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Gigabyte EP45-UD3P

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Ross

Senior Intel-lectual
Joined
May 20, 2002
ep45-ud3p.jpg

I've been playing with this board for a few days and figured I'd post some things I've done already. It's my first time using DDR2 in at least 6 months, so I am finding my bearings again :)

The board does clock DDR2 VERY well and can do some serious FSB if the memory is up to the task.

Stock board and NB cooling (+80mm fan on the NB sink)
E8600 TRUE + Panaflo H1A / NexXxos XP + BIP2 (now)
HD4850 Crossfire (Vgpu modded + watercooled)
2x1GB Ballistix 8500s (D9s)
Odin 1200W PSU

Max FSB (air cooled CPU):

660fsb.png

Max FSB (WC'd CPU):

671fsb.png

Easy DDR2-1400 with Crucial Ballistix 8500s @ 2.40V:

700mhz.png

Dusted off my trusty Corsair XMS 6400C3s. Boot to the desktop here @ 2.40V:

c3s_ep45.png

Quick 32M to test how tight the mem will go with high speed:

32m_4675.png

Just a quick 3D01. I realized after I ran this that I still had my SPi tweaks in place (not good for 3Ds ;)):

3d01_4950.png

I'll probably be playing around on WC for the next couple days and should have some results with extreme cooling next week. I'll post up more results as I do them :)
 
LOL. Yeah, the board is dirt cheap, which is always a plus, but it's also the new one with 2 ounces of copper in the board. Copper isn't cheap these days either. I dug a pic off my camera that I took of the standard 1 oz. copper layer next to the 2 oz. copper layer. It's kind of hard to tell from a pic, but obviously the 2 oz. is noticeably thicker...and sturdier (the one NOT fixed on the sheet). That 1 oz. sheet might as well be aluminum foil...actually, it's probably not even as thick as aluminum foil ;)

Normally, I wouldn't even look at a $115 board since just about any in that price range don't clock like $250-400 boards. This thing is flying though. I can't wait to get it on cold and see what it does. Hicookie pretty much threw down the gaunlet with 670FSB 3Ds on it...I can only keep my fingers crossed that I'll be in the same ballpark :)

I forgot to say in the first post, it boots to the desktop @ 630FSB on air :thup:

copper.jpg
 
Is your RAM @ 2.4v for all those screenies? Can you bench @ 700MHz or just get a CPU-Z validation? How many weeks do those sticks last having 2.4v put through them ;)
 
2.4V for the benches and 700MHz. I haven't tried benching them over ~680MHz yet, but I have a feeling 700MHz benchable (at least anything other than 1M) will require more voltage.

They only take 2.2V for 1200 and 2.3 up to ~1350, but I just want to make sure the mem isn't any hang up, hence the 2.4V pretty much across the board. Just about 1 week at these voltages for me (bought them used), but DDR2 voltage doesn't scare me, even on D9s. D9s were just about all the DDR2 I used to bench and I'd run 2.8-2.9V regularly :beer: At some point I vaguely remember looking for a way to tie the 3.3V rail into the slots LOL.

Out of all the D9s sticks I ran that hard, the 6400C3s were the only ones that had a problem after a couple months of abuse (way back when). That's why I won't run more than 2.4-2.5V to the ones I have left and why I am not benching with them now. They are old, were fairly rare even back then and only "equivalent replacements" available under RMA now...problem is, they have no equivalent so I don't want these to drop dead :) I have more of the Ballistix though, so I'll light those puppies good up before I'm done :beer:
 
Haha, yeah, I'm sure I am not getting them mixed up, maybe I was thinking about the 3.3V rail for DDR1 though ;) Lower Vddr would be nice, but the other option is running lower clocks and what fun is that? :D
 

I've been playing with this board for a few days and figured I'd post some things I've done already. It's my first time using DDR2 in at least 6 months, so I am finding my bearings again :)

The board does clock DDR2 VERY well and can do some serious FSB if the memory is up to the task.

Stock board and NB cooling (+80mm fan on the NB sink)
E8600 TRUE + Panaflo H1A / NexXxos XP + BIP2 (now)
HD4850 Crossfire (Vgpu modded + watercooled)
2x1GB Ballistix 8500s (D9s)
Odin 1200W PSU

Max FSB (air cooled CPU):

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a125/boostedevo/ep45-ud3p/660fsb.png

Max FSB (WC'd CPU):

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a125/boostedevo/ep45-ud3p/671fsb.png

Easy DDR2-1400 with Crucial Ballistix 8500s @ 2.40V:

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a125/boostedevo/ep45-ud3p/700mhz.png

Dusted off my trusty Corsair XMS 6400C3s. Boot to the desktop here @ 2.40V:

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a125/boostedevo/ep45-ud3p/c3s_ep45.png

Quick 32M to test how tight the mem will go with high speed:

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a125/boostedevo/ep45-ud3p/32m_4675.png
Just a quick 3D01. I realized after I ran this that I still had my SPi tweaks in place (not good for 3Ds ;)):

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a125/boostedevo/ep45-ud3p/3d01_4950.png

I'll probably be playing around on WC for the next couple days and should have some results with extreme cooling next week. I'll post up more results as I do them :)

Hmm.. am I missing something?


