Asus Rampage Formula (X48) Thread

[ericeod]

Originally Posted by Ghostleader

I don´t agree with error10 that it's strictly based on timing, you have the FSB and strap to consider also and if you push higher volt through the NB you can sometimes force a lower tRD.

So maybe if you push NB to 1,61+ you can make it, but is it worth it.....


Then again, if you can reach 950 444 12 you should be able to reach 1141 555 15 tRD7 Moderate or Strong which should give you little better performance.

Check with Everest.

I know Blamless pushes more voltage through his NB to get a lower tRD. But the amount of voltage needed might be more then it is worth (he pushes a lot of voltage!).

[error10]

Originally Posted by Ghostleader

I don´t agree with error10 that it's strictly based on timing, you have the FSB and strap to consider also and if you push higher volt through the NB you can sometimes force a lower tRD.

So maybe if you push NB to 1,61+ you can make it, but is it worth it.....

Obviously the FSB and strap directly affect the northbridge timing, which is what I said. Where is your disagreement? Go reread this.

[TFL Replica]

Well the default tRD seems to be 12. Anything lower is better than 12 ... It doesn't seem to have that much of an effect on real world benchmarks anyway.

[Ghostleader]

Originally Posted by error10

Obviously the FSB and strap directly affect the northbridge timing, which is what I said. Where is your disagreement? Go reread this.

What you wrote was

Originally Posted by error10

You can't get more out of the transaction booster with more voltage. It's strictly based on timing. You're going to be stuck at 8, I think, unless you perhaps change your strap. Even then I doubt it.

I don´t agree with "It's strictly based on timing", okey you mention "unless you perhaps change your strap" sorry about that , but what about FSB?

I have read that article and others that Anandtech have wrote about the same matter. They are really good.

Originally Posted by ericeod

I know Blamless pushes more voltage through his NB to get a lower tRD. But the amount of voltage needed might be more then it is worth (he pushes a lot of voltage!).

I do the same. Worth it hmmm got to find the limit.

Originally Posted by TFL Replica

Well the default tRD seems to be 12. Anything lower is better than 12 ... It doesn't seem to have that much of an effect on real world benchmarks anyway.

Well, why OC at all

[TFL Replica]

Ehhh OCing does have real world benefits. But in all the games I've tried, the effect of 3 point reduction of tRD falls within the margin of error. I'm saying it's not worth pushing voltages over.

[error10]

Changing your strap DOES change the timing!

[ericeod]

Originally Posted by error10

Changing your strap DOES change the timing!

I found this Maximus Extreme article (my previous board) to be an interesting read:

FSB Strap to Northbridge: Unlike older chipsets, performance hits of using the higher MHz Northbridge straps are virtually non-existent. Synthetic latency and read figures across any of the 266/333 or 400 straps are almost identical. There are small variances in overall stability, for quad processors running over 400FSB - the 333 and 400 straps worked better for us. For benching with dual-core CPUs, we found the 266 strap allowed us sufficient overhead to run the board up to 550 FSB. Between 550-575 FSB, we were limited to the 333 and 400 NB straps depending on memory timings. The 200 NB setting offers inadequate FSB potential to consider it worthy of use with Intel's latest processors.

[totaleclipse82]

I'm having trouble getting my rig to boot up properly..It keeps rebooting..sometimes after 1 second, sometimes after 3...5...8 seconds. The LCD poster keeps saying cmos err. I reseated the CPU and Heatsink. I checked the ram one at a time... The only other thing i can think it is, is the PSU could be bad. But i dont have a good psu to throw in there to see if that would work.

Any ideas on what else it could be??

[ericeod]

Originally Posted by totaleclipse82

I'm having trouble getting my rig to boot up properly..It keeps rebooting..sometimes after 1 second, sometimes after 3...5...8 seconds. The LCD poster keeps saying cmos err. I reseated the CPU and Heatsink. I checked the ram one at a time... The only other thing i can think it is, is the PSU could be bad. But i dont have a good psu to throw in there to see if that would work.

Any ideas on what else it could be??

Those dominators are having a hard time running in the ASUS X38 and X48 boards. There are multiple reports of people having problems with them. I started a list a few weeks ago in my P5E/Maximus/Rampage Formula thread (see first post) which shows the 1066 Dominators not running well in these boards. Some have been able to set the ram to 800 and run stable, but thats not really a fix. I would recommend the G.Skill DDR2 1066 kit since the board runs smooth with them.

[Ghostleader]

Originally Posted by totaleclipse82

I'm having trouble getting my rig to boot up properly..It keeps rebooting..sometimes after 1 second, sometimes after 3...5...8 seconds. The LCD poster keeps saying cmos err. I reseated the CPU and Heatsink. I checked the ram one at a time... The only other thing i can think it is, is the PSU could be bad. But i dont have a good psu to throw in there to see if that would work.

Any ideas on what else it could be??

What BIOS are you running? You should at least have 0407 for that CPU.
Have you reset the BIOS to default and tried to boot up?
Tried to reflash BIOS with ASUS EZ Flash?

Originally Posted by ericeod

Those dominators are having a hard time running in the ASUS X38 and X48 boards. There are multiple reports of people having problems with them. I started a list a few weeks ago in my P5E/Maximus/Rampage Formula thread (see first post) which shows the 1066 Dominators not running well in these boards. Some have been able to set the ram to 800 and run stable, but thats not really a fix. I would recommend the G.Skill DDR2 1066 kit since the board runs smooth with them.

Do you really think that the ram is the cause to his problem?


I have tested 2x2 Corsair Dominator TWIN2X4096-8500CD5F G on my Rampage Formula Rig and I had no problem and I could reach the following.

1066 5-5-5-15 Stronger tRD6@1,88v, NBv 1,41
1125 5-5-5-15 Stronger tRD7@2,10v, NBv 1,51.
1140 5-5-5-15 Stronger tRD6 Pull In PH1 enabled@2,26v NBv1,61.
860 4-4-4-12 Stronger tRD7@2,10v, NBv1,61.
870 4-4-4-12 Stronger tRD7@2,28v, NBv 1,61.

They was in A2 B2 slot.

Not bad but not to good either and maybe I could reach higher on an other board, maybe ~1160 CAS5 or ~925 CAS4.

This was done with BIOS 0407, with 0408, 0410 or 0601 I could not reach 1125 or 1140.


Run FSB 450 ram 1080 tRD7 Strong or Stronger are rock solid at DRAMv 1,88 and NBv 1,41 with all the above BIOS version.

Pretty good I most say and it should suit most ppl.