EVGA 790i Ultra Overclocking Guide - Overclock.net

**Robilar** · 03-27-08

Latest Motherboard drivers:

For Windows XP: 15.17 Release Date: June 9, 2008

For Vista: 15.17 Release Date: June 9, 2008

(both available for download from nvidia.com)

CPU Compatibility List:
LINK

Latest Bios: P06

ftp://ftp.evga.com/bios/NF79_P06.iso

(ISO version)

-Added support for Wolfdale E7200 CPUs
-Improved KF 1066/1333, YF 1333/1600, WD 1333 overclocking stability
-DDR3 EPP-1600 stability improvements
-OS compatibility improvements
-ACPI compatibility fixes
-Auto_Overvoltaging tweaks
-NTune / Performance enhancements
-Added more options to save/restore of overclocking profiles

XFX P05 Bios:

http://www.xfxforce.com/web/support/supportCentral.jspa

From Dinos22:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...183119&page=32

"i've just done a load of RAM testing last night into the early hours of the morning

P05 bios officially solves corruption issues on reference boards

look like i was given correct advice yet again despite of some members' reservations"

Given that he is one of the top OC testers in the world (he works with king_pin) and was also one of the first guys to detect the problem (He tests and OC's for hardware makers), I'd say this is a solid endorsement.

Note that this issue only occured when overclocking DDR3 RAM on the 790i boards (all of them, Asus included. No word if the asus board has corrected this with its new 0704 bios release) to 1600mhz and beyond. Anything below that does not trigger issues.

I myself have not encountered it as the highest my ram is stable is 1590mhz (pretty amazing for $140 ram). The XFX 790i bios patch should resolve it for their boards as well.

Further confirmation from Anandtech with respect resolution of data corruption issues:

http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=460

"NIVIDIA has worked diligently the past few weeks to solve this problem and just recently released new BIOS code for the suppliers of the 790i SLI product. The updated BIOS code can be located at each suppliers website. We have throughly tested the P05 BIOS for the EVGA board and the 0704 BIOS from ASUS the last several days. We are glad to report that our problems with data corruption while overclocking are solved. The majority of our problems occurred with the FSB bus set around 1600~1800 (QDR) and memory set to Sync. We have tested other combinations in this range along with various voltage settings and so far we have not corrupted our drives again."

Spec PDF SheetLINK

Reviews:

Legion Hardware LINK

Quote:

When running Crysis in the DX10 mode we saw a 13% performance margin favouring the nForce 790i Ultra SLI at 1440x900 over the nForce 780i SLI chipset. Again an increase of 5fps at this resolution is quite a significant increase.

Legit Reviews XFX 790i Review:

http://legitreviews.com/article/700/1/

477 FSB on a QX6850.

HardwareSecrets ReviewLINK

Quote:

As its name implies, EVGA nForce 790i Ultra SLI motherboard is based on the latest high-end chipset from nVidia for the Intel platform. What is new on nForce 790i compared to its predecessor, 780i, is the support for DDR3 memories and PCI Express 2.0 support generated by the chipset itself – nForce 780i was in fact an nForce 680i with an additional nForce 200 bridge chip making the conversion between PCI Express 1.0 and PCI Express 2.0. Both chipsets support 3-way SLI mode, which allows three GeForce 8800 GTX’s or three GeForce 8800 Ultras to be connected together, and Quad SLI, allowing two GeForce 9800 GX2’s to be connected together and enjoining four GPU’s, as each GX2 is powered by two GPUs. Two of its three PCI Express x16 slots are PCI Express 2.0 and this motherboard has also two Firewire ports, optical SPDIF output and more.

Other basic features from nForce 790i include support for the latest 1,600 MHz external bus (nForce 780i supports only up to 1,333 MHz) and DDR3 memories (up to 8 GB) up to DDR3-1333 or up to DDR3-2000 if EPP (Enhanced Performance Profile, a.k.a. SLI-ready) memories are used. This motherboard doesn’t accept DDR2 memories.

