[H] Asus Striker Review

Anyone else tried the new flash?

I'm thinking about ordering a chip from badflash, and have a backup.
 
revenant said:
If I were you I would strip the mobo down to one video card, one stick of memory and the cpu only.. see if you can get anything from that... of have you done that already? If the bios flash went bad and there's a corrupt segment embedded now, it's going to be tough to undo that.. this is why mfg's should have dual bios.. really.. it would save us from nightmare issues like this... especially with enthusiast boards which people like to flash new bioses onto frequently.. at any rate.. can you maybe pull the bios chip out and get a new one? is that even a possibility? or get someone to force flash a good image into your chip? I have not done that before, but I have heard about people doing it.. I reckon you need a chip flashing device tho..
Click to expand...

I've done all that. The chip is socketed and replaceable. I have another one on order from ASUS.
 
Dan_D said:
I tried 0802 and it killed my BIOS chip. Unfortunately, I used the Windows based tool ASUS Update. I've never had a problem with it in the past, and it worked well for me for two other BIOS flashes on that particular Striker Extreme board. So I had to order a new BIOS chip which should be arriving soon.
Click to expand...

Woops, I'm sorry to hear that! I use the AWDFlash DOS software with a 3.5 floppy boot disk cause Windows is bad that way. :(
 
I have a RAID 5 question when using the ASUS Striker Extreme. Hopefully someone will know. I have two Maxtor 300GB SATA drives and I just ordered a Seagate 320GB SATA drive. I am pretty sure I can still set up a RAID 5 array with these three drives even though one is different and has 20GB more storage. I think I will lose the 20GB but owe well I couldn't find another 300GB drive at a good price. Anyone know for sure?
Also I already have information on the Maxtor drives and I do not want to lose it when setting up the RAID 5, currently I am running RAID 1 for data security reasons. When setting up RAID 5 can I set one drive as a Master and do a data copy while the RAID 5 array is being created with the NVidia chipset? Thanks!
 
wishbringer15 said:
I have a RAID 5 question when using the ASUS Striker Extreme. Hopefully someone will know. I have two Maxtor 300GB SATA drives and I just ordered a Seagate 320GB SATA drive. I am pretty sure I can still set up a RAID 5 array with these three drives even though one is different and has 20GB more storage. I think I will lose the 20GB but owe well I couldn't find another 300GB drive at a good price. Anyone know for sure?
Also I already have information on the Maxtor drives and I do not want to lose it when setting up the RAID 5, currently I am running RAID 1 for data security reasons. When setting up RAID 5 can I set one drive as a Master and do a data copy while the RAID 5 array is being created with the NVidia chipset? Thanks!
Click to expand...

It should work, but you'll lose the other 20GB.

I don't know if you can alter the RAID array on the onboard controllers to switch to RAID5 and include a third disk.
 
Have you got your new BIOS chip from ASUS yet Dan?

If so, have you had a chance to try overclocking with the 0802 BIOS? I am wondering if you are going to get any better results.

I am still waiting for my board. I am officially in week 7 now... :mad:
 
worthIT said:
Have you got your new BIOS chip from ASUS yet Dan?

If so, have you had a chance to try overclocking with the 0802 BIOS? I am wondering if you are going to get any better results.

I am still waiting for my board. I am officially in week 7 now... :mad:
Click to expand...

I have indeed. Unfortunately I've been busting ass trying to get a review out and I haven't installed it into the board yet. I'm using my laptop to do most of my review work since my desktop is toast and I didn't have time to re-install the BIOS chip and re-assemble the machine. (The board is out of the case right now.)
 
Dan_D said:
I have indeed. Unfortunately I've been busting ass trying to get a review out and I haven't installed it into the board yet. I'm using my laptop to do most of my review work since my desktop is toast and I didn't have time to re-install the BIOS chip and re-assemble the machine. (The board is out of the case right now.)
Click to expand...

Well at least you have a new chip..

