ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 advice needed.

[jmdixon85]

Tonight I am retiring my trusty old Q6600 as my main rig and it will be used as my fileserver as I have a ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 along with a Intel 2500K arriving in the morning to replace it

The main specs will be:

Mobo: ASRock Z77 Extreme 4
CPU: Intel 2500K
RAM: 4x2GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer 1600Mhz
GPU: NVidia GTX 460

I just have a few questions about the setup since this is the first Intel i-series setup I have built...

1: On the ASRock site it says the board supports "Lucid Virtu Universal MVP technology". Now this sounds great as it stops tearing in games without having to enable Vsync and throttle the FPS. There is a small video on the site where it mentions your screen being plugged into the motherboard instead of the GPU and still using the power of the GPU? Also it mentioned that when your screen is connected to the motherboard your discrete GPU can virtually shut off and just use the IGPU of the CPU to save power.

That being the case I'm not 100% positive if it will be best to plug my screen into my video card or the motherboard itself? Any thoughts?....

2: I already had 4GB of the Crucial RAM so I ordered another 4GB along with the mobo. Will the 1600Mhz speed limit my overclocking headroom? I know back in the Skt 775 days I setup a few machines that had their overclocking potential held back by RAM but I'm not sure if the same rules still apply with the Z77 chipset.

3: ASRock make a big fuss over the "Xfast 555" features on this board. The Xfast LAN and Xfast USB don't really interest me, but the Xfast RAM intrigues me a little. The video on the website shows the software being able to use this feature to store the pagefile in RAM and a few other things I can't remember off hand. So is this feature usefull and if so whats the best way to take advantage of it?

I think that's all the questions I have for now. Makes sense getting advice now before the board arrives so when I get the system built tomorrow I can get strait to the overclocking 5Ghz possible I sure hope so

 

[EarthDog]

1. I had no idea Lucid V MVP stopped tearing in games... I thought you just plugged it in to the videocard. I have never used it though.

2. This isnt s775. You do not overclock the FSB/Bclk so the memory will stay the same.

3. Run it as they say. Mostly that stuff seems gimmicky. Check out the review on that board on the front page.

5Ghz... 24/7......... best of luck. That normally isnt a 24/7 overclock, but it isnt unheard of.

 

[jmdixon85]

Thanks Earthdog. Reading back through my post I was hitting myself in the head...why would I need to overclock the RAM with a unlocked CPU...brain must have went on strike!

The CPU will be under water so I'm hoping for somewhere between 4.6-5Ghz.

 

[jmdixon85]

Well it's time..............time to strip down my main rig and my fileserver! Going to rebuild the fileserver with the parts from my main rig. I will be glad to retire the Dual P4 Xeons (and so will the electric meter).

The Asrock Z77 manual says for best 3D performance connect the screen directly to the video card so thats another question answered.

Still wanting to know more about the Xfast RAM feature and if I can put it to use?

In the mean time my X205 Toshiba laptop will be used as a desktop replacement.

I just hope overclockers.co.uk have my order shipped out in the morning! I picked the DPD next day parcel before 12pm service. I paid £15 for postage when my order was put in just before 4pm, the status says " In our warehouse queue".........thats rather worrying as I'm away from home after tomorrow for 5 days fingers crossed!

 

[jmdixon85]

Well the parts arrived a day late but I'm up and running.

Currently seeing how far I can get the i2500K for a 24/7 overclock.

Prime95 running at 4Ghz, Vcore @ 1.3v and the hottest core reaching 60c.

Going to shoot for 4.5Ghz @ 1.35Vcore next

It's rather a mess tho:









EDIT: upto 4.5Ghz @ 1.344 Looking good so far 4.7 next

EDIT2: Hit a problem. Whenever I try to go above a 45x multiplier the system will not post.

My settings are:







A 45x multi is pefectly stable under prime so I'm sure I'm just missing something simple?

EDIT: Still running at 4.5Ghz till I get a solution (hopefully) But I also noticed 3dmark 06 and vantage won't run with the virtu universal MVP software installed. So its now uninstalled, is this ok? Or will I be missing out on performance?

Yet another edit. ok I feel like I'm talking to myself now, but I found out enabling PLL overvolt control lets my get past 4.5Ghz. Now lets see what happens