mirror finish:)

You propably want to avoid Catastrofic Control Center so download Omega Drivers.

http://www.omegadrivers.net/ati/win2k_xp.php

yeah, i remember the control center crap from building some pc's for others. looks like **** & works like ****... (but the new nvidia stuff aint much better, i hear)


anyhow, as i'm sitting on my thumb waiting for my motherboard & memory to arrive:
anyone know which divider settings and such i should aim for with PC6400 800mhz DDR2 (rated 4-4-4-15) on a P5W DH Deluxe? i hear the P5B 965's are mighty peculiar about the divider settings and performance... how about the 975X's?

alright, dunno if anyone still reads this, but here it goes ;)

i got my mobo yesterday, so i crammed it into my case & gave it a few testruns. I havent tweaked much yet, much more to come i bet.

the mobo came with 1407 bios. after install of Asus PcProbeII, it immediately reports 45°c mobo temp, which makes the alarm go off. bad start... upon observation i notice the CPU sometimes jumps from 20°c to 256°c. toasty!

i gave it a spin nonetheless to see what default crap does:

Default:

CPU: 2137Mhz
RAM: 333.9Mhz @ 5-5-5-15
Bus: 267Mhz
FSB: 1068Mhz
Divider: 4:5

SuperPi 1M: 26s
3DMark 06: 4709

CPU temp idle: 23°c @ 7V, 20°c @ 12V
Mobo temp idle: 43°c to 45°c

obviously not working too well, i updated the bios to 1707. the mobo temp evened out to 38°c idle to 41°c. the 256°c still happens from time to time, making PcProbe totally useless. i decided to test the RAM next (since it's said the 4-4-4-15 timing dont always work on non-ati boards)

Vanilla OC:

CPU: 2560Mhz
RAM: 400Mhz @ 4-4-4-15
Bus: 320.5Mhz
FSB: 1281.8Mhz
Divider: 4:5

SuperPi 1M: 21s
3DMark 06: 4979
3DMark 06 CPU only: 2291

for good measure, put the RAM on 2V and Vcore to 1.3V in bios, but CPU-Z and PCProbe report 1.27V

Now i went for E6700 speeds, without a real reason. just seemed nice to try since it's an exact 25% OC.

25% OC:

CPU: 2667.6Mhz
RAM: 416.8Mhz @ 4-4-4-15
Bus: 333Mhz
FSB: 1333.9Mhz
Divider: 4:5

SuperPi 1M: 20s

CPU temp idle: 22°c @ 7V, ? @ 12V
CPU temp stressed: 28°c @ 7V, ? @ 12V
Mobo temp idle & load: 39°c to 42°c

if you disregard the cache of the E6700, thats about a 280 euro reward for a 25% oc ;)

off to a decent start i'd say. i'll get back to tuning when i got more time to play around. i feel there is plenty of room left to play around.


Notes:
1) all crap done in a Chieftec CX-01 case, with one panel open (since i was mucking about with my HDD's).
2) graphics are default & untouched for now: 574Mhz gpu & 682Mhz vidram
3) Aquamark always fails with access_violation exception around the 'bigbadaboom'. it also runs waaaaay too fast to look at.
4) Room temp was always 19°c.

why not try "Core Temp" and Speedfan to read your mobo/cpu sensors; they work perfectly here :)

don't bother too much with MEM OC, go for raw CPU speed, the extra mem bandwidth doesn't give you much performance increase (1-2% we're talking here), CPU speed in CPU sensitive apps does make a difference:)

do you know/use www.hwbot.org ? :) (submitting some killer scores always nice)

yeah i know speedfan. i dont know core temp yet though (the screens i've seen of it are a bit too basic for my tastes).

i havent bothered with it yet because temp doesnt seem to be a problem just yet :)
yeah well, 417Mhz isn't exactly a monsteroverclock for a PC2-6400 ;)
and these dimms are supposed to give some pretty ok oc performance.

regardless of the small performance increase, i'm probably going to mess around with timings, speeds and whatnot. it's simply good fun ;)
hehe, yeah i know, but i dont intend to submit anything till i hit the max comfortable oc.

Core temp... reads the core temp:) more accurate then speedfan, don't know how Asus Probe does, but I don't think it's reading from the Cores either, google it:) it logs temps to a file if you want and minimizes to a small icon;

50% OC

CPU: 3200Mhz
RAM: 400Mhz @ 4-4-4-15
Bus: 400Mhz
FSB: 1600Mhz
Divider: 1:1

SuperPi 1M: 17s
3DMark06: 5250

CPU temp idle: 22°c @ 7V
CPU temp idle (core temp readout, not normal): 24°c @ 7V
CPU temp stressed (core temp readout, not normal): 35°c @ 7V
Mobo temp load: 42°c

Vcore in bios is at 1.3125V, but all tools read 1.280V (CPU-Z, Speedfan, and the hardware monitoring in bios as well)
Ram is on 2.05V.

The pc fails to boot windows when I try 415Mhz 1:1. I suppose I could easily up the Vcore some more, but I'm happy with 3200Mhz for now. a 50% OC has a nice ring to it. :)

Notes:
1) all crap done in a Chieftec CX-01 case, with one panel open.
2) graphics are default & untouched for now: 574Mhz gpu & 682Mhz vidram.
3) Room temp was always 19°c.

does the motherboard come with hw monitoring tool? Asus PC Probe?

I don't think you're running into a CPU limitation here, upping the vcore might not do it; can you up the voltage of the mobo chipset? My 975x (bad axe) craps out around 390FSB

yeah Asus Probe II, but it sucks donkeydick :)

and you're probably right, it's probably the chipset, not the Vcore.

mobo voltage is on Auto atm (2 other settings are 1.05V and 1.20V, i think). the problem is that Bios, Probe nor Speedfan give my any mobo voltage readouts, so there is no real way for me to know what the auto setting is giving atm...

MB temp is already 42°c on an open case (45°c was alarm temp in Asus Probe II), which kinda sucks...

Edit: do you think that if i install AI NOS (that software OC tool thing) i'll get a readout? :s i'm not a big fan of software OC tools. Bios all the way for me :)