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Gigabyte GA-X38-DS4 loves the FSB!

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Albuquerque

Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2003
Location
North America
I'm assembling the new rig, and to begin I'm just trying to get a feel for how high this board is gonna let me go without a fight.

I'm currently Memtest86'ing at 533 x 6, but get this: all voltages except ram are 100% stock. :drool: Northbridge temp is warm, but certainly not hot. I'm betting that even the awe-inspiring Micron D9 chips are gonna be the culprit that keeps my board from running 600FSB if I wanted it to. I guess I can't be too mad, as they're doing 1066 at 5-5-5-12 at 2.0v so far... Not bad for DDR2-800 chips :bday:

I'll continue posting back to this thread as my testing continues. Once i start clocking the CPU a bit, I'll post some screenies so you guys can see for yourselves.
 
I'm running Brollok's E6850 under an Apogee GT. He had it doing 4.2Ghz before he sold it; I think he was using a Koolance setup but I can't remember at this exact moment.

The memory seems hesitant to do 1200mhz even at 2.2v and with 6-6-6-18 timings. But the board is new, and so are the chips, so they may just need some settling time before they really start cruising. Actually right now, they're doing 1066 5-5-5-12 at 1.9v :) Board is still humming right along though...
 
Time to raise the multi and feed that CPU some more votage goodness :soda: Curious to see how far that X38 board can push the CPU...
 
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The board booted and passed memtest at 550 same specs as above, except the memory needed 2.2v to run stable. I'm weary of leaving the ram at those settings without some extra cooling, so I'm letting it run Orthos overnight at 525 x 6.

Why only 525? Because tomorrow, so long as Orthos has behaved, I'll kick 'er up to 525 x 8 :beer: :bday:
 
Ran Orthos for about 14 hours overnight without issue at 525x6, but temps were at 78*c when I came in this morning to check it out! :eek:

Turns out the waterblock wasn't mounted correctly; maybe 1/2 of the CPU made contact. It takes a while for the temp to creep up though, which I found odd. Anyway, I've remounted a few times and had spotty results each time. I think the mounting assembly on this waterblock needs some work; I might try devising my own if I don't get it right on the next few tries. I thought I had it pretty good this last time, but now one core is 3* cooler than the other :rolleyes:

Anyway, nice to know the chip will stay stable at 78*c, but I really don't feel like running it that hot.
 
I find it reasonably for it creeping up slowly to those temps, when heating up the water in that system takes a while?

I would too if the waterblock was making full contact. But it wasn't, which surprised me to find that it still took a while to creep up. Nevertheless, temps are now behaving more as I would expect.

I'm having some CPU clocking hiccups at the moment, but I'm not entirely sure it's the CPU just yet. May have more info later...
 
Ok, generally the last update: I believe this board may have some CPU clocking issues. To illustrate my point, I've built a small Excel sheet of my E6850 testing results. Check out how near-perfectly linear the voltages are, until it goes stupid at 3.9Ghz...

Code:
[color=white]Speed[color=#333333]...[/color]VSet[color=#333333].....[/color]VAct[color=#333333]......[/color]FSB x Multi[color=#333333]...[/color]Load *C[/color]

2400[color=#333333]....[/color]1.000[color=#333333]....[/color]0.976[color=#333333].....[/color]400 x 6[color=#333333].......[/color]24
2800[color=#333333]....[/color]1.150[color=#333333]....[/color]1.104[color=#333333].....[/color]400 x 7[color=#333333].......[/color]34
3000[color=#333333]....[/color]1.200[color=#333333]....[/color]1.152[color=#333333].....[/color]500 x 6[color=#333333].......[/color]38
3200[color=#333333]....[/color]1.250[color=#333333]....[/color]1.200[color=#333333].....[/color]400 x 8[color=#333333].......[/color]42
3500[color=#333333]....[/color]1.338[color=#333333]....[/color]1.280[color=#333333].....[/color]500 x 7[color=#333333].......[/color]47
3600[color=#333333]....[/color]1.375[color=#333333]....[/color]1.328[color=#333333].....[/color]400 x 9[color=#333333].......[/color]52
3800[color=#333333]....[/color]1.438[color=#333333]....[/color]1.376[color=#333333].....[/color]475 x 8[color=#333333].......[/color]57
3850[color=#333333]....[/color]1.450[color=#333333]....[/color]1.408[color=#333333].....[/color]550 x 7[color=#333333].......[/color]58
3904[color=#333333]....[/color]1.550[color=#333333]....[/color]1.508[color=#333333].....[/color]488 x 8[color=#333333].......[/color]63 (not stable)

Notice that all the sudden between 3850 and 3900 the voltage required goes through the roof, and yet it's still not stable. I've even gone so far as to try 1.6v just to see, but no luck.

