Evga nForce 680i Tweaking help

Jusa · Jan 13, 2007

I'm looking for some advice from someone who has this motherboard that can point me in the right direction on what to change and what to start with. I've read through the stickies and such and have a genral idea but they are also several years old and with the way technologu changes i don't want to make things worst than they are instead of better. I've built many systems but i've never overclocked any of them. This time i went all out and would like to see how bad i can realy make my rig this time. I've pretty much went off of Tom's hardware's test platform with a little tweeking when i put this system together.

My Rig:
MB: EVGA 122-CK-NF68-AR NF680i 775
CPU: Intel e6600 2.4G 775 4M R
RAM: Corsair XMS2 PC2 8500 C5 (2G atm soon to be 4G)
Video: BFG Gforce 8800GTX
HD: 150G Raptor 10k RPM
Case: Thermaltake Armon V8000B BTX
PS: OCZ 700GXSSLI
Cooling: Zalman CNPS9500 and Artic Silver 5
OS:Win XP Pro x64

Some Questions:
1. Where do i start? I've tried a few things that did'nt work out so i'm coming here for advice. Tell me what to do and i'll report back what happened.
2. What programs are best for testing? I'm DLing 3dmark06 atm and i have CPUmark2 atm. I'm looking for the fastest gaming preformance in games like Counter-Strike:Source.
3. Should i have my ram in sync with my FSB or should i use the ratios. Like i've said before it's hard to understand 2 year old advice on settings that i don't understand.

Thanks for any help you guys can provide. I posted here cause i have seen system specs similar to my own.

Ageeb · Jan 13, 2007

Here's where I'd point you first... 680i(ssues)

Farwalker · Jan 13, 2007

Jusa said:
I'm looking for some advice from someone who has this motherboard that can point me in the right direction on what to change and what to start with. I've read through the stickies and such and have a genral idea but they are also several years old and with the way technologu changes i don't want to make things worst than they are instead of better. I've built many systems but i've never overclocked any of them. This time i went all out and would like to see how bad i can realy make my rig this time. I've pretty much went off of Tom's hardware's test platform with a little tweeking when i put this system together.

My Rig:
MB: EVGA 122-CK-NF68-AR NF680i 775
CPU: Intel e6600 2.4G 775 4M R
RAM: Corsair XMS2 PC2 8500 C5 (2G atm soon to be 4G)
Video: BFG Gforce 8800GTX
HD: 150G Raptor 10k RPM
Case: Thermaltake Armon V8000B BTX
PS: OCZ 700GXSSLI
Cooling: Zalman CNPS9500 and Artic Silver 5
OS:Win XP Pro x64

Some Questions:
1. Where do i start? I've tried a few things that did'nt work out so i'm coming here for advice. Tell me what to do and i'll report back what happened.
2. What programs are best for testing? I'm DLing 3dmark06 atm and i have CPUmark2 atm. I'm looking for the fastest gaming preformance in games like Counter-Strike:Source.
3. Should i have my ram in sync with my FSB or should i use the ratios. Like i've said before it's hard to understand 2 year old advice on settings that i don't understand.

Thanks for any help you guys can provide. I posted here cause i have seen system specs similar to my own.

First, in bios you want to "unlink" your cpu from your memory (to take the memory out of the variables).
Go to Advanced Chipset Features
then, select FSB & Memory Config
there go to: FSB - Memory Clock Mode and select "unlink"
Then, go to the FSB (QDR), MHz [xxxx] (where xxxx is the number of the frequency you want. I have 1600 for mine to get 3.6GHz).

Make sure that your memory has the recommended voltage that its manufacturer requires.

Then you can gradually (in increments of 10 - 20 MHz) increase the frequency of the cpu. Restart Windows, run Prime95 (or Orthos, or some app that is comparable) on both cores for about 10 minutes to test stability. Then go back and bump up the frequency. Repeat as necessary (yes this takes time). When it becomes unstable you increase the cpu's voltage. I was able to get to 3.2GHz on 1.2v (or whatever was default cpu voltage). I'm now running 3.6GHz at 1.450v; it is stable running Prime95 and Orthos for over 8 hours.

It is critical to watch your cpu's temperature. Intel has published that 60.1C is the maximum thermal design for the e6600; however, there are many posters who claim to run near 70C without trouble (who do you trust the manufacturer or some faceless poster on the internet?).

Eventually, I am going to play with overclocking my ram.

Jusa · Jan 13, 2007

Ok i looked up my ram and it was tested at 2.2v so i uped that feom 1.8. Then i unlikked the FSB and ram.
ATM i'm running a 1400 FSB with a 9x for 3150MHZ 1.3625vCore running 2 versions of Prime95 while typeing this and no real preformance hit. My CPU is at 49 degres Celcus so i'll probly tweek it up a bit more and see what happens.

I'm going to take the heatsinks off the NB and SB and se if the compound is caked on and replace it with Arctic Silver.

Question: How do i run it on both cores? I tried through the affinity option to run one on 0 and one on 1 but i get an error on the 1 so i'm not sure if i'm doing this right. but i can run 2 on 0 and it's ok. also what i did to get 2 prime95's to run was coppy the folder and run one out of each folder. Let me know what you think i should do next.

Edit: Well i was just low on power. I raised the Vcore and no more errors. Time to see how much more i can squeeze out.

Burnout01 · Jan 13, 2007

Here is a nice little guide for replacing your thermal paste on the NB and SB chips.

http://www.evga.com/community/messageboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=24455

Section8 · Jan 17, 2007

If you use Orthos it will automatically detect that you have 2 cores and Prime95 them both.

Evga nForce 680i Tweaking help

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