NF7-S What should I expect?

[plong]

I posted this on the Abit boards forum, I hope its okay to ask these questions here too?!?

I just put together a new system with an NF7-S 2.0, Barton 2500+, 2 512 MB sticks of Buffalo PC3700 with Winbond BH5 chips, Maxtor 40GB 7200 rpm hard drive on SATA. Results are pretty disappointing so far, the best I've been able to do is 200 x 11 @ 1.75vcore w/ conservative mem timings, running latest bios: 10/9/2003 compile date. BTW cooling is a Thermaltake Silent Boost, temps in the low 40s load, love that "silent fan"...remember what your hard drive sounds like?!?

On my old rig (see sig) I've no problem running 166 x 13.5 for 2250 @ stock volts with Corsair Value Select PC2700.

I'm wondering what kind of performance I should be expecting and what settings more experienced users might make for FSB, mult, and mem timings. I really don't like to over-volt so I'm not looking to squeeze the very last mhz out of this rig, just a good, stable long-term performer. I'd also appreciate an explanation of the FSB/DRAM ratio setting as I've not had that option on prior boards. I understand it is the ratio of the FSB to system memory but i can't understand the difference between the 3/3, 5/5, 6/6 settings as they all seem to yield the same results.

Any and all advice is definately appreciated!

[Speed_Mechanic2]

What voltage did you run the Buffalo PC3700 with?

[plong]

RAM is currently @ stock volts, I really don't like to overvolt, that's why I bought the PC3700 RAM, I thought I could get the performance I wanted (FSB~215-220) without overvolting the RAM...is that a mistake?

[snvpa]

well you might need to give the ram up to 2.7v to get the performance you want. honestly its all trial and erroe to get the max oc. set the vdd, which is the chipset voltage to 1.7 from its stock thats my first suggestion. post back with results after that.

[Deathknight]

I don't think there is a diff between 3/3, 5/5, 6/6 etc. No idea why they have more than one setting for sync. Your best performance is going to run in sync and get your fsb as high as you can. Some high speed memory is actually rating to run at higher voltages so before you say you don't want to run high voltage you probably want to check the specs on your memory(regardless the nf7-s doesn't really offer truley dangerous vdimm settings)

[snvpa]

absolutely correct deathnight. run the v dimm at least up to 2.8 especially wiht bh-5 chips. They certainly will not be hurt by it.

[qbas]

Have you tried to put Vcore to 1.8? If you have good cooler crank it up there and see what happens (i too have a problem with getting alot from my Barton), I would crank my Vcore alot if my cooler would be better but because i don't use my FSB at 202x10.5 (can't do 200x11 because i get huge amounts of heat if i do that and it isn't stable on 1.7 i'm using right now)

Edit: Oh and one thing, it seems you cannot get really high FSB's when you are using Dual Channel in the NF7-S. I assume you have the memories at Dual Channel?