AC is where it is at.. why do people still Watercool...unless the core is WCed (and I mean that in a big block sense like bored Internal combustion engines) its basicaly not worth the money.

(5-20 times the cost for 10 mhz gain) ouch


Air or LN2 who is to quibble?
 
I must be missing something...like the point of your post :shrug: I guess I should leave my old WCing stuff just sitting in the closet because it's too expensive to be worthwhile. Why bother with 40C load temps when I can have 70C a lot cheaper :rolleyes: Brilliant.

I am sure there's got to be an air vs. water thread around here somewhere, go troll there.
 
Ross, for the NB heat, I pulled the tops off the sinks, helps a good bit. Plus I think mine looks a lot cooler now :D
pict0333su2.jpg




BTW, have you pulled the cooling from this board yet? I was a good bit impressed, since most stock cooling on motherboards makes such terrible contact they might as well not be used. When I pulled all the stock cooling off this board, I was happy to find this :)
pict0320tt1.jpg
 
Again... you have some very impressive overclocks posted.
I didn't know you were over here too :thup: Thanks again ;)

Ross, for the NB heat, I pulled the tops off the sinks, helps a good bit. Plus I think mine looks a lot cooler now :D

BTW, have you pulled the cooling from this board yet? I was a good bit impressed, since most stock cooling on motherboards makes such terrible contact they might as well not be used. When I pulled all the stock cooling off this board, I was happy to find this :)
Nice Jeremy. Nope, haven't taken anything off the board yet. It's still right out of the box. Did you pull the sinks off just to look under the hood or are you going cold soon? If I pull the stock NB sink, I am either going to need to run LN2 on the NB too or find a way to mount a WB or better air cooler. The stock seems like it does a decent job though, so I think I will leave it for the time being with the cover pulled off :)

This is for Brolloks. I know he and others worry about the high default PLL and VTT at 500-550+ boots. I've been running them for months without any issues, but that doesn't stop people from not liking them :) Nothing seems to beat the AUTO settings for the highest possible clocks/FSB, but they certainly aren't mandatory for less than extreme OCs.

PLL is down to 45nm "default" and VTT is down quite a bit. The trick (for me at least) seems to be raising Vmch Ref as VTT is going down. I was using EasyTune on the desktop to set them and am not 100% what this .70 VTT corresponds to in BIOS since what EasyTune shows doesn't match what is set in BIOS (.76 default BIOS = .65 EasyTune) :shrug:

lowvtt.png
 
great clocks! I actually just got the same board with an 8500 (eo) amd 8 gigs of g.skill pc2 8500 ram. I'd like to see what settings and adjustments you made in the bios (I haven't oc'd something for years and things have surely changed. All those options scare me.)
 
You can start with almost everything on AUTO. Set your Vcore, mem voltage and MCH voltage (Northbridge) manually or the AUTO will really set them much higher than you need. Just start low with the voltages and work your way up as needed or as much as cooling allows.

That's a lot of mem and I don't know how it will handle the 2GB sticks, let alone 4 of them ;) I very much doubt any settings I have will work for you, but we'll help however we can, so post your results/questions here :thup:
 
I think it's going to be SS first, maybe tomorrow. I have a nasty cold and don't feel like going out to get LN2 ;)

I did some more playing with VTT and MCH Ref and really got it knocked down. With Ref set at .70 (in EasyTune), VTT 1.38-1.42 would error in 32M in the first 4 loops, but 1.36 passed the whole thing. I even rebooted and upped the clocks (multi only to keep everything else the same) to make sure and it was still fine. I kept trying lower and again, 1.30-1.34 didn't work (with .70 or .72 Ref), but 1.28 VTT did. .74 Ref or under 1.26 VTT is an automatic reboot, so I think I am at the limits for this FSB, but that's pretty dang low on everything comparatively speaking.

So clearly, anyone worried about the high AUTO PLL/VTT is going to need to find the FSB/clocks they want and then just play with VTT/MCH Ref to find what works using whatever you want to test stability. 32M is far from a breeze here, but I don't need or care about it being prime stable for 3 days straight :beer:

lowervtt.png

After I reached the limits with PLL/VTT, I started messing around in BIOS to find out what in BIOS = what in EasyTune because they don't match (Ref). They aren't quite linear, but it's about .10 off, so .82 in BIOS = ~.72 in EasyTune. So use EasyTune to find what works more easily and then set it in BIOS accordingly :thup:
 
I don't need or care about it being prime stable for 3 days straight :beer:
LOL!!!! You truely are my superhero Ross.....

Excellent work and very detailed walk through of your testing...:beer:
 
Ross, I noticed you tuned down the ICH all the way down to 1.1v, is that on auto or did you manually set it that low?
 
The VTT/MCH refs in EasyTunes not matching with BIOS is something I wish Gigabyte would address in the next EasyTunes or BIOS update... which one do you think is correct? (The DDR refs/termination don't match either) Here is my non auto settings for 8.5x500 333 latch 5/6 divider using my Kingston HyperX.
 

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Hey Ross, whats the vdroop like on your board? Some of the guys over @ XS are saying Vdroop is more prevalent than on the P5Q series Asus boards.
 
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