So I'm not sure where to go now. What's odd is, all other speeds are stable without adjusting anything except DDR voltage -- even the 550 x 7 setting was using 100% stock MCH and FSB voltages. At the suggestion of Brolloks, I tried upping the MCH and FSB voltage a tad to see if it helped, and it did just very slightly -- but only to the tune of about another minute's worth of testing.

If you've got ideas, I'm more than happy to listen! I tried putting a 90mm fan over the connected NB / Mosfet sinks, and while they're a WHOLE lot cooler, that still didn't help. Voltages are ROCK steady at 12.20v and don't budge so much a hundreth of a volt no matter what I do with the clock or volts. I'm guessing it's just a board limitation :(
 
Im glad you have started this thread. I'm thinking of using the same board in a totally new computer build I will be purchasing here in a week or so.

Very Impressive Clocking you have goin on here! 1100Mhz on the Memory is very nice! good to hear this board has no problem running 4 sticks. Do you have a link to those on NewEgg or ?? I couldn't find them.

I haven't yet selected my main components, memory, MOBO and CPU.

Not to thread jack but why did you select the E6850 over say the Q6600 which aslo has G0 stepping and overclocks well? I'm assuming you want that 4GHz.. .

How's the stock sound capabilities on that board? Do you think I need a sound card?
 
Im glad you have started this thread. I'm thinking of using the same board in a totally new computer build I will be purchasing here in a week or so.

Very Impressive Clocking you have goin on here! 1100Mhz on the Memory is very nice! good to hear this board has no problem running 4 sticks. Do you have a link to those on NewEgg or ?? I couldn't find them.

I haven't yet selected my main components, memory, MOBO and CPU.

Not to thread jack but why did you select the E6850 over say the Q6600 which aslo has G0 stepping and overclocks well? I'm assuming you want that 4GHz.. .

How's the stock sound capabilities on that board? Do you think I need a sound card?
I really like the board, it seems VERY stable at high FSB. I can't figure out what the limiting factor is on the processor though...

Anyway, to answer your questions.
Here is the NewEgg link to the memory It's on sale now for $74.99 which is what I paid.

The E6850 I bought used from Brolloks as he was having excellent luck with it; I don't really forsee a need for quad right now. I'll very likely buy one of the QX9650's or something like it when they're in mass production later this year.

And I can't comment on the sound yet, as I'm still just doing stability testing. All of my testing is done within WinPE as to keep from corrupting any real OS that I might have installed. But I'll be glad to give you that feedback a little later this week when I get Vista64 and XP installed.
 
From 3.8 to 4.2 I only used the 9 multi and tried to reduce the strain on the mobo by riding the lower FSB, have you tried 435 x 9 (3.92) at 1.58v-core, should give you circa 1.53v actual

6spdkeg , I had a Q6600 on the same board and ran it to a max stable 3.6 (3.78 bench) and I must say all my apps and gaming was much better at 3.9 with the E6850, I do not want to open up the "dual vs quad" topic here as well (more than enough debating on this), but the quad kicked out a heck of a lot more heat than the E6850, whereas the brute GHz speed of the dual still took the cup in every app, I'm not talking 3DMARK benches, Windows apps and games
 
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I tried locking the multi at 9x and just starting from 400 and working my way up. The voltages and temps were near-identical to what I posted above (in relation to clockspeed) but it just quits going anywhere after about 3.85Ghz. 433 x 9 (right at 3900mhz) is only stable for about three minutes of Orthos, and it BSOD's.

425 x 9 works fine with all the same settings. I was originally thinking it was some sort of FSB wall, but doing 550 x 7 = 3850 with stability suggests otherwise.
 
From 3.8 to 4.2 I only used the 9 multi and tried to reduce the strain on the mobo by riding the lower FSB, have you tried 435 x 9 (3.92) at 1.58v-core, should give you circa 1.53v actual

6spdkeg , I had a Q6600 on the same board and ran it to a max stable 3.6 (3.78 bench) and I must say all my apps and gaming was much better at 3.9 with the E6850, I do not want to open up the "dual vs quad" topic here as well (more than enough debating on this), but the quad kicked out a heck of a lot more heat than the E6850, whereas the brute GHz speed of the dual still took the cup in every app, I'm not talking 3DMARK benches, Windows apps and games

coo coo sounds good! I'm still reading up on the "benefits" of each. They are at the same price point and I was thinking in the same respects as you, the heat is bad with the Q6600 as far as I've read. I think the E6850 at a reasonable OC around 3.5 would just destroy anything I'm going to use the computer for anyways.. . I'm also debating on the little brother E6750 if I go 2 core. The price point seems pretty good and the OC'ing is there as well. I'm not a pro overclocker so maybe the E6850 will let me get higher more speed without as much of a fight.. .
 
That is funny...I also sold an E6750 a week ago on which I could bench 3.9 GHz, 3.8GHz stable, loved that CPU as well.
I you are not looking at max OC the I would say the E6750 is good value for money, you can run it up to 3.8 easiliy

BTW this is all on watercooling, if you have air cooling only then you would probably settle for 3.6 - 3.7 for the E6750.

