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AI7 maximum fsb

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microfire

Member
Joined
Oct 8, 2001
What would be the maximum fsb and common realistic fsb that this board can achieve?

Im looking at putting either a 2.4c or 2.8c stepping M0 in the Abit AI7. My ram can handle 225mhz tightest timings if I set voltage to 3.2v (3.24v actual), so there may be little more mhz maybe 230-235mhz leaft in the xms3500 if I loosen the timings.
If I get a good 2.4c then its upto the AI7 northbridge to deliver.
 
5:4

I hoping to get a cpu maybe a 2.4c that will do about 3.5ghz, if I do get one that can then I put will full voltage through the memory and max it out at 233mhz.
220mhz on my memory is no problem at all, 215mhz is my everyday speed, all at 3.15 volts
The motherboard is going to need to be able to do 291mhz? I not sure if it could or even 280 for that matter.
Im thinking of playing it safe and getting a 2.8c but I aiming for as high as I can go otherwise.
 
I know there's people who have it running at 300mhz, although probably not with the 5:4 divider. I've got mine at 264 using 5:4, I've had it up to 275, but my memory didn't agree with the speed.

The AI7 is a decent board. If you buy one, be sure the remove the northbridge heatsink and replace the thermal pad with some arctic silver before putting it back on.
 
I've had my AI7 running at a stable 283 FSB with a 2.4C using the 5:4 ratio and tight timings (RAM with BH-5 chips of course). I was able to boot at 287 FSB with slightly relaxed timings (but haven't stability tested or benched at that speed yet). I haven't really tried pushing the vdimm past 2.8v yet to see what happens, just wanted to make sure it did at least as good as my IC7 before torturing it.
 
althes said:
The board can hit 300fsb with ease.

Damm, I just ordered a 2.8c M0 maybe I should of ordered a 2.4c M0 instead and pushed for big fsb plus high mhz with the 5:4.
 
I think its a crap shoot either way becaue not all 2.4c's will do 3.5 because of one thing or another (mostly chip) and definetly not all 2.8c's will go to 3.5.

Personally I think the board gets a little flaky around 290+ , northbridge cooling, mosfet temps, southbridge temp.. I just dunno for sure. I'm still playing with mine but it is ROCK stable P95 X 24 hrs TT and it is at 288 ;) .
 
So if I made it short of 3.5ghz with either cpu,
the 2.8c would do nicely at 1:1 with a lower fsb
where as
the 2.4c would do nicely at 5:4 with a higher fsb

I was kind of hoping that they were speed binning the 2.4c and 2.8c M0's, overall the 2.8c being the more successful contender.

What if I was to go with a 3.2? They dont seem that expensive and maybe im gaurenteed more mhz?

Im sort of put off trying for big fsb on the AI7, might be to hard since I will be running all on air.
 
Arch said:
The AI7 is a decent board. If you buy one, be sure the remove the northbridge heatsink and replace the thermal pad with some arctic silver before putting it back on.

Hey, i'm planning on getting an AI7 also soon, and I was wondering, How do you take off the NB heatsink on the AI7? Thanks.
 
just push down on the dlips and take it off.

At what fsb should you think about putting some thermal paste on the northbridge?
Ive got the northbridge fan locked down at 8v, what fsb should I be thinking of increasing the speed?
 
I've got a boatload of new puter hardware coming so I won't be able to get my AI7 loaded up until sometime next week..
Once everything is up and running, I'll post results.

Here's what I'm going with

2.8E Prescott
1GB Mushkin PC3500 Level II
36GB Raptor
74GB Raptor
and of course the Abit AI7

I'm hoping for 1:1 and 250fsb with tight timings - we'll see.
 
you guys have no clue what you are talking about when you say 300 FSB with ease. The board, as is the case with most Abit boards, tops out around 290-295FSB. The chipset voltage WILL have to be modded to push any further. I have owned not one but three of these boards and all hit a wall right there on a 2.4M0 that can go well past 300Bus.
 
My board displays visual artifacts during games past 225fsb using 1:1, :( it really means that the maximum fsb is only 225fsb, I play games so thats all it good for. Great board pity about the artifacts(btw. not a video card problem for those who think it is).
 
I think the "300 fsb with ease" is a little iffy as well. I can say though, that this board is a good one to try on. With my 2.8C M0, I run 265MHz for 24/7 use and have benched it stable at 275MHz and it was very nice indeed. This is on all air and no mods at all, not even removing the NB hsf to mess with the thermal crud. BTW, I have also run it 240 MHz 1:1 with my KHX 3200 without a problem.
 
Yea 292 is the max fsb I was able to boot into windows.

Right now I have the fsb at 284 and everything is stable.

My northbridge idles at 32c and hits about 40c under load. Now my "pwm" temps rise as high as 80c under Prime95. The board is designed to have the cpu fan blowing air over the mosfet area, but im watercooling so it doesnt happen.

