Brolloks EVGA P55 LE review

[ghost_recon88]

What kind of temps was the chip reaching at 4.4GHz? And how much vcore was it pushing?

 

[Brolloks]

At 4.4 I went up to 1.4 vcore, temps were around 38 C on idle, dunno what on load, it would run SPI 32 about halfway and then reboot, temps would be in lower 50's, that is with mem at default speeds. Will try some different memory as well although I doubt it's the memory.

 

[evoted]

I am dumbfounded as to why the board manufactures chose a different mounting hole config for this socket.

i found this on maximumpc.com

We asked Intel if it was doing this just to **** people off and the company said no, it did it for legitimate engineering reasons. Intel actually lowered the height of the new direct socket load mechanism that clamps the CPU in place, which required moving the mounting holes out. Existing heatsinks capable of the thermal load should work, Intel said, so long as consumers obtain updated mounting brackets from the cooler maker. We have to also note that very new high-end coolers are coming with mounts for LGA1156 too. Still, make sure that if the box says Core i7, support for LGA1156 is included.

Although Intel wouldn’t confirm this, we’ve been told by high-end system builders that certain LGA1366 motherboards and coolers would flex enough to create a gap between cooler and CPU. The new design presumably fixes that problem.

 

[Gautam]

I did not have a very successfull night with this board, past 4.4 Ghz it behaves very unpredictable with random reboots or BSOD even at the slightest loads. I've tried all sorts of voltage combos. I am convinced it is the board and not the CPU, will pick up an Asus P7P55D Pro today just to confirm. I suspect the PWM's and reliative low voltage phases this board have, has something to do with this instability.

Did you disable ht? My 860 is crap with it on, can't do anything but suicide at 4.4. (It's not even stable at 4.3) With it off though it's stable at 4.5.

 

[Brolloks]

Ha, thanks for that Gautum, I guess was expecting the 860 to perform like a 920, I'll see how far I can go without HT.

 

[Gautam]

Actually I lied when I said it's stable at 4.5. It's solid for 3D and 32M at 4.45 but actually I'm finding it totally falls apart even 20-30mhz higher than that. :S

 

[hokiealumnus]

Interesting CPUz identifies your board as an "EVGA P55 SLI LE" since the SLI and LE are to distinct models. Doubt it means much, just thought it was interesting.

 

[jamesman32]

I love it. Brolloks, you're ALWAYS the first to get new hardware Good for the rest of us though, because soon enough it'll be in the classies All kidding aside, looks like a really sweet setup. Cant wait to see some gaming benches.

 

[Brolloks]

Actually I lied when I said it's stable at 4.5. It's solid for 3D and 32M at 4.45 but actually I'm finding it totally falls apart even 20-30mhz higher than that. :S

So looks like these 1156 chips have more like a bclk cliff than a wall?

Interesting CPUz identifies your board as an "EVGA P55 SLI LE" since the SLI and LE are to distinct models. Doubt it means much, just thought it was interesting.

yes, it is confimred that the board has no SLI option , it has no nvidia chip onboard to enable that.

 

[ChinStrap]

yes, it is confimred that the board has no SLI option , it has no nvidia chip onboard to enable that.

theres the bios flag now too though. i know my R2G doesnt have a nf200 chip, but i can still us SLi

 

[Evilsizer]

theres the bios flag now too though. i know my R2G doesnt have a nf200 chip, but i can still us SLi

well there has been a bios flag for a while.. i think since 650/680i went retail..considering how easy it was for NV to block out other boards from using that feature.

 

[hokiealumnus]

The NV200 chip is only needed to enable tri-SLI on P55 boards (a la the EVGA P55 FTW 200 and P55 Classified 200), because the i5/i7 CPUs on the platform only have 16 PCIe lanes total, either 1x16 or 2x8. P55 board manufacturers can license it as a choice without the extra chip. If you add an NF 200 to it, it gives you one more 8x slot.

 

[Evilsizer]

The NV200 chip is only needed to enable tri-SLI on P55 boards (a la the EVGA P55 FTW 200 and P55 Classified 200), because the i5/i7 CPUs on the platform only have 16 PCIe lanes total, either 1x16 or 2x8. P55 board manufacturers can license it as a choice without the extra chip. If you add an NF 200 to it, it gives you one more 8x slot.

well if you look at the P55 break down, the cpu has 16 lanes as we all know. The P55 chipset has 8 lanes and 1 or 2 are used for the onboard nic. though the diagram makes it look like the nic gets it own dedicated pcie lanes. if manufactures wanted to they could then combine those 8 x1 lanes for a single x8 16x slot. though im not sure NV would approve such a design. would be interesting to say the least to compare different configs NV200+LGA1156 pcie/LGA1156 pcie+P55 pcie.

 

[hokiealumnus]

In theory, yes, that's correct. But I doubt any manufacturer is going to want to disable any potential PCIe x1 slots just for another GPU. Imagine the complaints and returned boards from people who didn't pay attention to what they were buying. It would be great to have the option for people like you and me who know, but those others would be a pain for whichever board maker did it, guaranteed.

I assume that's precisely why EVGA has gone with SLI + dedicated PhysX @ 4x, plus some PCIe x1 slots. Uses the extra lanes on the P55 chip and doesn't take anything away. Makes sense, if you have money to blow on a dedicated PhysX GPU (or adding new cards and using an older card as a PhysX GPU).

(Sorry Brolloks, I'll shutup now.)

 

[Brolloks]

No problem guys, chat away, good info

Talking about problems, I've just about had it with this board, dropping the multi to 20 trying to get a bclk higher than 210 ended up in so many reboots at different post codes that I ended up clearing the CMOS one time too many.

Sorry to say but I cannot recommend this board just yet...I need to either try another CPU or another board.

I will for now set up another board to work on the CPU.

 

[Evilsizer]

Ed did you read my pm from the other night... *hint,hint*

 

[Brolloks]

YHPM Dr Evil.

PS...I think I'm going to become very unpopular over at the EVGA forums.

 

[Evilsizer]

YHPM Dr Evil.

PS...I think I'm going to become very unpopular over at the EVGA forums.

YGPM

hmm, why do you say that? o wait, let me guess must be prime stable oc's,lol!

*edit*
nvm, i see now, losing track of threads and all the blues are starting to look the same, LOL
time for bed at this point, gots to get up at 3am

 

[ChinStrap]

YGPM

hmm, why do you say that? o wait, let me guess must be prime stable oc's,lol!

LOL. i forgot about his other thread.

those people need to remember "stable" is to each his own. it's stable for me if it passes 06' CPU

 

[Brolloks]

At this stage stable for me is to boot into Windows and run SPI 1M