chipset (flash utility only seems to play nice when AHCI is enabled.)

I've got to install Vista first before installing my windows 7 upgrade...Microsoft upgrade policy sucks arse.

[slim142]

Great to hear Sangrak!

Btw, Have you guys been testing latest BIOS releases? Like 1203, 1301, 1401 to see if overclocking improved at all (or at least helped estbilizing?)?

[Sangrak]

I've been using 1301 for awhile now. I saw no difference in 1203 and 1301. Both perform well and OC exactly the same.

On my system, 1401 failed to load performance counters (event log: loadperf.) I haven't seen anyone else comment about it, though. I had no other issues with it other than that. 1401 is an ATI specific bug fix as I understand it.

[slim142]

Yep, but sometimes there is more than just the published changelog.

A lot of minor/internal changes are sometimes not published, making some releases more stable/better performers even though they dont mention it.

[Trigger5521]

I'm still on 1202. No time to test a new bios right now and I'm not sure I have the patience to start trying to clock this machine any higher. We all know it cam be a major trial and error effort mostly on the error side.

[slim142]

word
just wanted to check

[Sangrak]

I got my SSD up and running. I can't believe how fast this thing boots up. Haven't had time to do any benchmarks yet but I'll post some results when I can get around to it this weekend.

[Trigger5521]

Good to hear your up and running. Throw some crystal benchmarks up when you have time, I'm curious to see how the new OCZ's compare to Intel's.

[Sangrak]

Good to hear your up and running. Throw some crystal benchmarks up when you have time, I'm curious to see how the new OCZ's compare to Intel's.

Here ya go. A single Vertex LE ain't too shabby, even when it's not running in AHCI. The performance is still much better on an Intel chipset, but I'm not complaining. It's a hell of a lot faster than my Velociraptor.

Vertex LE/Velociraptor

[Trigger5521]

Not shabby at all, the new Sandforce controller is the real deal. If you ever decide to add a second drive and go RAID 0 for more space don't worry about trim or performance loss. I found the work around.

All you have to do is use PerfectDisk 10, run "consolidate free space" this moves everything in order on the drive.

Then run a little app called free space cleaner. This guy basically writes data to all of the free space filling every block until the drive is full then it completely wipes it. Take all of 5 mins to do. I do it about once a month just for the hell of it. I still haven't noticed any real peformance loss with regular use.

Here's a bench of my intel's in raid 0 to compare to your OCZ LE. I bet the LE's would kill in raid 0.

[Sangrak]

Good tip on the TRIM workaround. I had just done research on PerfectDisk but i didn't know about freespace cleaner. Do you have a good download site to get that from? The google searches are coming up with a bunch of spyware infested sites.

Definitely, striping these SSD's show massive improvement. I hated having to rebuild my array when things went awry (when I used to run striped drives long ago.) Seeing all the performance you get through these SSD's in RAID 0 makes me tempted to reconsider doing it again.

On a different note, here's my Heaven benchmark running my 2 oc'd 280's @ 1920 x 1200.