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Truthfully I haven't been excited about most of the motherboards coming out right now. The X48 is just a speed binned X38 and even X38 wasn't all that. It really has very little over P35 aside from more PCIe lanes. I couldn't care less than it has PCIe 2.0 support since that doesn't seem to be a big deal at present and probably won't within the time frame I'd have any given board right now. The X48 boards are all based on X38 and are really just the same board in some cases with a slightly different name. Take the P5E3 Premium for instance. It is almost identical to the P5E3 Deluxe. Just the chipset was really changed and I think the Premium also has upgraded WiFi. Something I wouldn't use anyway.
The 780i SLI is identical to the 680i SLI chipset except that it has a third chip in the set providing PCIe 2.0 support and additional PCIe lanes. The reference boards don't seem to be that much improved over the 680i SLI boards. So again I'm not that excited about it. Really the only reason I'm considering the Striker II Formula in my own machine is due to the fact that my Striker Extreme sucks so bad at overclocking quad core CPUs. If it was decent with quad core CPUs and ASUS did release the rumored BIOS to provide 45nm quad core compatibility I'd stick with what I've got. However I'm sick of running PC 6400 memory modules or running 1150MHz capable RAM at 800MHz and having to run my Q6600 that I used to have overclocked to 3.2GHz at close to stock speeds.
I'm kind of put off to doing anything either with the video card market looking like it does right now. Sure the 3870 X2 beats the 8800 Ultra right now but NVIDIA's new flagship card is just around the corner. So depending on how all that turns out I'm not sure what board I'll end up with. What ever it will be, it will be appropriate for the multi-GPU solution I end up with.
Quad core processors will never have the overclocking ability of the dual cores. So I wouldn't expect to be able to take a 2.66GHz quad core to 4.0GHz+ anytime soon regardless of the board. At least not normally.
What reviews did you see?
To ensure that every motherboard was given an equal chance to show how far it could overclock our Intel Q6600 "G0" retail processor, a standard VCore of 1.5v was set on all three of the boards. In addition to this, the memory divider setting was also adjusted to ensure that the Cellshock kit used in today's review would not hinder the results in any way.
Unfortunately, the Striker II couldn't quite keep up with the rest of the pack, falling over 300mhz short of the maximum overclocks obtained on the Asus Maximus (X38) and DFI Lanparty (P35) motherboards. In desperation we even bumped the Vcore up to 1.55v and increased the default Northbridge voltage by 0.16v. This only seemed to make matters worse, with the Northbridge temperatures verging on 80°C and the Southbridge also getting pretty toasty at 64°C.
I have that BIOS as well.
Yes there are. I expect that NVIDIA's next card will dominate the 3870 X2, but I think the rumor is that R700 isn't that far off either.
Well many people thought the same thing about their 680i SLI boards until a couple months later when they started frying RAM and burning themselves up. So I remain skeptical.
Well my striker II build is done, just need to get the bugger installed. I'll take some piccies when I can (have a new camera due too).
No problems getting it all in the Antec P182, although I am a little concerned over the clearance to the case from the lower 8800GTS512. I have Supreme FX in top PCI-Ex slot, the 8800GTS, then XFi Xtreme Gamer, the the second 8800GTS. The lower card has about 5 or 6 mm between the fan casing and the lower chamber partition, Shame you cant use the middle PCI-Ex slot as slot 2 for SLI.
Just hoping enough cool air can get in there to keep it from frying. Will have to see how it goes when I get it installed. Just partitioned so far.
500 GB:
30GB Vista64
20GB XP32
200GB Apps/Games
230GB stuff
Takes me a while with 2 sprogs to get enough time! plus my crappy Virgin cable line is down until and engineer comes out tomorrow so I'm posting from work.
Was very impressed with how easy it was to get the memory configured using this SLI Ready OCZ stuff. Just switch SLI Memory option in the bios from Disabled to CPUOC + 0% and it was up to speed with correct timings.
I have never seen so many options in a bios before.
So far CPU idles in bios at 32C and NB at 50C. That thing gets toasty.
Ah cool thanks Dan I will open that up tonight.
I had to plug the ide led, pwr switch etc connectors directly to the mobo rather than use Asus quick connect block thing since otherwise the lower card would not plug in due to being so long it goes over that location. Even now the card pushes on them a little.
