Biostar TA770 A2+ & 9600 BE Testing

I couldn't fight temptation any longer, I picked up the Biostar TA770 A2+ and 9600 Black Edition Combo from Newegg. I've been following this thread over at Rebels Haven Forum about this board. Polygon is working on a modded bios for it. It looked like it would be fun to tweak.

I received my order yesterday, it only takes a day to reach my house in PA from the New Jersey warehouse. The stepping I recieved was CAAWB AA 0747MPMW. The only mods I've done so far have been to change the stock TIM on the north and southbridge heatsinks as well has the stock Phenom heatsink. I'll be switching over to my water cooling equipment sometime soon. For now I' going to see what she can do on stock cooling.

I currently have the following on the testing bench:

Biostar TA770 A2+
9600 BE
2 x 1Gb Crucial PC5300
X1950XT
WD 80Gb sata 1.5
Corsair HX620W

I have the following that I can also use for testing later on:

8800GT 512MB
150GB Raptor
up to 4GB Crucial ballistix PC6400

I'm currently running P95 @ 2.44 stock vcore. I'm seeing temps of 30C load with virtually no extra airflow over the board or cpu. I'll add some fans later. I still have a long way to go to understanding Phenom overclocking.

I have some pics below of the board/cpu below as well as my horribly messy caseless setup

Please feel free to post your Phenom OC results/benchmarks, pics, or helpful suggestions in this thread.

Ok, I'm up to 2563 (223 x 11.5) with default vcore. Earlier I thought I was running at 2.4 in windows when really I was defaulting to 1200mhz because I had not installed AMD's Phenom driver. Sitting at 42C Load running P95 on all four cores.

I'm going to put my new 8800gt in tonight and I will post some benchmarks tomorrow hopefully. The only benchmark I've run so far has been SPI. 30 second run with my ram @ only 377 5-5-5-15 1T.

I want your setup.. ..* I will be very interested to see how this clocks.. and nice pics.. Look forward to seeing your water setup..

Jrsydevil said:

I want your setup.. ..* I will be very interested to see how this clocks.. and nice pics.. Look forward to seeing your water setup..

Click to expand...

looking forward to results with water.

I was using a modified bios from Polygon due to the fact that the current bios from Biostar is lacking multiplier adjustments. The modified bios was not allowing multiplier adjustment either. Previously I could not successfully use the AMD overdrive utility to tweak settings without it locking up. gotvoltage over at Rebel's Haven suggested using the new bios from Biostar and changing the CPU Stepping setting in the bios from P0 to P1 and turning off cool n' quiet. This is allowing me to use the AMD Overdrive utility. I am now able to change multiplier's up and down.

I am currently priming @ 2600 with no voltage adjustments. Load is only 36C with some chilly air. I will update this post with pics and updated clocks tomorrow.


**Update**

I had to increase the htlink voltage to 1.2750 in the bios to get 7 hours Prime stable @ 2600.

downer said:

I was using a modified bios from Polygon due to the fact that the current bios from Biostar is lacking multiplier adjustments. The modified bios was not allowing multiplier adjustment either. Previously I could not successfully use the AMD overdrive utility to tweak settings without it locking up. gotvoltage over at Rebel's Haven suggested using the new bios from Biostar and changing the CPU Stepping setting in the bios from P0 to P1 and turning off cool n' quiet. This is allowing me to use the AMD Overdrive utility. I am now able to change multiplier's up and down.

I am currently priming @ 2600 with no voltage adjustments. Load is only 36C with some chilly air. I will update this post with pics and updated clocks tomorrow.


**Update**

I had to increase the htlink voltage to 1.2750 in the bios to get 7 hours Prime stable @ 2600.

Click to expand...

Looking good so far! Have you made any more progress?

Some updates

*All benchmarks run @ 2600mhz, 400 4-4-4-12, TLB Patch disabled*

3DMark06 - 11040 w/ Stock 8800GT 600/900/1500,

Cinebench10 - 7657 (I'll add a screenshot once I get the pic resized)

SPI - 30sec 1MB (I'll add a screenshot once I get the pic resized)

Prime95 - 12hr run @ 2600mhz (1.3V). 2700mhz fails quickly with the same voltage. I haven't tried pumping any more voltage through the chip yet with the stock cooler. I may wait until I the chip is under water. I need a new block or a new top for my current waterblock, I just haven't decided which.

I'm not sure the HT Link Speed is running to it's full potential with the current bios. I think it defaults back to 1800mhz even when 2600mhz is set in the bios.

If there are any other benchmarks you guys would like me to run, just name them.

Wow these run a hell of a lot cooler than the Intel Quads.

yea mine never breaks 48-50c fully loaded prime or toast.

ps2cho said:

Wow these run a hell of a lot cooler than the Intel Quads.

Click to expand...

That CoreTemp shot is at idle, just after running prime. Load is still pretty good with the stock cooler @ around mid 40C range. Room temp is low.

Looks like the HT Link speed defaults to 1800 no matter what, I just learned that was normal though.

I've been trying for 2700 across all four cores. I tired upping the volts to around 1.4V, but was getting lock ups trying to run 3DMark06. I then tried clocking each core independently using AOD, and it appears core0 is the weaker core. Core1, 2, and 3 make it through 3Dmark06 @ 2700 just fine. Clocking core0 to 2700 was giving me lock ups even on the desktop. The mosfets on my board get blistering hot once I start upping the volts, so I'm going to need to sink them asap.

I located the htlink and vmem measure points on the board today and will post some shots of those soon. The board under volts on the memory by .10. 1.95v vmem in the bios is 1.86v actual. HTLink voltage is spot on. I'll also takes some shots of the bios layout and features. The Memory tweaking options are about as extensive as those on a DFI board.

have u tried pushing core 1,2, or 3 higher? also i found that the heat sink on the chip set takes about a week before the temps come down.

Core1 seems to be the strongest core, I was able to raise that to 2800mhz and run prime on it.

Im pretty much stuck at 2.5GHz with my 9600BE. Stock voltage, 12.5x multiplier, v1.2 BIOS on my MSI K9A2 790Fx Platinum. I've tried different BIOS' but the only one that works properly with AOD is v1.2. I upped the voltage all the way to 1.3v to see if I could hit 2.6, wouldnt work. I left the multiplier at 12.5 and added some fsb, freeze. Anything above 2.5 causes it to freeze no matter what voltage/settings i use. This is all within AOD though. I haven't even tried messing with the BIOS directly.