**Official** Asrock Z68 Gen3 Extreme7 & Extreme4 thread

[tipes]

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

[Ket]

@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.

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.

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.

[zoomee]

Whilst i completely agree ket , whats wierd and makes me question my boards stability is that one day i can do a full IBT x50 run on max followed directly by a 12hour prime 95 blend to find the very next day the board wont even post. Error 71 is very comnon (problem initialising the southbridge).

I really think the board is not at fault but bios work needs to be done to add more stability. I've found the same results using both different ram and cpus which have been tested 100% ok on other boards....

Im not giving up on ASRock dont get me wrong. Just think we need more bios love

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

[Ket]

Well, your error code does point to a hardware fault either with your connected devices or the board itself, not software.

[vulture_g7]

@Ket

My thanks that you'll suggest it even if they decide against the feature It will certainly be useful to me and with the majority of games , as most don't utilize more than 2 cores.

Edit:

Come to think about it, since it's definitely not a 24/7 thing, wouldn't it be better if they integrated that feature in the Xtreme tuning utility instead (and not in the UEFI) and used on demand? I don't even know if it's possible, just a thought....

[tipes]

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.



If you suspect the board is faulty, return it. Alternatively try the beta UEFI, I'll put the link back up shortly.



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

Ket,

Out of respect for others views etc I shall not argue with you on this point _ but i do think you have missed my point entirely. I shall not get in too a long winded explanation, but my cpu is capable
of 4.6 and more, but i am still convinced that bios or board design is having a detrimental effect on o clocking and stability, as I nsaid before my voltage is still very low for the o clock I have fully stable at
4.5 but for reasons mentioned previously I will struggle to go higher, but it is deffo not a cpu limitation on this occasion. Please re read my previous two posts. LLC for example is to my experience quite
flaky on this board, especially if used in conjunction with offset.

Mark

[Ket]

I shall investigate all claims about the E4G3 board when I have one, I can't always get boards off my contacts and sometimes I have to dig into my own pockets and find the cold hard cash. Hopefully I'll be able to grab a board before christmas but we shall see as I'm already coughing up cash for christmas gifts to the tune of £400 this week alone >_<

[vulture_g7]

Just to report that with all uefi versions (1.00 , 1.10 , 1.10D) if I set Spread Spectrum to Disabled instead of Auto, it won't boot if the multiplier is set at anything else but default clocks

[Ket]

Did you fully clear the CMOS as described on the first page?

[vulture_g7]

Yes I did clear it. It doesn't bother me as it doesn't have any practical effect (positive or negative) on my overclocks, I just found it weird and thought I'd report it.

[Stormad]

Hey Ket, so the board is starting to work better, now pretty stable at 4.9 with offset at +0.065V hyperthreading off, the problem is that when i manually input the Volts its stable at 1.38V now with the offset it goes to 1.424V and the temps go over 80°C. And here is the problem i can't lower the offset even with 0.005V because it won't boot. So when or if they do make a new bios they should adjust this feature that the Volts don't go to low in idle mode or when booting or we should be able to input the throttling voltages ourselves. My bios is the 1.10b thats the newest bios i found! And not forgetting to say this, the throttling feature with the offset Voltages is fantastic they just need to fine tune it and it will be stable 5Ghz with around 1.4V.

[TEDY]

http://www.multiupload.com/KQNPDGHZL1

[Ket]

FYI for anyone that handn't noticed, links are back up.

[Stormad]

Thanks for this bios but with this one its not better, the offset i can lower to +0.030V any lower than this and no booting into windows and the Voltages were higher to begin with so with these settings the Volts go up to 1.432 instead of the previous bios I had installed, 1.10b with offset +0.065V the Volts were 1.424 in windows.
Hoping on better bios!

[chief gunney]

Hi all. Even though it's another brand, I read over at ASUS ROG forum that approximately 10% of K series chips can reach and HOLD 4.8 -5.0ghz overclocks. Approx. 40% can reach and hold 4.6~4.7ghz, and 50% can do 4.4~4.5ghz. - MIV extreme oc guide. A good read and maybe some hints that could help peeps.

[Unoid]

Hows my OC looking?

2600k
ASROCK E4 G3
16gb g.skill pc1600 9-9-9-24-2t

running x48 at 1.3vcore LLC @1

running on a water setup dual 140mm rad, apogee GTX waterblock, Temps seem higher than I'd like, perhaps un-optimal seating.



Validation:

[vulture_g7]

your temps are good, but not much lower than my simple air setup @ the same ghz, about 5-7c lower. I'd expect an additional 10c lower with a setup like that....then again, as I've never used water cooling myself I may just be over-optimistic and your temps are just fine.

[fullerms]

Quick question. Does the included Virtu software work with Radeaon HD4870's? I intent to retain my current graphics card, and it will be shame if I can't use it with Virtu.

[vulture_g7]

I don't think Virtu cares what the discrete gfx card is. AFAIK it just uses the CPU + its internal gfx unit where available.

[Ket]

Correct, Virtu doesn't care.

[radier]

ASRock Z68 Extreme7 Gen3 UEFI 1.33

- Fixes problems with Logitech G3
- Fixes input lag for OC-Tweaker menu

http://www.pctreiber.net/asrock-bios-downloads?did=376

[iMik]

I have Extreme4 with latest bios 1.10D and Logitech G510 is only working in windows. Every time I
need to get into bios I have to plug another keyboard.

[radier]

ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 UEFI 1.12

Improve keyboard and mouse compatibility under BIOS.

http://www.pctreiber.net/asrock-bios-downloads?did=377


ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 UEFI 1.23

Improve keyboard and mouse compatibility under BIOS.

http://www.pctreiber.net/asrock-bios-downloads?did=378

[tipes]

Attention

Z68 Gen 3 Ext 7

New Beta bios up on Asrock site Bios L1.32 dated 24/11
Info says Increase compatibilty of mouse and keyboards.

You'll find it in the Beta zone for the main page

[tipes]

Blimey - very quiet in here - has everybody gone to sleep as well as Asrock.Lol.

Mark