The type of board and RAM also makes a difference as you probably know already, nothing is guarenteed, only the fun part is :beer:

coo coo sounds good! I'm still reading up on the "benefits" of each. They are at the same price point and I was thinking in the same respects as you, the heat is bad with the Q6600 as far as I've read. I think the E6850 at a reasonable OC around 3.5 would just destroy anything I'm going to use the computer for anyways.. . I'm also debating on the little brother E6750 if I go 2 core. The price point seems pretty good and the OC'ing is there as well. I'm not a pro overclocker so maybe the E6850 will let me get higher more speed without as much of a fight.. .
 
That is funny...I also sold an E6750 a week ago on which I could bench 3.9 GHz, 3.8GHz stable, loved that CPU as well.
I you are not looking at max OC the I would say the E6750 is good value for money, you can run it up to 3.8 easiliy

BTW this is all on watercooling, if you have air cooling only then you would probably settle for 3.6 - 3.7 for the E6750.

The type of board and RAM also makes a difference as you probably know already, nothing is guarenteed, only the fun part is :beer:

True true. I think 3.6-3.7 on a E6750 would be nice. But I also think that 3.6 on a Quad would be better in the long run. I only plan on air cooling though. I'll lap the cooler heat sink and chip most likely.

I'm lookin to run the Gigabyte GA-X38-DS4, 2x2GB Gskill 1000mhz F2-8000CL5D-4GBPQ, Vista ult 64 bit system (maybe XP64 bit), crossfire 3870s, 850watt PSU, 2 HDDs, TV tuner card for recording, 1900x1200 monitor.

with those components I think I have a lot of options on how to overclock my setup. With minor details a few are:
- To be somewhat safe do 3600Mhz I think 450 fsb with 8x multiplier and 1:1 ratio for memory at 900Mhz 5-5-3-12 should be fine on either the Q6600 or the E6750.. . I've read/seen the performance differance b/t 900mhz mem and 1066 and it's not that much, maybe 0.5% more capable.
- More darring = 3675, 525mhz 7x mult at 1:1, 1050 mem at 5-5-5-12T
- 5:6 on the Q6600 at 416fsb 9x multi would give me 1000mhz on the button.

here is a thread where a bunch of people are acheiving 1000mhz pluss on this Gskill 2x2Gb memory http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?p=2517286#post2517286
 
Hey Keg, you asked about the audio on this board and I've had several hours now to beat it up a bit.

While it's still carries the stigma of "onboard audio", I think it's more than adequate. My previous rig had the 24-bit 96khz 8-channel Via Envy24 audio, and it was very nice. This new board uses a standard Realtek 8-channel audio, and I have to say it's not bad at all. MP3's are very clean even at high volume, headphone audio quality is excellent, no grounding noise at 100% gain, et al.

It has some hokey features like EQ and soundstage that I'd never use, but leaving them all off seems fine. CPU utilization is nil, as there's just way more CPU here than it would ever need to use.

Overall, I'd say this is more than adequate for anyone playing games, surfing the web or the casual music listener. For the audiophiles out there who want 140db s/n ratio, I'm sure they'd have a field day ripping it apart.

I'm not one of those people :)
 
Another update: I discovered late last night that, if you're watercooling and thus do not have a CPU fan to supply the NB and Mosfet sinks with some breeze, then you will likely have problems with uber-FSB at stock voltage.

I started getting lockups in some Crysis benchmarks last night -- the game would freeze the entire OS solid, the only option left was to hit the reset key. The machine would reboot, come right back up, go back into Windows and be fine. Then I'd start Crysis again, and within a minute it froze. The second time it rebooted, and then continued to reboot in circles as if I had a bad overclock.

I initially assumed it was overclock related, so I futzed around for an hour before discovering that the NB was up to 60* at boot! The only thing I had available at the time was a 90mm fan, so I aimed it in that general direction and it immediately solved the problems.

The heatsink on this board is very large and quite adequate, but obviously it needs at least a little airflow to work. I'll be hitting Radio Snack at lunch today to source a 40mm fan to tide me over until I feel like ordering a better / prettier one from the Egg.

Further, this may be the underlying issue with my CPU clocking problems. Here's hoping :)
 
Hey Keg, you asked about the audio on this board and I've had several hours now to beat it up a bit.

While it's still carries the stigma of "onboard audio", I think it's more than adequate. My previous rig had the 24-bit 96khz 8-channel Via Envy24 audio, and it was very nice. This new board uses a standard Realtek 8-channel audio, and I have to say it's not bad at all. MP3's are very clean even at high volume, headphone audio quality is excellent, no grounding noise at 100% gain, et al.

Nice! I appreciate the info. That drops $65 off my build.. . I'll spend that on another Hard Drive.

do you think this fan would fit on this board without interference with the heat sinks? ?
ZALMAN CNPS8700 2 Ball CPU Cooler - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?item=N82E16835118030

Thanks
 
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