Taikero

I fiddled around a bit, and it looks like the highest stable (read as: within temperature limits) clock I can get at the moment is 425*8.5 or 3.6 GHz. This runs 67*C with the IntelBurn Test (Linpack) and 60*C-67*C depending on the core with Prime95 Small FFTs with my Thermaltake V1.

I'm using 1.32v, with an idle vDroop to 1.296v and a load vDroop to about 1.232v-1.24v. Load Line Calibration is Disabled. I'm going to try to fiddle with voltages some more but this is likely as far down as my vCore will go while being stable.

A bit of a note about this board that I found out the annoying way: Automatic voltage settings are best used as a guideline to start out with. Leaving voltages on automatic (For anything but maybe your RAM if you aren't focusing on OCing that much) on this board is just asking for your CPU, Northbridge, or perhaps another component to overheat badly.

Some boards do their automatic voltages alright (Or well enough they won't try to fry your components), but this certainly isn't one of them.

Over the weekend I may try to improve my NB temps by switching up the heatsink, and I may also be picking up an extra 80mm case fan.

I'm also still debating whether or not to upgrade to the 0501 BIOS from the 0301. As far as I know all that was improved was the load line calibration.

svrz

Hello Taikero

Currently at stock settings, with ambient temperatures around 79 F around noon here in Arizona, the idle temperatures are 45, 42, 49 and 49 for the Q9550. At night the temperatures fall to the high 30s/low 40s, however IMHO these temps are still too high. The VCORE in the BIOS has been set to 1.1. Are there any other settings that need to be modified?

I would be most interested in your findings.

Regards.

Taikero

I've found that this board likes to set the CPU PLL Voltage rather high (I saw as high as 1.7v when set to "Auto"). I turned this down to just a few notches above the baseline of 1.51v (1.55v is my current setting, although I still haven't finalized this or my NB voltage). You should most likely set your CPU PLL voltage and Northbridge voltage manually (My Northbridge is sitting around 1.35v right now, although I'm going to try to lower it at some point once thing are slightly more stable).

Couple questions for you. Because idle temperatures only matter so much, what are your load temperatures? (Prime95, IntelBurnTest) How was your thermal compound applied and how much did you use? (dot, line, smooth spread across cpu, etc.) Do you have Load Line Calibration enabled or disabled? (Disabled makes it harder to reach a stable voltage because you get a substantial amount of vDroop, but once you do find the right voltage, I think it results in lower temperatures)

svrz

Greetings Taikero

Thank you for the most informative reply.

First, to answer your questions:

1) Load temperatures during the Prime95 torture test were 61,59,62 and 62. I made the changes that you suggested to the BIOS. I entered exactly the values that you outlined above. I also set the VCORE to 1.1. The test was carried out with these values.

A poster on ASUS support forum who has the same CPU/Mobo combo that we do, suggested that I change the VCORE to 1.19 and the FSB to 405. With these settings he was able to overclock the processor to 3.4 with the load temperatures not being higher than 59.

2) The AS5 was applied to the XIGMATEK in the manner that is described here:

http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.ph...1&limitstart=5

[Scroll down to the last two pictures]

A single line of AS5 was also applied to the middle of the CPU as suggested by AS.

This method of applying AS5 to the Xigie and the CPU was tried by a few members of the HardForum. These folks experienced quite a bit of drop in temperatures.

It looks like I'm not so lucky.

3) LLC is set to the original default value.

I have not changed the FSB value as of yet. Perhaps I should change it to 405 and see what happens. Perhaps I may obtain the same temperatures which would be very desirable.

Thanks again and I look forward to your reply.

Regards.

Taikero

I'm currently running a vCore of 1.3000 with Load Line Calibration turned off. This puts me at 1.272v idle and 1.216v with a full load in Prime95.

My FSB is 425. Temperatures don't exceed 62*C most of the time (Sometimes hitting up to 64*C occasionally, then dropping back to 62*C).

It could be you just have too much thermal compound applied. It took me over 5 reseats to get the thermal application *just* right to where I got any half-decent contact.

