Biostar P45 = WOW!

[dinos22]

Hi guys

A new toy has been taking away a lot of my attention recently that my Team.AU team mate Josh (moloko) left behind after our last benching session for me to check out

well i was a little curious and all and have now had a good play over a week or so and i must say that i am very surprised how good these boards are >>> from bios to the way they've been built


i won't bore you too much as i have been concentrating on SuperPi efficiency at 600+Mhz FSB for the moment and results will just speak for themselves

here are the settings which give me the best results so far

TESTING RIG:

M/B : BIOSTAR TP I45 (BIOS:626)
CPU : Core2 Duo E8500(Q740A497) great CPU this one
CPU cooling : TTBig Typhoon
Chipset Cooling : stock with extra fan
Mem : 2GB DDR2 PC10000 Corsair Dominator "dead" kit for CAS4 << still works eeek even it tons of errors in memtest heheh wow
VGA : PCI GFX Card
HDD : Samsung 160gb ide
OS : Windows XP SP3
USB wireless mouse and PS2 keyboard

SETTINGS
[BIOS SETUP] O.N.E
Over-Clocking Navigator [Manual OverClock]
Intel(R) SpeedStep(tm) : Disabled
Ratio CMOS Setting : ×6 (change higher for benching subzero obviously)
CPU Frequency Setting : 570(boot)
Over Clock Retry Count : 2
FSB Compensation: Enabled
FSB(Bsel) To NorthBridge Latch : 1333
DRAM Frequency : DDR2-1140
DDR2 Enhance Mode : Disabled

DRAM Timing Configuration
DDR2 RCOMP Configuration : 2
Static tREAD Value : AUTO
Configure DRAM Timing by SPD : Enabled 
[EDIT] this will give you CAS5 clocks and PL10 past 600MHz FSB
for PL9 past 600MHz FSB you need to manually set CAS4 timings

Clock Gen Configuration
PCIE Frequency Setting : 100
CPU Clock Skew Control : 200ps
(G)MCH Clock Skew Control : 100ps
CPU Clock Driving Control : Auto

Voltage Configuration
CPU Voltage : SET WHAT IS REQUIRED FOR STABILITY AT MHZ YOU ARE BENCHING ON
DDR Voltage : +0.700v (use more depending on RAM)
Chipset Voltage : +0.600v
FSB Voltage : +0.40v
CPU Core1 GTL Ref Voltage : 0.63*VTT
CPU Core2 GTL Ref Voltage : 0.67*VTT
MCH GTL Ref Voltage : Auto
CPU PLL Voltage : 1.5v

i also disabled Multicore Computing under CPU section for max Superpi with single core otherwise enabled for 3D benching

after some trial and error i am now easily able to benchmark at 600+ MHz FSB in single core or dual core settings

check out the efficiency of this board (stable up to 611MHz FSB with these settings)



these are not the only tweaks left....so with some more work 3.6GHz flat sub12m is definitely achievable


I do have a major problem with the board. It does not run very well at all with a 9800GX2 even when i reset the bios for stock settins it has to power cycle to even start .................the way biostar engineers have been going i would not be surprised to see a new bios fix this very soon

when they fix that problem this board will be just WOOOOOOW

my MCH is clearly not as strong as some of the other benchmarkers with superhigh FSB but i must say even with what i am getting i am really really impressed right now

i hope some of the bios settings tips will save you guys a bit of time and send you in the right direction