I'm interested to see if this new BIOS helps with overclocking. I'm an Asus supporter but even I can admit for that amount of money the board should perform a little better than it has (or seems to have worked in everyone's benches / reviews). I'm praying this BIOS makes things a lot better.

I hope it works out for you mate. Let us know how you go when you get a chance. You sound busy..
 
worthIT said:
Well at least you have a new chip..

I'm interested to see if this new BIOS helps with overclocking. I'm an Asus supporter but even I can admit for that amount of money the board should perform a little better than it has (or seems to have worked in everyone's benches / reviews). I'm praying this BIOS makes things a lot better.

I hope it works out for you mate. Let us know how you go when you get a chance. You sound busy..
Click to expand...

Well normally I am no busier than anyone else. When I am in the middle of a mobo review things can get really busy leaving me time for little else.
 
I never opened my board, and still piecing my machine together
I'm thinking of selling my board that is in new/mint condition and purchasing the:
Abit IN9 32X-MAX

Reasons:
I like realtek audio :) (ADI Soundmax is the strikers)
The removal of the audio from the PCI-E slot, allows for a PCI-E wifi card, or something else
(Like HDTV Tuner)
The Digital controller on the board removes caps off the board for less heat, failures.
less giant heatsinks
most of the same features that are worth it, and cheaper.
 
I have noticed that with the 0803 bios my vCore is now at 1.5v in asus pc probe II and nvidia monitor. I leave my vCore on auto, and yes my comp is running warmer now...idle 33C-35C..it used to be 27C-30C. Under stress it is hitting 65C more often in Orthos. Nvidia monitor reads the vCore @ 1.5187. My voltage on auto used to be 1.35V. In bios voltage monitor it is reading 1.48V on 'auto'.

I just manually set vCore to 1.35V in bios...and guess what?...it didn't change at all in nvidia monitor or pc probe II. Its like it is hard wired to run at 1.5V...weird. Even though it is set to 1.35V in bios, the in-bios voltage monitor is still showing 1.48V.

pretty strange....
 
The Striker has a mind of its own when it comes to Voltage. When sli memory is enabled it sets its own desired NB Volts theres nothing you can do to control it unless you disable sli memory. For me anything above 1200FSB the vcore adjusts by it self no matter what I set in the bios. So if I go 400x8 the vcore goes to 1.5 volts automatically and there isn't a damn thing I could do about it.

Texx, thats sad. I think asus is feeling pressured on this board and there sending the new bios's out to fast without double checking them.
 
Based on comments from the Asus support board, I'd skip 0803 (apparently its worse than 0402). 0802 is the best one right now.
 
I went back to the 0802 bios and my vCore settings were back to where they had been...1.36V in pc probe II, and 1.375V in nvidia monitor.

Correspondingly, my cpu idle temps dropped from 43C in 0803 down to 33C in 0802 (afternoon temps); the vCore was set to 'auto' in both.
 
Texxxxx said:
I went back to the 0802 bios and my vCore settings were back to where they had been...1.36V in pc probe II, and 1.375V in nvidia monitor.

Correspondingly, my cpu idle temps dropped from 43C in 0803 down to 33C in 0802 (afternoon temps); the vCore was set to 'auto' in both.
Click to expand...

The problem is that those temperatures aren't necessarily accurate. The BIOS could simply have adjusted the way that data is reported. Just because one BIOS version reports a 10c difference doesn't make it so.

I'd recommend using Core Temp to see what your timings actually are. Apparently it reads the data from the CPU's internal thermal diode rather than depending on (or even using) the motherboard thermal sensors.
 
I'm sorry, I forgot to mention that the temps I was using were from CoreTemp. I was surprised that is was a 10C difference...this might be slightly exaggerated by the fact that
I started to troubleshoot this voltage issue immediately after my son stopped playing a game, and there might have been some residual temperature left over from the load on the cpu from the game.