Currently idling at 38c and hitting about 47c under load, but im running at 1.7vcore but I plan on testing lower power levels shortly.
 
For doing 300+ fsb, a good 2.40C makes up for a lot - no ****. A lot of it is the CPU.

Last and only time I had my AI7 up I did 300 fsb stable in all CPU and 3D benchmarks. However compared to the IS7 and IC7, it seemed a bit squirrely. I found it is more picky with ram too. ADATA PC450 that runs fine at 1:1 and 5:4 on the other boards did not top out as high. Now this was 4 months ago. Next time I get the board up I have water now, and I will update the BIOS.

As far as 5:4, depends on CAS timings. As we all know now, harder to do this with BH-5/6. As I have 300+ fsb CPUs now, I've been able to test 5:4 ability of various boards. On the AI7 I topped out at 290, 5:4, 2-2-2-5 with twin 512 MB XMS3500. I was using 3.1 VDIMM so that was not a factor. The board had hot restart problems above that so it's the Intel chipset limitation. I think one other guy also topped out the same. Now this is a 3D stable max, which is all I deal with. Many boards will boot and and are 2D stable at 5:4, 295-300+ but they will not clear an entire loop of 3DMark2001.

BTW, at 290, 5:4, 2-2-2-5 with my XMS3500 set to SR-Enh-A-D-D I got a whopping 3600+ unbuffered!!!

On the Epox 4PDA2+ I topped out around 289, 5:4, 2-2-2-5, with up to 3.3 VDIMM on tap. This was a major disappointment.

I am testing a P4C800-D now, and with OC PC3700 Golds Rev. 1.0 I top out at 293, 5:4, 2-3-3-6. Frankly, I don't think I will get much higher with BH-5.

I have hit 304-305 absolutely-stable-in-everything-you-can throw-at-it with an IS7, IS7-E, IC7, and did 300 on the AI7. It's all in the CPU here - you gotta get a well-behaved one. 66/33 fix is OK up to and including 302 fsb, and you just need to bump it to 68/34 above that. The Asus board I have does maybe 304 but it's a bit more work. The Epox maxed at 301.

I still need to test a P4C800-E and P4P800, but at this point the Abit boards are the most stable and well-behaved above 300 fsb. The AI7 not included, but I am wiser now and I think I will have an easier time at 300+ next time I get the board up.

I use a Tiger1 (7?) NB cooler with a bigger 40 mm fan hot glued to it. This thing is running 6800 rpm. I use either a Sparkle or Antec 400W power supply with pots bumped. When I was on air, I hotglued twin 50 mm fans to the shroud of my Alpha8942, blowing on the mosfets. I also have a 120 mm fan blowing on my ram.
 
I have similar experience as Clevor, my AI7 runs above 300 but its picky on ram over my IS-7's.

I found it no harder than the IS-7 though after the memory was sorted.

For me its was a combo of chip, memory, and NB (under dual channel). All of them have to be up to it or its not going to happen.
 
unmodded stock AI7 here

2.8C SL6Z5
Abit AI7 16beta1 bios
2x 256MB KHX3200K2/512 BH-5 dual channel kit
80GB 800JB

5:4
fsb = 280fsb
mem = 224mhz 2-2-2-6
PAT = partially enabled with GAT = SR-E-A-D-D

cpuz_idle.jpg


Pcmark2002
CPU: 9,760
MEM: 11,259
HDD: 1,091

Sandra 2004 Pro SP1
CPU = 12,326 / 4977/8662
CPU Multimedia = 30,237/42,812
Buffered = 6,224/6,168
Unbuffered = 3,136/3,155

Super PI 1M = 36s
Super PI 2M = 1min 24s
Super PI 8M = 6min 41s
Super PI 32M = 32min 24s
Hexus Pifast = 51.56s

Renderbench = 4min 24s
3dmark2001 with 9800PRO xtreme at default 398/351 = 21,126
 
I'm surprised at your unbuffered Eva, 3100-3200 at DDR448. Hmmm, big dropoff due to SS sticks and 2-2-2-6? I haven't had my board up for awhile but I still had humongous bandwidth on the 800 strap, 5:4, 2-2-2-5 with dual 512 MB XMS3500, due to the SR-E-A-D-D enabling partial PAT. I got just over 3600 at 289, 5:4, 2-2-2-5.

Even at 300, 3:2, 2-2-2-5 or DDR400 I got 3150.

So far I've run 300+, 3:2, 2-2-2-5 with the Epox, Asus, and Abit boards and I get the highest 3DMark2001 scores with the Abit, due to the slightly higher unbuffered at around DDR400-408. The IS7 even beats the Asus P4C800-D, an 875P board, but then it beats the IC7 too by a tad. Can't run anything but A-A-A-D-D on the IC7 with PAT already enabled.
 
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