Gigabyte DQ6 X38 + E6850 + DDR3 + 2900 Crossfire

These are all just preliminary results. You guys need to give me a few days to play around. But so far, I am very happy with my new X38. The Gigabyte DQ6T-ddr3 does 515 FSB right out of the box so far. I did not have to change MCH or southbridge voltage at all and no tweaking was required. C1E, TM2, and all CPU options have been disabled in the Phoenix Bios. I must say this is the first motherboard that I have ever used that was simply plug and play to a 515 MHz FSB. Even the P5B required major tweakage for 515 personally. This board is a pleasure to work with. My first initial test after installing Vista was trying out 7 X 515 @ 1.4vcore. Everything worked out great and vista was browsable and functioning great.


After trying out the initial FSB test I am now currently running the system COMPLETELY stock 9 X 333, and the memory is at 1300 mhz 9-9-9-20 (well below its rated 1866). The reason for this is because I would like to get some preliminary STOCK crossfire results.

RIG:
Gigabyte DQ6-T
E6850
2 X 1GB Patriot DDR3 1866mhz rated 9-9-9-20 (1.9 volts)
2 X Sapphire HD 2900 XT's in Crossfire with all 32 lanes!!!

The packaging of the board was exceptional. All shiny and perty:











Here are some pictures after adding the crossfire 2900XT's. I was surprised to see plenty of air and space between the two 2900XT's. I was expecting a crossfire sandwich and was pleased to see a little more space than expected. As you can see, each card comes with a single dongle to connect to its CF counterpart:





I just finished setting up cooling for my rig. I have a slightly modified Koolance EXOS2 with short access tubing directly to the CPU. The waterblock I currently chose for this setup is an Apogee GT. Bios CPU idling temps at 1.40 vcore = 29*C.



Some pictures of the Phoenix bios provided by Gigabyte for the X38:

Here is a screenshot of the Overclocking Options in Bios:



Here is my first preliminary 3dmark05 shot on the new 32 pipe crossfire setup.

STOCK 3.0GHz, FSB STOCK, 2900 XT's STOCK:



Man, I love this board. 520 FSB out of the box with no tweaking whatsoever.

7 X 520 (1.47vcore) CPU @ 3.65 GHz
I got the ram at close to 1600 MHz now.



Time for a little high FSB 3.65 GHz benchies.

7 X 520 FSB (3.65Ghz) Please note, this motherboard has been benching for the last hour straight without a hiccup. Stock voltage on everything except for vcore!!! I will say it again, this board has been a pleasure to work with.

Again, these are crossfire results with completely stock core/mem clockspeeds:


3DMARK 05



3DMARK 06



Aquamark:



Had my first little glitch with the board. I spent about 2 hours running benchies and during my last 3dmark03 bench the rig froze up on me. I restarted and went back into bios to check my temps. CPU temp was 35, and NB was 51*C. Since this is a passively cooled motherboard, and I had been running 520 FSB for about 1 hour and 1/2, I knew this was NB related.

Tried to restart the rig, and it wouldnt restart. Kept giving me power to the mobo, but no post. So, I started to panic, swapping sticks, jumper clearing cmos and removing battery to no avail. Last resort putting a room fan directly in the case and cooling down my NB. Got the temps back down to 30*C on the NB (at least thats what I checked after she booted right back up).

It was a scare but these Gigabytes definitely need some form of active cooling at 500FSB plus. I need to figure something out tomorrow with fan placement. Back to 9 X 333 for the time being.

The first CPU/mobo stability test was a huge success. 3.76 GHz @ 1.48vcore, Othros Stable Overnight for 5 hours:




Just started working on 3.87 GHz. I'm going to leave orthos on for the day today:



UPDATE
Any DDR3 guys out there? I am extremely new to DDR3 and how what dividers they may or may not enjoy. For some reason last night, I could not get these sticks stable at anything over 1666 MHz, and they are rated at 1866 (8-8-8-20). I tried different multipliers with completely different dividers and of course I manually set voltage and timings. It just will not post when the ram is higher than 1666. Cant figure this crap out yet. Any help would be a benefit.

UPDATE
What a wonderful night! I download Gigabytes updated bios for my motherboard. It offered enhanced memory and cpu overclocking stability as per gigabytes website.

I download the bios, erase and flash which was completely successful.

On the next reboot, its bricked!!!!! I now have a dead mobo. More headaches, and shipping costs + rma time on my watch and out of my wallet..

This absolutely blows. I heard there was a rumor about the first production of these boards not accepting bios flashes. Now we find out.

UPDATE
IM BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!
I swore to myself I would give it until this morning to decide to RMA or not.
Last night, I took the CMOS battery out and pulled the plug on the rig, left everything like that overnight. Woke up this morning, TOOK OFF WORK!!!!, lol.

Plugged the battery back in, plugged the rig in. Fired right up!

Close call .... More benchies to come today fellas..

UPDATE

I got a nice little comparison for everyone.

Ran the FEAR in game benchmark about 5 minutes ago.
I am extremely impressed with this CF setup.

New Scores
E6850 @ 3.96 GHz, 2900 XT Crossfire @ stock core/mem
FEAR, Maximum, Maximum Settings 1024 X 768
210 FPS Average

My Old Scores
E6700 @ 4.00 GHz, 8800 Ultra @ Stock core/mem
FEAR, Maximum, Maximum Settings 1024 X 768
150 FPS Average

HIGH RES SCORES:
E6850 @ 3.96 GHz, 2900 XT Crossfire @ Stock Core/mem
FEAR. Maximum, Maximum Settings 1600 X 1200
120 FPS Average

I am actually having problems with the memory. Thats why you havent been seeing too much of me in this thread lately. It will run at 1866 MHz 8-8-8-20, 1.93volts and boot no problem. It will run a few benchmarks, but spontaneously BSOD's and creates memory dumps. It runs absolutely flawless up to around 1740 MHz right now. So I currently have the rig at 8 X 480 - 3.84GHz which passes Orthos for 12 hours ram/cpu blend priority 10. But, 1740 MHz is a whole 126 MHz less than the premium that I paid for these sticks.