I checked the settings, restarted, re-flashed to 0802, restarted, then checked the voltages and temps. It is definately running cooler with the 0802 bios. Today I ran Orthos for an hour, and my temps were back to normal. Initially I thought I needed to reseat my hsf when I saw the high temps...then noticed the new 'auto' vCore...and realized the new 0803 was raising my voltages and therefore my temps.
 
Hmm, looks like the 0803 bios got removed from the Asus website. I'm using it and I'm not experiencing any Vcore problems at all.
 
roflcopter said:
Hmm, looks like the 0803 bios got removed from the Asus website. I'm using it and I'm not experiencing any Vcore problems at all.
Click to expand...

Strange..I sure was...I double-checked all my settings, and my vCore was definately running at 1.5V on 'auto' under 0803 and running at 1.36V on 'auto' under 0802. Perhaps the two bios versions are coded to give a different 'auto' vCore rating when reading an overclocked fsb....???? Is your E6600 overclocked? Overall I'm pretty darn happy with my board.
 
When I set it to auto: 1.36V
When I set it to 1.3000V: 1.36V
It doesn't seem to really matter what I set it to. My pc is overclocked to 3.2 GHz (8x400).
 
Thx, roflcopter, just curious...well, at least our boards are running well...lol!
 
temporalwar said:
I never opened my board, and still piecing my machine together
I'm thinking of selling my board that is in new/mint condition and purchasing the:
Abit IN9 32X-MAX

Reasons:
I like realtek audio :) (ADI Soundmax is the strikers)
The removal of the audio from the PCI-E slot, allows for a PCI-E wifi card, or something else
(Like HDTV Tuner)
The Digital controller on the board removes caps off the board for less heat, failures.
less giant heatsinks
most of the same features that are worth it, and cheaper.
Click to expand...

The Abit board does look pretty good though still not as feature rich as the ASUS board. I really don't think there is much difference in audio ADI actual gives you a cleaner control panel and slightly better overall CPU utilization. Either way they both get clobbered by a dedicated sound card like the X-Fi or Audigy 2. Still the main reason I went with the ASUS striker was for the extra eSATA ports and the fact that virtually every board I have owned in the past 10 years was ASUS with the exception of one FIC and two Gigabyte boards. Really though I try to get the most bang for the bucks and for the most part that has been from ASUS.

That slot on the ASUS board for the audio card also isn't a true PCI-E slot in the sense that it is reversed so it will only take a specially designed card. :( Also, for some reason ASUS isn't building in the Wi-Fi card anymore which would of been nice especially since this board cost an arm and a leg.

That said I had my system up and running and all of a sudden it wouldn't turn on. It did turn on but I heard a pop and it turned off. Ironically, it then turn on fine two more times and finally died. Now I have to wait for ASUS to send me a new board, hoping they can do an advanced RMA but I will not know till Monday if they actually have one available for an advanced exchange. If not then I have to send mine to them and wait longer. :( That Abit board is looking pretty good right about now. ;)
 
Is the Realtek audio any good? People said the one on the reference 680i boards suck, or is that a lower variation of the chip?

I'm not big audiophile, but I think if we all wanted better sound, X-Fi is the only way :)

Whatever, I'm happy with my board, I just like the fact that is uses all solid state capacitors, and improved power so I can run Quad Core, and the newer 1333 MHz Core 2's later this year.

Might upgrade to the E6350, double up the cache, hopefully by then I can overclock my FSB to my 1800 MHz target, get a good beefy OC.
 
chanchan said:
Is the Realtek audio any good? People said the one on the reference 680i boards suck, or is that a lower variation of the chip?

I'm not big audiophile, but I think if we all wanted better sound, X-Fi is the only way :)

Whatever, I'm happy with my board, I just like the fact that is uses all solid state capacitors, and improved power so I can run Quad Core, and the newer 1333 MHz Core 2's later this year.

Might upgrade to the E6350, double up the cache, hopefully by then I can overclock my FSB to my 1800 MHz target, get a good beefy OC.
Click to expand...

