[Fr3ak] EVGA nForce 750i SLI FTW review

[Scratch[USA]]

I flashed my bios with a cd on my 680i se(grr)... i'm pretty sure you can do it with this 750i right?

Or USB stick

[Ghost742]

yup download HP drive key boot utility. then you should be able to boot from a flash drive

[Fr3ak]

You don't need a bootable USB stick. Just a normal USB stick with the BIOS on it seems to be fine. You can enter AWD-flash right at bootup, so everything is fine.

I am having trouble with the E8500 ES I have. That chip seems to be an early sample and a terrible clocker when it comes to max FSB. Seems like I will have to use my E6600 under the single stage. The E8500 is a little troublesome and not even stable at 3.6GHz as it seems.

Edit: Ok, ignore that, I fail for the same trick all over again: USB sticks at bootup are the devil if first boot device is set to removerable ^^

But the max FSB of the E8500 sucks nontheless, at least with a multi of 6, 7 is even worse.

[SavageFuDD]

Well I got mine, Swaped it from the EVGA 680i board,, Vista took care of the drivers, and all is good so fare without a fresh install of vista,,

Well Im AT 400fsb 1.28 in the bios with a droop at 1.22, so far so good in orthose,, My other board would laugh at me running 400 fsb @ 1.28 I had it at 1.36 just to get 3.6? and 1.475 with a droop to 1.42 to get 4.050 on this chip,, GOOD! I thought it was the board holding me back, and was hoping it wasn't my chip.

My e3110 will be here tomorrow,, shesh I hope all this works out,, I love my SLI to mouch lol..


Freak you think I need to update the bios?


EVGA 750i, E8400. 4 gig of OCZ Reaper 1066, 2 8800 gt's Superclocks

[Fr3ak]

What is your BIOS version.

[SavageFuDD]

Ver 6.00 pg I think


I edited my last post a bit

[Fr3ak]

Seems to be the same one I have, so it should be alright.

[GOZR]

Freak what is the serial number of the E8500 ?

[Fr3ak]

"Intel confidential"

I have no idea what week. Will check tomorrow. It is a very early sample from last year.

Looks like the E8500 I have tops out at about 510 MHz FSB on air. Guess I will do some 3D tests first before I try the QX9650 tomorrow.

[GOZR]

Lol

[SavageFuDD]

NOPE!! I got a crap chip!!

Though Im getting less volts to run Im still higher than I'd like to be!! My 680i board I had vcore set 1.475 with a droop at 1.42, and this board I'm set to 1.435 with a droop at 1.38, it is better, but you know thats just not as good as some of the other chips iv seen,, I know that the max for the chip is 1.45v and I pushed it on the other board, that may have done it to,, Hopefully the e3110 im getting tomorrow will do good..

Now I will say one thing, all the board volt are in the green NB is the highest at 1.4 v

Stable on the 680i at 1.45

[SavageFuDD]

Well it failed orthose at 1.425, got it at 1.45 the max, with a droop of 1.39v, going to run it overnight and see what happens..


Looking forwerd to seeing what you will do FREAK,,

[BrokeDown]

Watching this thread. I think I'm done with my AMD setup right now. I'm really for a 45nm C2D or C2Q, just don't know what cpu to pick.

[FlimFlam00]

BTW everyone, Evga is holding a second 750i FTW contest/giveaway.

[Fr3ak]

Sorry to keep you guys waiting for quite some time, but I ran into some probems today.

I am very happy with the board so far. It is a very good overclocker and in comparisson to 680i, it's lightyears ahead when it comes to booting and oc behaviour in general. I noticed when the CPU is overclocked to the edge of stability, the board hangs at bootup (only sometimes and very are) and needs one or two resets. Memory overclocks very good too, a little better than what I was able to run on P35.

When I wanted to test 3D, I ran into some problems though. I am already in contact with EVGA, so the problem is known and being worked on. Seems like I chose the only video card, that is troublesome with the board: a overclocked 9600 GT.