Max FSB so far was 535, but it eventually rebooted windows after a few minutes. The cooling pipes need a fan over the chipset sink, also it may need some mch/fsb voltage + cooling to get stable at 535+.
space reserved

Rattle. Got those 3d results for you bud.

E6850 @ 3.84 GHz 8 X 480 1.53v
Ram @ 740 mhz
CF 2900's @ 803/888 24/7 conservative (normal fan speed)

3dmark03 - 63120
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=5571635





3dmark05 - 26152
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=3565367

3dmark06 - 16962
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=3466606


Fear in game benchmark.

1024 X 768
Maximum, Maximum Quality
207 FPS Average




1600 X 1200 High Res
Maximum, Maximum Quality
118 FPS Average

Man, I love this board. 520 FSB out of the box with no tweaking whatsoever.

7 X 520 (1.47vcore) CPU @ 3.65 GHz
I got the ram at close to 1600 MHz now.

Go go go Dom! Helluva way to spend a friday night, lol.

Time for a little high FSB 3.65 GHz benchies.

7 X 520 FSB (3.65Ghz) Please note, this motherboard has been benching for the last hour straight without a hiccup. Stock voltage on everything except for vcore!!! I will say it again, this board has been a pleasure to work with.

Again, these are crossfire results with completely stock core/mem clockspeeds:


3DMARK 05



3DMARK 06

Nice results...

Aquamark:

Nice one Dom, I'll be following this thread with pleasure.

520fsb and no need to up the MCH

Throw a SSD in there and you're all set!

Great results, keep em coming!

Amazing Dom Keep em coming I wanna know what this X38 chipset can do......

Had my first little glitch with the board. I spent about 2 hours running benchies and during my last 3dmark03 bench the rig froze up on me. I restarted and went back into bios to check my temps. CPU temp was 35, and NB was 51*C. Since this is a passively cooled motherboard, and I had been running 520 FSB for about 1 hour and 1/2, I knew this was NB related.

Tried to restart the rig, and it wouldnt restart. Kept giving me power to the mobo, but no post. So, I started to panic, swapping sticks, jumper clearing cmos and removing battery to no avail. Last resort putting a room fan directly in the case and cooling down my NB. Got the temps back down to 30*C on the NB (at least thats what I checked after she booted right back up).

It was a scare but these Gigabytes definitely need some form of active cooling at 500FSB plus. I need to figure something out tomorrow with fan placement. Back to 9 X 333 for the time being.

nice dom!! im still waiting to see that ddr3 phase/ln2 cooled! *taps foot*

Gautam said:

Go go go Dom! Helluva way to spend a friday night, lol.

Click to expand...

Thanks G. I am very impressed thus far. But the board definitely needs active cooling or some water on the NB.

Whoa the box is shiny and pretty,

520fsb so far without any voltage bumps on the board. Very nice..

dominick32 said:

Had my first little glitch with the board. I spent about 2 hours running benchies and during my last 3dmark03 bench the rig froze up on me. I restarted and went back into bios to check my temps. CPU temp was 35, and NB was 51*C. Since this is a passively cooled motherboard, and I had been running 520 FSB for about 1 hour and 1/2, I knew this was NB related.

Tried to restart the rig, and it wouldnt restart. Kept giving me power to the mobo, but no post. So, I started to panic, swapping sticks, jumper clearing cmos and removing battery to no avail. Last resort putting a room fan directly in the case and cooling down my NB. Got the temps back down to 30*C on the NB (at least thats what I checked after she booted right back up).

It was a scare but these Gigabytes definitely need some form of active cooling at 500FSB plus. I need to figure something out tomorrow with fan placement. Back to 9 X 333 for the time being.

Click to expand...

Hehe, this might be difficult for you, but ever heard of a concept called "moderation"?

Perhaps 520 is pushing it but why not back down to 480ish or so? Even an even 450x8 would be pretty good and should be cake. IIRC the X38's have significantly higher heat dissipation than earlier chipsets, so I suppose this makes sense. It's good to see that they're very strong in the FSB department though, obviously your CPU is as well.

Gautam said:

Hehe, this might be difficult for you, but ever heard of a concept called "moderation"?

Perhaps 520 is pushing it but why not back down to 480ish or so? Even an even 450x8 would be pretty good and should be cake. IIRC the X38's have significantly higher heat dissipation than earlier chipsets, so I suppose this makes sense. It's good to see that they're very strong in the FSB department though, obviously your CPU is as well.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I am definitely impressed with the stability of this board. High FSB, no tweaking besides disabling all CPU options, and only changing vcore. I have yet to freeze, reboot, or BSOD, from anything besides that little NB heat scare.

And the processor is a great bargain as well. The E6850 did 3.6GHz @ 1.4v and 3.65GHz @ 1.46v and I havent even began to play with the CPU yet.

Very nice dom! Sorry I had to find it in this manner but rest assured the troll is gone

You should be able to push that puppy to 4 Gigs, then only will you see that CPU sing...I would say I take my E6850 any day above my Q6600, it runs so cool, 4 GHz at 56 C under load on air

hey dom could you run a test? im wondering if the X38 forces the 1333 divider when you go from 499 to 500mhz. p35 does this i wonder if they were able to move it up, if they did i wonder where its kicking in.