The realtek audio chip on the reference 680i is the ALC885 which is the newest. As for EAX 2 sound it can be choppy and muddy (complete lack of obstructions and occlusions). The ADI SoundMax truly is comparable to the Audigy X-Fi though with more CPU utilization. The good news is most people believe that the realtek issue with EAX 2 audio is more of a driver issue than anything else. Still between the two onboard audio solution the ADI solution is the best. However, X-Fi is still better and uses very little CPU utilization. If you aren't an Audiophile and don't have high end speakers then by all means keep the onboard solution and save your money and leave the X-Fi card alone. If you are and you have high end speakers then don't waste them with an onboard soultion. ;)
 
Ok, there are a lot of comments about this board.

What about for a user that does no overclocking, isn't using SLi and wants it for games? It is going to be paired with an e6600 and OCZ Platinum Rev.2 memory (which I'm assured by OCZ will work) for a gaming machine.

Do I go for it, or get something else?
 
Thursaiz said:
Ok, there are a lot of comments about this board.

What about for a user that does no overclocking, isn't using SLi and wants it for games? It is going to be paired with an e6600 and OCZ Platinum Rev.2 memory (which I'm assured by OCZ will work) for a gaming machine.

Do I go for it, or get something else?
Click to expand...

Then you should choose an Intel chipset based board. In fact I'd recommend the D975XBX2 to anyone who meets the above criteria.
 
Dan_D said:
Then you should choose an Intel chipset based board. In fact I'd recommend the D975XBX2 to anyone who meets the above criteria.
Click to expand...

Dan, I see that you are using the Striker in your current rig. Does that mean the flaws have been fixed? When are we going to see an update to the review on the [H]?
 
most flaws are fixed since 0901 and 1002 bios though it's the chipset that remains buggy and sometimes erratic in beahviour, so some new stuff still could pop up. No 680i board sadly is 100% bulletproof...
 
Jewball said:
Dan, I see that you are using the Striker in your current rig. Does that mean the flaws have been fixed? When are we going to see an update to the review on the [H]?
Click to expand...

We actually already did a follow up to the Striker Extreme. All my problems with the exception of sound issues were solved by BIOS 0505. I had no stability issues and improved overclocking with the newer BIOS.

You can find the update here: http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTI0MywsLGhlbnRodXNpYXN0

My Striker Extreme is actually the one from the original review, and the one used in the Striker Extreme Revisited article. There was a second Striker tested as well, and that's noted as well.

leeghoofd said:
most flaws are fixed since 0901 and 1002 bios though it's the chipset that remains buggy and sometimes erratic in beahviour, so some new stuff still could pop up. No 680i board sadly is 100% bulletproof...
Click to expand...

It is true that most if not all the issues have really been corrected with BIOS 0901 and 1002. As for the rest I can't agree. The 680i in general is hit or miss, but there are plenty of examples of 100% reliable 680i based boards. The forums are filled with posts about how great their eVGA 680i, P5N32-SLI Deluxe or Striker Extreme is. Aside from the early sound issues, my Striker was always a great board, it just lacked in the overclocking department and still does. The bulk of 680i boards are very good overclockers though. I just got one that doesn't want to overclock very well that's all.

Overall I think that the majority of 680i owners have been very happy with their boards and haven't had too much in the way of problems. In many cases what you hear about in forums is the very vocal minority that is having a huge amount of problems with their boards. In my experience using the right combination of parts will reduce the chances that you will have problems with your 680i. You need to select the right memory and the right power supply to ensure that your experience goes as smoothly as possible.
 
Well D-Dan I'm talking now about the 4 gig ram issue that is constantly popping up at Corsair and this forum, this seems to me a big issue as many users are driven by the marketing boys to get 4 gigs of ram now before even trying Vista. Also the holes in the overclock on all boards, overclockability with the quadcore,... the sensitivity in voltage adjustment is frightnening for some non experienced users,... in overal to sum it up, if you aren't an enthousiast and read loads of forums and reviews you can run into deep trouble with these mobo's.