If you are not aware of what Nvidia implemented into the 9600 GT, I recommend this article by W1zzard: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/N...Shady_9600_GT/. In short: The GPU of the 9600 GT can be overclocked in two ways: using a software tool like Rivatuner or by increasing the PCI-E frequency. "Now where is the problem?", you might think. The problem is: you cannot adjust the PCI-e frequency in the BIOS on a 750i chipset yet. Nor is there any tool out that allows you to make changes to the PCI-e frequency. Note, that this is my assumption and I might be totally off: I think the 750i chipsets adjusts the PCI-e frequency depending on the load of the video card.

What does that mean in my case? That means the 9600 GT is being overclocked dynamically depending on the load because the PCI-e frequency most likely changes on the fly. That results in a black screen i.e. a crashing video card once it enters 3D mode, because I am using a factory overclocked version from Zotac (amp! edition), which is clocked to 725MHz on the GPU by default at a PCI-e freqiency of 100 MHz. Now if the PCI-e frequency is around 120 MHz, the real GPU speed could be closer to 800 MHz which makes the card crash once it enters 3D mode. Again: the 9600 GT is the only video card I know, that is being overclocked by increasing the PCI-e frequency, so any other video card will work just fine. A test with my old 7300 GT proved that. No issues whatsoever.

Luckily, doing hardware reviews is my job and I tested the exact same video cards on a Asus Striker 2 780i and a EVGA 780i reference board a while ago using a QX9650 @ 400 * 9, 3.6GHz and DDR2-800 4-4-4-8. I used the 174.12, but the performance is the same with 174.74. I tested booth drivers with several video cards and results were within a small margin. With that config, I got 24,130 3DMarks in 05 with cards running 745/1798/1120 MHz in SLI. Using a E8500 at the same speed on the 750i, I got 24,249 3DMarks with cards running at 630/1503/1120 MHz with 2 cores less and half the L2-cache. 3DMark05 does not make use of more than 2 cores, but might benefit from the bigger cache, so the E8500 has a slight disadvantage in this test. Ok, now how can I compare those 2 results without knowing what the video cards real clockspeed was? I tested the cards for max clocks without artifacts. I didn't see any on the 750i, so I assume the real clockspeed of the cards was around or less than what it was on the 780i. That means 750i is as fast as 780i.

I know this expalnation and assumption is very adventurous to say the least, but as I won't have other video cards until monday, that's all I can do for now.

[mascaras]

thnks for the Info Fr3ak !

[melanko]

Cool Cool. Added the 750i to my Newegg wishlist.

[Fr3ak]

Added the screenshots in the previous post.

The boards performance is great. I got some really promising scores with the 2 9600GTs on air, considering the circumstances without knowing what the GPU speed really is. Furthermore: in case the chipset changes the PCI-e frequency on the fly, means performance will even be better when the speed is fixed and not changing all the time.

9600 GT results at HWbot: http://www.hwbot.org/quickSearch.do?...0+GT+%28279%29

[Don_Dan]

Again: the 9600 GT is the only video card I know, that is being overclocked by increasing the PCI-e frequency, so any other video card will work just fine. A test with my old 7300 GT proved that. No issues whatsoever.

Are you sure that the 9600 GT is the only video card that does this? I thought all Geforce 9 do it, so could you test it with a 9800 GTX?

Another request: Could you please run some Everest memory benchmarks?

[SavageFuDD]

Anyone explain wy I can hit 500 x 8 with 1.425v, droop to 1.38, and I can't break 450 x 9 with 1.45v,? on a E3110 or the E8400, now if I feed it more volts, I can get it up there, but I would rather have it less than 1.45v in the bios.

Its gotta be the chip,it can't be the board its running sweet so fare for 4 hours in orhtose at a 2000 FSB with 1.425v and a droop to 1.38v on the chip, all the board voltages are 1 notch above stock.

Can I post pics after Im done?

[drizzt5]

Savage do you have any complaints about noise from the NB?

[SavageFuDD]

not sure what you mean?

[drizzt5]

Is the North bridge fan noisy for you?
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...=184096&page=2
Here mascaras says it is...

I may actually be getting this board.... i hope the price does not go up.

[Ghost742]

its the same nb heatsink as the 780i, at 100% i cant sleep 60% is a bit better.
i would place a better fan on there.

[drizzt5]

What fan would be good to purchase to go along with the 750i...to replace the stock NB fan?