No PCI locks on Nforce2?!?

[Serraph]

Posted by Epox Tech from this thread. http://www.aoaforums.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=11033&perpage=20&pagenumber=1

"Hiya there. The AGP lock is to assist poor graphics cards with higher bus speeds / experimental overclocking measure. PCI is still an issue with which to contend. PCI/AGP lock only features on our P4 product for reasons that will leave it only on such platofrms - as much as one wishes or dreams - physical limitations do exist."

Followed by this question.

"Ok well if there is no PCI lock then what is the highest PCI divisor that will be available? is it still 1/5 or does this new board have 1/6 divisor?"

And this response.

"I prayed you wouldn't ask that one !! Pls don't ask me that one. Gives me a feeling worse than tooth ache. The board will stably do 200MHz sync if set correctly, that's all that matters."

So I guess it doesn't have a PCI lock. I'm not sure if this is the case for all of boards but I would assume it is since it's likely a chipset limitation rather than a manufacturer's problem. Anyone with a Asus, Chaintech, or Leadtek nforce2 motherboard wanna shed some light on this issue? Thanks.

 

[Jstic]

Asus A7N8x has a locked PCI bus at 33 mhz.

 

[Emericana]

Serraph i made that post i was very mad as well!!!!! that was one of the main reasons why i wanted a Nforce 2 as well.

i may have my KT333 for the long run now

Jstic the A7N8x does NOT have a locked PCI bus at 33mhz. the guy at epox said it is a chipset limitation that can not be overcome. Lets just hope the board will have a 1/6 divisor!

 

[Serraph]

Oh hey Emericana. Yeah that was the MAIN feature I was looking for too. Dual ddr is good and all, but if you can't lock the pci to keep stuff in spec then there's no way to reach high fsb to get the benefit of the it... *sigh* Well i'll still probably get it though because of the fact that it'll cost the same as kt333 and kt400 boards and it's supposedly stable at 200 fsb. Soundstorm is good too but it doesn't make up for all the pci lock. Looks like nforce2 won't be as special as I thought it was going to be.

 

[FleshEating Bob]

Is it just me, or do chipset makers just puprposely leave out the one feature everyone was awaiting the chipset's release for?

 

[Jstic]

The guy at Epox may be correct in his evaluation of his company's board, but that is not the case for other boards.

I have had the PCI bus on my computer measured electronically and it does not fluctuate above 34 mhz.

 

[Jstic]

Do you really think that Asus and NVIDIA are going to blatently advertise DDR400 support and then force the board to run out of spec. on the PCI bus when it is run synch. with fsb? Not.

BTW, if you are wondering how I measured the speed physically, I used THIS.

 

[Cúchulainn]

Isn't that sort of what via did with the kt400?

 

[sminker]

A locked PCI bus isnt really a big deal for me since im not a OCer. But just knowing the fact that at default speeds the NF2 and a 2800+ will be fast as hell.

 

[TheFrag]

i realized, why the hell would i need a PCI lock? Im gonna be using the onboard shiznit anyway. Also, it does have soundstorm

 

[Jstic]

The clock generator chip is what determines the PCI bus speed, it really has nothing to do with the chipset. There are timing issues with the chipset to be reckoned with, but different manufacturers obviously have different solutions.

 

[Jstic]

Chuchlain, that appears to be what VIA did, although they may have implemented a different programmable clock generator chip for the KT400. I no longer use VIA solutions, so I do not know much about their current boards. I would not put anything past VIA though, they have a history of AGP bus speed problems and other PCI issues, so running the bus out of spec. does not sound too far fetched for them.

 

[OC-Master]

The PCI bus in the nForce2 from ASUS is locked in at 33.34MHz unless you select manual PCI dividers of 1/4 or 1/5.

Its up to the manufacturer to implement the newest generation of clock generators to take advantage of this technology.


OC-Master

 

[Emericana]

TheFrag you need a PCI lock if you want to run at high fsb (200mhz+) without currupting your hardrive, or destroying your DVD Drive/CDRW Drive, or anything else you have plugged into your IDE/RAID because they run on the PCI bus.

 

[RnPgrosz]

Not having a 1/6 divider or PCI/AGP lock is pretty disapointing. For people who are already using a KT333 or KT400 board it doesn't seem like there will be a huge amount of tangible benefits concerning overclocking. Besides no AGP tearing at higher FSBs I don't really see any advantage for overclocking. Dual DDR is a different story that doesn't really have to do with hitting a high FSB.

 

[Deliximus]

makes me think more than twice about buying nforce2 b/c of the lack of the pci lock.

but it must have 1/5 divider at least cause how do they supor the 333fsb AXPs without it???

 

[Dragon_Engineer2]

So then you can still up the fsb correct?Whith out having to mess with the fsb of the pci at all?

The PCI bus in the nForce2 from ASUS is locked in at 33.34MHz unless you select manual PCI dividers of 1/4 or 1/5.

Its up to the manufacturer to implement the newest generation of clock generators to take advantage of this technology.


OC-Master

 

[Tipycol]

Hmm...now this is interesting. I really thought PCI is half the AGP, guess I was wrong. Well, looks like I'll look into the Asus board if the lock works there. Hopefully Epox will come out with a different version that has locks. Damn...and I was excited about running the fsb at 333MHz

 

[sminker]

I have a feeling that this board will be faster than the Asus @ stock speeds.

The Leadtek that was reviewed by AMDMB did better than the asus.

 

[Tipycol]

You're probably right on both counts, but overclocking should eliminate the first problem, and the fact that Leadtek doesn't have multiplier adjustments rules out that board. Still, with the way things are going, I might just get a KT333 board to last till the Hammers come out and don't cost a fortune.