I bet there's gonna be a rev 2 chip in the near future. Just my thought...

I hope the DFI version is gonna be THE release Nvidia wanted it to be....

Don't get me wrong I'm pretty happy with my Striker, tough the crappy heatpipe hinders my overclock. Watercooling will be there soon. I can't believe Nvidia didn't stress on real copper as these babies get tremendously hot when wanting to reach high FSB overclocks,... and I'm still surprised peeps buy the Striker and run it at stock speeds ( for what the keychain ?) and many of them are the ones that aren't having issues...
 
My Striker Extreme blew up and I have no idea why, first it was running fine then I turned it on and poof smoke came off the board. Anyway, I am still waiting for ASUS to fix it and send it back. :(

Well this is a bit off topic but is there any plans on reviewing the new Gigabyte GA-680N-DQ mobo? That board looks nice, but I don't think it will over clock like the Striker or EVGA still it should be close. :cool: I'm just saying it would be good to have comparisons of all current 680i boards. ASUS has the cheaper version of their Striker Extreme board but otherwise it seems the non reference designed boards are a lot more money. From what I have seen the ABIT 680i board runs about 349.00 the Striker has a suggest retail of 329 but sells for around 400.00 the Gigabyte suggested retail is 279.00 but is around 369.00. At least with the striker you get a full version of 3DMark06 and Ghost Recon but that is what 40.00? I hope this isn't a trend but seems like enthusiast class motherboards are going the way of video cards with huge price increases. :(
 
All part of the marketing strategy , if noone bought these mobo's they would have to drop the prices lol.

See the link for a sort of user review of the Gigabyte board, clocks aswell as the rest of the 680i's it's all part of the bios revisions, normally to make testresults fairer, te reviewers should test all the boards with the latest or as known stable bios versions with the same cpu and ram. Boy would take months to get a review out hehehhe.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=134000
 
leeghoofd said:
All part of the marketing strategy , if noone bought these mobo's they would have to drop the prices lol.

See the link for a sort of user review of the Gigabyte board, clocks aswell as the rest of the 680i's it's all part of the bios revisions, normally to make testresults fairer, te reviewers should test all the boards with the latest or as known stable bios versions with the same cpu and ram. Boy would take months to get a review out hehehhe.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=134000
Click to expand...

Noone isn't a word. "No one" is the correct usage. (Damn you internet!)

As far as retesting motherboards with newer BIOS revisions, I don't think that would accomplish what the general public might assume it would accomplish. In my experience, BIOS updates make minimal impact on overclocking. Granted there are a few notable exceptions such as the ASUS Striker Extreme, but overall, it doesn't normally change anything outside of altering your overclock maybe 5% to 10% in the best case scenarios.
 
Well Dan_D, be honest comparing boards with the same chipsets isn't gonna give big performance differences , but let's say eg you compare Striker with 0505, Beast with beta 3 and EVGA with 24 bios, a guy reading through your review will choose the EVGA or the Abit just becasue they tend to overclock better...
Why do you go for a specific baord ? Because it' s just that tad faster or looks better , well 5% better overclock can be the decision to be a buy or leave in the racks move....

Hope you can follow my dumb twisted Belgian mind.... :D

I enjoy reading your reviews, as they are objective and honest and not mislead by the masses...
 
I've got good news and bad news.

The good news is I've got 4GB of Corsair 8500C5D Dominators running in my system. All four slots are full, and the memory is running at the advertised 1066MHz, 5-5-5-15-2T timings at 2.2v.

The bad news is that my FSB OC doesn't want to play nice, so right now I'm running stock. I had the NB at 400 MHz, which meant the 3:2 divider put the memory speed right on 1066 Mhz, running at 1.5v. But it wasn't stable in any game I fired up. So either I need more NB voltage (whats the safe limit, BTW?), or I need to start fiddling with the DDR termination voltages (WTF do they do, anyway??).

