A7N8X-Del. Bios????

I am still using Pheonix award bios 1003. I have no problems, but am up grading my memory to PC3500 in a few days. I have read some about Uber bios. I'm not sure what to do if anything. Should I keep the current bios, switch to 1007, switch to Uber. any comments welcome.

About the only useful thing the Uber bios gives you is the option to raise DDR reference voltage to 2.9 volts. If your RAM needs the extra voltage to run a higher stable FSB (and mine does), I would recommend it. If not, stick with the stock bios.

My mushkin LvL II memory are going to want more Voltage? How much more? I'm getting 2 512 sticks, should be here monday.

I only needed 2.7 volts to pass Memtest86 at the FSB and timings in my sig. I had to bump the DDR reference voltage to 2.9, however, to pass Prime95's torture test at those settings. Whether your particular sticks will need that much voltage remains to be seen.

Raillex said:

I only needed 2.7 volts to pass Memtest86 at the FSB and timings in my sig. I had to bump the DDR reference voltage to 2.9, however, to pass Prime95's torture test at those settings. Whether your particular sticks will need that much voltage remains to be seen.

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I like your FSB 217 DC is not easy on a stock board.
Is that vcore default?

My vcore is set at 1.725 bios, which translates to 1.79 actual volts according to MBM.

BTW, I consider passing Prime95 to mean running the torture test error-free for four or five iterations. Other folks don't consider their systems "prime stable" unless they can go 12-24 hours straight without errors. I don't have the patience to run it that long so I don't really know whether this board would meet a purist's definition of "stable". On the other hand, I don't foresee ever running my cpu and memory at 100% load for longer than the 30 minutes or so it takes to run those iterations so I don't really care whether the board meets the purist's definition or not.

nice OCing raillex. It seems your memory is better than mines. I am stable at 200 X 11 with 1.675. But can't go any further without memory upgrade. Have you done any research to see which memory works the best with deluxe board 2.0?

Thanks. The only RAM that will run higher FSBs with tight (2-2-2) timings are modules based on Winbond BH-5 chips. Winbond stopped producing BH-5 chips several months ago and BH-5 memory will no longer be available once the existing supply runs out. Here is a list of memory still being sold with BH-5 chips.

Mushkin rates their PC3500 Black Level II DC kit at the specs in my sig. I had to RMA my first set of BL2 because they wouldn't pass Memtest86 at the advertised 217 MHz with 2-2-2 timings.

I also have a 1GB set of OCZ PC3500 Platinum Limited Editions. The OCZ is (was) also made with BH-5 but cannot pass Prime95 and Memtest86 at 217 Mhz unless I relax the timings from 2-2-2 to 3-2-2. I decided to keep them anyway since they will run stably @ 3-2-2 well past any FSB my board can handle and because I will be needing some good overclocking RAM to put into an NF3 A64 rig I am planning to build next spring.

FWIW, I found there is only about a 4 MHz difference performance-wise between 2-2-2 and 3-2-2 timings. My Sandra Membench scores with the OCZ at 221 MHz 11-3-2-2 are identical to the Mushkin at 217 MHz 11-2-2-2.