MCBrown.CA

Thnk you STN this is exactly the question I am pondering right now... My particular UD3P has an amazing amount of vDrop and vDroop without LLC enabled and now I am seriously considering why all these manufacturers would market this 'feature' that seems to help when in reality it will burn your chip...

After reading and re-reading this thread at XS, I am still unsure about whether I should enable/disable it... but at the end of that thread it seems that most members are still not unanimous in their opinions about LLC.

The voltage spike theory that Robilar is talking about makes sense, but it seems there is no direct research or testing that can empirically state that having LLC enabled is the absolute cause for 45nm chips dying...

EDIT: By the way Robilar, I am directly comparing this motherboard to your old P5Q Deluxe (bought from you about 2 months ago), which ran my Q9550 stable at 4.0GHz 12+hrs Prime small's w/ 1.38v load (in Windows) which was I think 1.3875v in the BIOS. This was with LLC enabled. The board board blew 3 of its RAM slots after about 3 weeks of stable running & I was sure the board failure was unrelated to the CPU overclock. Could it possibly be related to LLC or some other 45nm issue?

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xlastshotx

How hot does this boards Northbridge run when the CPU is heavily overclocked?

I just ordered one of these boards, and I have a universal NB waterblock that is on my Maximus Formula that I just sold... but I am wondering if it is actually worth it to watercool this NB..

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Q9550 C1 - 4,531Mhz > Image > Orb

Enyalius

Cool as a cucumber, as my mom used to say. They added some copper to the board (2oz) and did some other things so that, no matter what you do, it always seems to stay cool.

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xlastshotx

Alright that sounds good to me, one less thing in my loop.

Looks like there will be a DangerDen Waterblock and aThermalright IFX for sale soon.

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Q9550 C1 - 4,531Mhz > Image > Orb

Yomny

any conlcusions on the LLC, by the stories im hearing i think it sounds good to leave it off even with a 65nm chip.. MCBrownCA's story about the ram is not pleasant

stn0092

For the heck of it, I decided to turn off LLC. I found that I don't need as many volts under load as I do with LLC on. With LLC on, I needed 1.44v under load to do small FFTs; with it off, I have it at 1.392v under load (1.50v BIOS, 1.44 idle) and it has been priming away at small FFTs for an hour now. It's not that much lower than the 1.55v in BIOS I originally thought I would need, but, hey, it's lower and I won't be idling at 1.508v.

N1ESE

Thanks man. Although, now I am leaning towards taking the X58 plunge. It's only about $270 more than the Q9550/UD3P config I was considering. I'm several generations behind so it's a major upgrade no matter which way I go.

error10

If you're doing a whole new rig, by all means go Core i7. You won't regret it.

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Villainstone

Aren't those temps very dangerous for 45nm's? I wouldn't even think to gring mine up to 1.45 much less 1.5.

I just got two SSD'd and have windows and drivers installed and updated. I will start OCing in a day or so. I never did get around to running the tests I wanted to run but then again I was trying to reach my CPU and FSB limits for the longest time. I wish I knew about clock skews as I would go and play with them setting. I have never had any luck with them or GTL settings.

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xlastshotx

Those volts are a bit high for some people, but honestly I have seen little evidence that it would point to those kind of volts have any serious effect on chips with LLC off.

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Q9550 C1 - 4,531Mhz > Image > Orb