Tomorrow is going to be a full day of Memtest86. Fun fact: Windows Memory Tester can't test all four gigs; MS really needs to be put out a Vista 64 based version.
 
I'm not familiar with the Striker specifically. However, won't an FSB at 400mhz with a 3:2 divider cause your ram to run at 533?
 
ArrowMk84 said:
I've got good news and bad news.

The good news is I've got 4GB of Corsair 8500C5D Dominators running in my system. All four slots are full, and the memory is running at the advertised 1066MHz, 5-5-5-15-2T timings at 2.2v.

The bad news is that my FSB OC doesn't want to play nice, so right now I'm running stock. I had the NB at 400 MHz, which meant the 3:2 divider put the memory speed right on 1066 Mhz, running at 1.5v. But it wasn't stable in any game I fired up. So either I need more NB voltage (whats the safe limit, BTW?), or I need to start fiddling with the DDR termination voltages (WTF do they do, anyway??).

Tomorrow is going to be a full day of Memtest86. Fun fact: Windows Memory Tester can't test all four gigs; MS really needs to be put out a Vista 64 based version.
Click to expand...
I'm glad to see someone finally got 4GBs of that RAM working.. You've done well. I'm sure Domenick will be glad to hear that. Let's hope you can get the rest of the the system stable..


divve said:
I'm not familiar with the Striker specifically. However, won't an FSB at 400mhz with a 3:2 divider cause your ram to run at 533?
Click to expand...
Yup - but DDR is "Double Data Rate" which means that 533 is actually 1066MHz. He's running 1600FSB with 1066MHz Ram..


On a different note - I'm having problems with my cooling... 2 x 8800GTX's and an overclocked (only slightly) QX6700 are turning my room into a sauna. The temperature here yesterday was 32 degrees C (90 Deg F). The lowest the temp got here yesterday was 24 degrees C (75 Deg F). :eek: I'm going to rename my computer "The Hot Box"!!!
 
worthIT said:
Yup - but DDR is "Double Data Rate" which means that 533 is actually 1066MHz. He's running 1600FSB with 1066MHz Ram..
Click to expand...

That's what I was referring too. When the FSB is at 400 the ram will at double data rate be at 800 with a 1:1 divider. Change that to a 3:2 divider and you get 400 * 2 * 2/3 :confused: or rather 400/3 * 2 * 2 = 533.
 
divve said:
That's what I was referring too. When the FSB is at 400 the ram will at double data rate be at 800 with a 1:1 divider. Change that to a 3:2 divider and you get 400 * 2 * 2/3 = 566 :confused:
Click to expand...

You're not factoring in the quad pumped bus. The Striker sees a 400 MHz FSB as a 1600 MHz FSB; and a 266 MHz FSB is 1066 MHz. The dividers run off these numbers instead, so with a 400 MHz FSB and 3:2 divider, my RAM runs at 1066 MHz (((400*4)/3)*2); a 1066 MHz FSB with 1:1 gives me 1066 MHz RAM.

In the first example, Everest reports a 400 MHz FSB and 533 MHz RAM. In the second, it reports a 266 MHz FSB and 533 MHz RAM.
 
Okay, I see what you mean now. It's funny how Everest also seems to be confused by which number the memory frequency is referenced too ;)
 
divve said:
Okay, I see what you mean now. It's funny how Everest also seems to be confused by which number the memory frequency is referenced too ;)
Click to expand...

Actually, Everest isn't confused. Everest is reporting the real clock speed, which is currently 266 for my FSB and 533 for my memory. The Striker's BIOS, a long with the data sheets for Intel's FSB and and Corsair's memory, list the effective clock speed. Since the FSB does four operations per clock, its effective speed is 1066 MHz. The RAM, being double data rate, does two operations per clock, giving it an effective speed of 1066 MHz as well.

Another example is an FPGA I have at work. It runs 93.75 MHz, but it works on 16 data streams per clock, giving it an effective clock speed of 1500 MHz, which is the speed of the analog-to-digital converter its hooked up too.
 
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