I would try turning load line calibration off/disabled. You'll have to tweak with voltages after you do so, but it should allow you to obtain lower temperatures (or at least, it worked for me).

The other thing I'd also try is to reseat your heatsink, this time using slightly less thermal compound as before (e.g. Use the same amount on the heatsink, use less on the CPU, just a small, small dot, as the majority of the heatsink should be taken care of by the two lines).

Try this out a couple of times if necessary in order to reach acceptable temperatures (look for 55*C or less [preferably a lot less] under load at stock clocks and lowest voltage possible with load line calibration disabled). If you can achieve good temperatures *before* AS5 has cured, then you're guaranteed to be able to get some nice overclocked values once it has cured.

Practice makes perfect with this kind of thing, so don't be discouraged if this takes some time.

zlojack

I've been playing with the board a bit, though in a somewhat limited capacity as I haven't got my LC loops back up and running yet (still waiting for more parts to come into stock!)

Hopefully soon I'll be able to play some more. I can feel the potential here, but I think it will need a lot of fine-tuning and some bios updates before this board comes into its own. It's still quite fussy with RAM and I was getting better bandwidth/latency with my Maximus/Rampage Formula (of course, that was with the FSB at 464 and the CPU at 4.4GHz, while right now I'm at 3.0 *500 FSB* on the CPU and 1600 on the RAM)

__________________
Canadian OCN Club
3DMark05 - 34956
3DMark06 - 26295
3DMark Vantage - P23208

BULLATTACK

For sure this has to be the best looking board, I am looking forward to read some more overclocking results though

Taikero

After some further tweaking, here are what I think are close to my "final" results.

Q9550 @ 3.7 GHz (435*8.5) with only one core ever over 65*C on stress testing. Cooled with Thermaltake V1 (May replace in future).

2GB (2*1GB) OCZ Intel Extreme Edition @ 1740 MHz @ 5-4-4-13-2T

ATI Radeon HD 4870 @ 810 Core / 1080 RAM

System stress tested with Prime95 - Small FFTs and RTHDribl. All settings maxed on RTHDribl to lower framerate as much as possible, even 16x Multisampling (AA, although probably not true AA because I think the card only natively supports 8x. Still slower than setting 8x in the program). The system went on to finish the 8k set of small FFTs in Prime95 before I got bored and closed it. (This is more than sufficient for me to think the system is stable enough for everyday use. In addition, I played a bunch of intensive games last night with these settings and didn't have a single crash)

All in all, I'm happy with my results. (P.S. My new 3DMark06 score is 18171) http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=8271676

zlojack

I'm having a tough time with this board so far.

I tried for a very mild FSB OC to 400GHz while bumping my multi down to 8 (since I'm on stock cooling on the chip for now). And the system just won't stay stable

Random BSOD's, reboots etc. I'm beginning to suspect the RAM doesn't like to play with the board at the rated spec.

__________________
Canadian OCN Club
3DMark05 - 34956
3DMark06 - 26295
3DMark Vantage - P23208

Taikero

What do your voltages look like? Are you keeping all auto, some auto, or mostly manual?

I've found that with a bit of voltage tweaking, this board works rather nicely. However, leaving auto voltages on is asking for headaches (1.7 CPU PLL voltage is NOT a good automatic setting for most situations, for instance.) as the freaking thing likes to set voltages usually a full 0.05-0.1 volts above what the component really needs for stability.

BTW, if you decide it's the RAM causing you problems, I've had rather good luck with this OCZ Intel Extreme stuff. It has onboard XMP profiles for overclocking as well as just being all around stable so far. I'm running mine right now at 1740 MHz with 5-5-5-12-2T timings (I've run it as low as 5-4-4-10-2T and been stable, but I wanted to ease off a bit just to be nice to my RAM.) and a tRD of 10 (9 won't boot at all, but I'm not pushing my voltages past 1.8-1.9 right now anyway, even though the OCZ eVP for this RAM is 2.0v for keeping within warranty).