Quote:

The Good
• Thanks to the 790i, overclocking is no longer a weakness of the nVidia chipsets.
• 490fsb easily obtainable on a Q6600 - 508fsb on a QX9650
• Insane range of voltage options.
• Performance on par or better than a lot of Intel chipset boards.
• Great layout with tons of innovative features.

The Bad
• If it ends up costing anything near £280 - the price!!!

Note!: The 175.16 Nvidia Video Card Drivers (for Windows XP) cause static feedback in audio (similar to the old 680i boards). The 174.74 beta's work fine. Apparently this is only in conjunction with SLI'd video cards and a Creative Labs X-FI Card.

Asus Striker II Extreme new 0801 bios: http://strony.aster.pl/pmpcfg/PC/ASU...TREME/0801.zip

790i Owners List:

Robilar EVGA

Cognoscenti EVGA

LitlRatt EVGA

GT Hawk

archimedes916 EVGA

Gorf79 EVGA

Inuyasha1771 EVGA

Sergery EVGA

holty EVGA

Scooby-Snack EVGA

Watts XFX

Fuzzdad XFX

Thunderer ASUS

Nuclearjock ASUS

Dan12288 XFX

duckie EVGA

Mhill EVGA

Krenko EVGA

cognoscenti · 03-27-08

Stock setup

cognoscenti · 03-27-08

A look through the std bios settings

Litlratt · 03-27-08

What mem cog?

cognoscenti · 03-27-08

Lol I haven't got the ram yet, still trying to decide what to go for.

Litlratt · 03-27-08

Step up will only cost me $80. Mem prices are holding me back.

joemaniaci · 03-27-08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Litlratt

Step up will only cost me $80. Mem prices are holding me back.

same here.

rRav3n · 03-27-08

has the 790 got a crappy little fan like the 780, and how does it mount in that huge northbridge cooler ... cheers

2Luke2 · 03-27-08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Litlratt

Step up will only cost me $80. Mem prices are holding me back.

Same here lol..

2Luke2 · 03-27-08

More pics... lol

Btw anyone else konw if there is a pretty good gain in performance moving to the 790 from the 780?

Edit: Trigger finger is itching... RAM

03-27-08	#2 (permalink)
cognoscenti 51° 31' 0 N 0° -6' 0 E Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Winebar Posts: 4,144 Rep: 414 Unique Rep: 187 Trader Rating: 3	Stock setup __________________ The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.--Augustine (354-430) Q6600 @ 4017.37 MHz on Striker II Q6600 3802.47 MHz (422.5 * 9) 790i Ultra Q6600 4152.04 MHz (461.34 * 9) 8-8-8-18 790i Ultra Last edited by cognoscenti : 03-29-08 at 05:52 PM.

03-27-08	#3 (permalink)
cognoscenti 51° 31' 0 N 0° -6' 0 E Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Winebar Posts: 4,144 Rep: 414 Unique Rep: 187 Trader Rating: 3	A look through the std bios settings Attached Thumbnails __________________ The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.--Augustine (354-430) Q6600 @ 4017.37 MHz on Striker II Q6600 3802.47 MHz (422.5 * 9) 790i Ultra Q6600 4152.04 MHz (461.34 * 9) 8-8-8-18 790i Ultra Last edited by cognoscenti : 03-29-08 at 07:47 PM.

03-27-08	#5 (permalink)
cognoscenti 51° 31' 0 N 0° -6' 0 E Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Winebar Posts: 4,144 Rep: 414 Unique Rep: 187 Trader Rating: 3	Lol I haven't got the ram yet, still trying to decide what to go for. __________________ The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.--Augustine (354-430) Q6600 @ 4017.37 MHz on Striker II Q6600 3802.47 MHz (422.5 * 9) 790i Ultra Q6600 4152.04 MHz (461.34 * 9) 8-8-8-18 790i Ultra Last edited by cognoscenti : 03-27-08 at 11:06 AM.

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EVGA 790i Ultra Overclocking Guide

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