Quote Originally Posted by vulture_g7 View Post
@Ket Thx for your answer. Actually there is a good point to this: When playing games where the first 2 cores are mainly used, you can bump them to 5ghz more easily while keeping the other 2 at (much) lower speeds improving the overall cpu temperatures/stability while getting all the needed speed. It may not make sense for 24/7 oc but it is a practically very useful feature for gamers which is a large part of ext4 gen3 (and extreme boards in general) owners.
The Extreme boards are meant for overclockers. I can suggest adding the feature but its fairly unlikely it'll get added as 4x cores @ lets say 4GHz are always going to be better for games that utilise multi core CPUs than just 2x cores @ 5GHz.

Quote Originally Posted by videogamer323 View Post
i5-2500k
Z68 EXTREME4 GEN3
Mushkin Enhanced Blackline 16gb 2x model:996988
2x 5850 xfire (tested with single card and onboard with same results as well)
corsair ax850
crucial m4 64gb (OS) and 256gb (Games), WD 450gb VelociRaptor (Data)
6x 120 radiator space (CPU, Mofsets cooled so far, GPU when I get a next gen ATI/Nvidia card. Debating on chipset and/or memory just for fun)

I have more of a cool head now after beating my head against the wall and being pissed earlier after spending all this money and not having it work the way I planned.
I seem to be having an issue and I think maybe the board is at fault? I can set everything to stock and it will boot, change only the spread spectrum to disabled and it will not boot... Is this normal or am I missing something? I get either a F1, F2, 71 error followed by a reboot or a 70 error that just hangs until I power the machine back off (hold the button or flip the power supply rocker switch). I have contacted ASrock about the issue, but have yet to hear back after days... customer service seems to be VERY lacking.

Right now I am running 4.5ghz with all settings stock except voltage around 1.4 on cpu. I know this is high, but my temps never go above 60c full load at 4.5ghz and left the volts there from my 4.5+Ghz overclocking attempts. It works, but anything over 45 multiplier ends in the same result above with the same error codes. I am really at a loss, but I don't want to be stuck with a bad board either. I have tried disabling all power saving C states and messing with Turbo settings as per other users results. What I don't understand is the first day I got the rig up and running I had spread spectrum disabled and I was at 5.0ghz and was stable for a few hours of LinX, had something like 8+ score in Cinebench, next reboot and bam, won't boot past 45 multi.

As for temps stress testing (LinX, Prime95, OCCT and some Gaming @ 4.5ghz:
CPU hasn't gone above 60c (when I could, 5Ghz showed 69c)
Chipset hasn't gone above 50c yet.
mosfet is in the 30s
RAM is ever so slightly warm to the touch

I still have a few days to return the board to Amazon for either an exchange or refund...
Thank You for any help you can provide. I plan on working on this all night again...
If you suspect the board is faulty, return it. Alternatively try the beta UEFI, I'll put the link back up shortly.

Quote Originally Posted by tipes View Post
Hi Zoomee,

Once again I find myself in agreement - think Ket missed the point in my earlier post about voltage control and LLC on these boards not being as good as they should be, and leading to more volts/heat than necessary
for any given clock - even low ones. I am begining to think that a better quality board would have paid dividends, but fear I am stuck with this now. I still find it hard to believe my w cooling struggles, but again having invested
so heavily it will not be an easy choice to give up. How is it that the corsair H100 does better than a dual rad etc etc - does not make sense to me. I don't know where to go from here, but thanks kindly for your input again.
Glad to see I am not the only one with concerns about the absolute quality of these boards - given the price I think we should have expected and got better, but hey ho that life.

I was only hoping to go for 4.8 - 5ghz for fun and then dial back for 24/7.

Mark
Simply put, no OC is guaranteed. There is every possibility YOUR CPU is just not capable of more than ~4.6GHz.