• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Who has had major success with a MAX3?

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

Amino

Member
Joined
Nov 17, 2002
Location
Austin, Texas
Ok, apparantly a lot of people are getting cruddy results with the "more-expensive-and-better-than-the-less-expensive" IC7 board, the MAX3. I've got one and I can't get over 250 FSB with my Kingston PC4000. I know it's the memory that is letting me down, but has any one had some really good success stores?

Anyone getting over 290FSB? That's the reason I spent that extra 40 bucks on this thing. I had an IC7-G that would do 280 with a 2.4C and PC3500 HyperX memory.

I wanna know if I should just return it and get an IC7-G again. Is it really worth all the money and added noise of the OTES fan? (What does that thing do anyways?)
 
the otes fan is suppose to draw air over the power mosfets and capacitors which are used to regulate voltage to the cpu and can become very hot when passing power on to a cpu under a load.

i can hardly hear my otes fan at all it goes at around 4900rpms but if i dont put my ear right down next to it i cant even hear it

ive had a 2.4c @ 294 fsb 5:4 on my max3 i just think its picky about what type of chip your using with it and i also found the northbridge would start crapping out on me with anything higher than that on a 5:4

in all honesty though i wouldnt say the max3 was worth the extra money over a ic7-g. the extra sata channels are nice but i dont think many people will be putting them to much use. best feature of the board is the ddr voltage options and those dont seem to run all that stable over 3.0v for alot of people
 
yeah, I might be returning it. It doesn't have a parallel port either so I can't connect my printer to it...
 
Amino said:
yeah, I might be returning it. It doesn't have a parallel port either so I can't connect my printer to it...


From what I can see it is the Kingston ram you have. I have the same PC 4000 Hyper X stuff 2x512 and it is not the best, OCZ is better. I run an IS7 and I can do 275 @5:4 but 1:1 my best is 260. It appears it may need more voltage and the IS7 goes max to 2.8. Overall the board is great the ram is average good PC3500 or PC3700 may equal it as you saw with your previous PC3500.

Unfortunately Kingston decided to use Access time: 5.0ns Samsung IC's chips and this appears to be the problem

http://www.legitreviews.com/Reviews/ddr500_7.shtml

I am trying to sell mine and get some OCZ

Cisco KId
 
for the short time (2 days, due to money issues all the sudden) i kept mine, i got my 2.4C to 250FSB and it ran fine :) thats my only expericance with it

edit: that was on Corsair 512MB PC3200 XMS LL DDR RAM one stick.
 
I agree with hawtrawkr that it's probably not worth the xtra $$.
 
Actually, the good ol' MAX3 suffers 2 problems. First is the vdimm flucuating at 2.9-3.1 volts. Up to 2.8 is stable, and 3.2 is stable. However, the second problem is the lower than expected vtt. The VTT tracks to 1/2 of the vdimm up to 2.8 and then DIPS to lower than the 1.4 value at 2.9-3.1 and resumes 1.4 at 3.2 which is not the expected 1.6.

This has been the whole issue of running 1:1 at 230+ fsb and the culprit behind the looser than other board's timings. Abit currently is offering an rma for issue one and is promising a quick turnaround on issue 2. I've experienced it firsthand on my MAX3 and, well, I'm disgusted.

Right now, avoid the MAX3 unless u absolutely have to have 6 sata ports or 2 sets of RAID. ASUS boards do not seem to suffer these problems and will save you a few $$$. Once abit fixes these issues, we'll see if the MAX3 deserves a return to the top of the pack.

-- sp00L out.....
 
sp00L said:
Actually, the good ol' MAX3 suffers 2 problems. First is the vdimm flucuating at 2.9-3.1 volts. Up to 2.8 is stable, and 3.2 is stable. However, the second problem is the lower than expected vtt. The VTT tracks to 1/2 of the vdimm up to 2.8 and then DIPS to lower than the 1.4 value at 2.9-3.1 and resumes 1.4 at 3.2 which is not the expected 1.6.

This has been the whole issue of running 1:1 at 230+ fsb and the culprit behind the looser than other board's timings. Abit currently is offering an rma for issue one and is promising a quick turnaround on issue 2. I've experienced it firsthand on my MAX3 and, well, I'm disgusted.

Right now, avoid the MAX3 unless u absolutely have to have 6 sata ports or 2 sets of RAID. ASUS boards do not seem to suffer these problems and will save you a few $$$. Once abit fixes these issues, we'll see if the MAX3 deserves a return to the top of the pack.

-- sp00L out.....

i agree, the vmem issues and all that fancy sata , raid and otes functions, its supposed to run faster than the ic7-ic7g mb's but im not convinced. i did a vmem mod on my ic7 and it runs like a bat outta h*ll. all for alot cheaper....
 
Love this board to death.

Handsome set up. The SATA is there if you need it (or will need it). Personally running a 2.6c @ 3.4GHz 263 FSB OCZ 3200 DDR 5:4. And its running it like a champ.

Worth every penny IMHO.
 
I kinda like mine as well but am not convinced that it is everything it should be. What are your other specific settings and what is your cooling setup?
 
I run mine at 260fsb stable but...I have the cold boot issue. I am really getting tired of it and am thinking that my next P4 mobo will be an Asus.
 
My mem timings are 2T 6-3-3, voltage is 1.7, VDIMM is 2.8.

I have a Koolance system, which is cooling my Radeon 9800 Pro OC'd too.

Remember, Koolance apparently is the "little *****" of water cooling. I hit my goals, so take it as you will.
 
Just volt mod it the CATCH22 way :D

Oh and in direct answer to your question my non max3 did 305fsb 3/2. My max3 does 284fsb 1/1 and 5/4. I haven't tried extreme cooling like i did for my non max3. But so far i like the max3 just fine. LOL@me being a newbee member. haha
 
Last edited:
Back