First test with new cascade - some 3d...

[MusicIsMyLife]

On Dec 23th we (Hoschi, masterchorch and me) tested our new cascade, built by piotres during small christmas contest. The unit can hold -96 at 225 watt load.

We had no real goal, we only wanted to know what our cascade can handle. So we had some hardware:

• Core 2 Duo E6700
• Core 2 Duo E6850
• Core 2 Extreme QX6850
• Foxconn MARS (Thanks to Foxconn Germany )
• Asus Blitz Formula
• 2x 1GB Transcend DDR2-1200
• XFX 8800 GTS 512
• 2x Powercolor Radeon HD 3870

First we used Foxconn MARS, e6700 and my 8800 GTS 512. The e6700 did very well under mach2 so we wanted to know the limit with much colder temps. Unfortunately the cpu didn´t want to go really high (~5.050 was the limit) but it loves high fsb:



Max bootable was 632 mhz, so Foxconn MARS seems to be the real deal for high fsb.

The quick setup:




After this we plugged in our e6850. On Asus Blitz we couldn´t go higher than 572 fsb so that seemed to be the wall of this cpu. On MARS we didn´t expect higher clocks but never say never:



11 mhz higher fsb than on Asus Blitz is amazing. Again: MARS seem to be the real deal.

After this we did some 3d-benchmarks with my stock 8800 gts 512. Card was clocked to 800/2000/1100.

3DMark01:

3DMark03:

3DMark05:

Aquamark3:


Now we wanted to know how our cascade performs with quad. We used Asus Blitz (only because of 8+8 instead of 16+4 at Foxconn MARS), QX6850 and 2 HD 3870 from Powercolor. Cards were watercooled, had VGPU-mod and were clocked with 995/1300. The qx isn´t the best clocker so we only got ~4.8 ghz at ~1,8 volt through 3dmark06. With this clocks we got 23.518 points.

Unfortunately one 3870 died while we tried to get some more mhz out of the core.

After this we tried a quick wprime 32m:



During our tests we never had worse temps than -97.7 degrees – even with quad during 3dmark06. With dualcore our unit had always –100 or below. Really nice work, piotres.



Our setup wasn´t perfect but it was a nice start to see how our phase-unit performs. More to come.

Last but not least some little impressions:

quad at 500 mhz fsb with strap 1066 and boxed cooler:


good contact:


10s flat:


backplate Foxconn MARS:


setup with 2 HD 3870:


Thanks for reading…

[dinos22]

foxconn is doing well here and cascade is nice
imagine how well it would do with nicer CPUs >>> i tested my old E6700 on kayl cascade and validated up to 5.4GHz with it eek

let's see how good the X48+DDR3 will be
might even buy one for testing if not overly expensive since i've already got Gigabyte and Asus boards heh

you should look at kingpin's thread talking about insulating motherboards it will help you insulate your mobos better

[masterchorch]

jens my friend, tell me - are there any new results maybe from last evening?

[MusicIsMyLife]

jens my friend, tell me - are there any new results maybe from last evening?

Last saturday we tested our new cpu - a qx9650. First we used Foxconn MARS again. First try for spi 1m:



We had a couple of 8.500-runs. 8.4xx wasn´t possible but we didn´t try hard. With some tweaks it should be easy.

After this we did a quick am3-run with my stock cooled 8800 gts 512:



300k wasn´t possible. It seems that this is home of ddr3. But nearly 295k with aircooled graphiccard is quite ok.

After these quick tests we changed mainboard and graphic cards. Asus Maximus and two watercooled 3870 was our choice. But Maximus has a horrible coldboot-/-reboot-bug. While we could boot and reboot on Mars at -100 degrees or less, Maximus didn´t boot lower than -80. So we had to power and settle down our cascade after erery crash... At 4 am we had enough and ended without a good result.

Yesterday we met again and started with something really extrem - with boxed cooler. With Intel boxed we could easily run 434 fsb and we decided to use this as a good base. With cascade we startet at 434x12=5,208 mhz at 1.825 volt. Because we couldn´t reboot we benchmarked everything in a row. With the help of setfsb we got these results:







No screenshot from 2k3. But we have all compare-urls:

3DMark06: 26,064 points - currently no. 12 in HOF
3DMark05: 34,255 points - currently no. 20 in HOF
3DMark03: 82,296 points - currently no. 16 in HOF
3DMark01: 89,584 points (not a good run, no lod and no other tweaks - was 8th or 9th benchmark in a row )

It was a nice evening with some good results. Not the best but quite ok. Next step is a non-cold-bugged mainboard.

[Viss]

Nice results neighbour

[Sav]

nice cpu

[George_o/c]

Wow, great results man It's a pity that your motherboard is cold-bugged at such high temp ... Why don't you try a Maximus Extreme, a P5E64 WS Pro or a P5E3 ? Might be more lucky ... I'm suggesting these Asus X38 mobos, mainly because of their great performance, in spite of their DDR3 support ... Although as you said, it's high time you used some DDR3 ... The results are going to improve A LOT ! Gigabyte X48 DQ6 is also nice ...
I must admit though, your Foxconn is superb ... I've never had the chance to play with a Mars, but it seems to be really competitive, even in comparison with some X48 ones ... Is it modded ? Don't tell me fully stock ...

[MusicIsMyLife]

Nice results neighbour

nice cpu

Wow, great results man

Thank you.

I must admit though, your Foxconn is superb ... I've never had the chance to play with a Mars, but it seems to be really competitive, even in comparison with some X48 ones ... Is it modded ? Don't tell me fully stock ...

Foxconn MARS is completely unmodded. It´s a sample from Foxconn Germany which I have to send back in a few days.

This board is really fast clock for clock. Imagine this with 2x x16 for dualcard-setup....

Next stop will be a new board and in this case it would be better to switch to ddr3. We will see.

Our qx9650 seems to be a good clocker. Nearly 5.5 ghz for spi 1m with cascade isn´t to shabby.

[George_o/c]

Nice my friend I must say I'm taken aback by that mobo (Mars) ... Too bad you soon have to sent it back though

Hope we hear more from you

[MusicIsMyLife]

Nice my friend I must say I'm taken aback by that mobo (Mars) ...

Too bad you soon have to sent it back though

It´s a bit sad but it´s ok. We had alot of fun with it and now the next should have fun.

And who knows. Maybe we can our hands on new quantum force sometimes... *fingerscrossed*

Hope we hear more from you

Thanks, but it´s not only me. Hoschi and masterchorch did a great work too.

And yes, we will go on...

[George_o/c]

I'm terribly sorry, forgot to mention them ...

[funkflix]

Great results + cascade guys!

[MusicIsMyLife]

Great results + cascade guys!

Thanks Felix.

New mainboard and new cards on the way. Maximus Extreme and 2x 2900 XT should improve our score one more time.

[HousERaT]

Nice to see the Cascade in action. I remember it from the competition. Great scores benching.

[Solarfall]

great numbers bro.. keep tweaking those settings you never know you might be able to go even higher