Just noticed on Asus site that there's a far newer bios too, my board has 0601 and the newest one dated 16th Jan is 0902. Looks like there have been a lot of tweaks over the last few bioses. Can the 'Asus EZ Flash' thing read bios files from a USB stick? I've only ever used floppy, but want to do away with the floppy drive if I can.
Installing XP first before I get to Vista for dual boot. The first time I hadn't flashed the bios and the install was screwed, flashed to 0902 and things went far smoother. XP is up and running now, but like a lot of people with different boards I have a range of different temperatures from different apps. If the bios is to be believed (went in asap after reboot) then my NB was idling at 79C YIKES! yet the CPU was at 38C which seems fine. In Asus PC Probe II I had 41 for CPU and 42C for NB. Then in the new nvidia beta system tools for ESA it read 62C for each core and 59 for NB.
What the hell? What do I believe? Maybe a registered copy of Everest is in order.
The nvidia 'performance' control panel crashes EVERY time I click on one of the options in it so I couldnt check what it said the GPU's were running at temp wise.
Does anyone have OCZ SLI Ready 8500 Dual Channel stuff running? PC Probe seems to be complaining about the 2.25V its running at. But the bios has set that itself via the SLI Ready option. Is that okay?
Thanks guys, Vista64 goes on tonight and I'll test some games.
Worries about that NB temp though.
My experience has been that ASUS software reads about 10c too low. So in that the NVIDIA stuff might be a bit more accurate. I don't know. It was always accurate enough on my set-up. ASUS or NVIDIA boards. I'd say your CPU temperatures are probably close to 50c.
On your memory, you need to get the voltage down to 2.1v. (Especially if it is Micron D9 RAM.) Generally you shouldn't need more than 2.1v to stabilize the system.
Bump.
I returned the Asus Striker II formula when I got it today. I installed it and tried to use it on my existing install of a 680i and it just bsod'd
I don't wanna reinstall again. I also coudln't use the 1x slot above the first x16 slot since the heatsink literally is too high for any card extending past the 1x slot will not fit, even with a riser.
Oh well.
Thanks Dan, not wure what chips these memory sticks are using but I checked the OCZ webbie which says the same as you, 2.1v. Will manually set that in the bios this evening.
Generally things seem pretty stable. Have had one or two hangs which were a little weird but a restart and nothing since. Was generally installing drivers and using the beta nvidia system tools so i put it down to them.
Wow, I've never bought a board and returned it because my OS had to be re-installed. Dude since XP came out re-installing for motherboard swaps is almost a necessity. You should have known that going in.
I did, I did And what made me not want to reinstall is the gimping of the 1x slot above the video slot
Heh I run wireless internet (ashamed)
My friend says he knows a guy that can route me some cat6 to my wall upstairs (My modem is directly below my room) and he'll do it neatly so I hope this changes.
Was running the Dlink xtreme N wireless PCI card. Got GREAT network transfers. I won't lie when I'm saying about 8-9megaBYTES a second to my downstairs computer that's wired into the hub
I don't know either. I know that the OCZ Flex XLC PC2-9200 are Micron D9. Sometimes CPU-Z will tell you who the chips were manufactured by.
dan. in preparation for skulltrail i anna run my own cat6. any suggestions?
Suggestions for what exactly?
I'm probably going to go with this board for my build.
Anyone using 8GB ram with this? and if so what sticks do you have?
thanks in advance.
I am running an eVGA 780i now. I feel it is the best board I have ever run.
Thats my 2 cents worth.
I'm a bit curious on this also. Is anyone atleast using all 4 memory slots? I was thinking Q6600 with 8gigs of Gskill on Vista 64 and maybe SLI for my next build. I just can't seem to find a good board to use.
justfire whats the loadline calibration all about then? Reading it it only sounds useful when you're overclocking?
one of the tards didnt think the 7800 512 was better than the 7900 gtx LoL.
for running the cables through the wall. like do you know what kind of wiring snake i would need and how i should go about it? i know youre hardcore so you always got the answer. hell i bet you kick down your walls to run cable lol.
got banned at att for 1 week because no one addressed my argument for kyles review rather they tried to discredit it by persnally attacking me. one of the tards didnt think the 7800 512 was better than the 7900 gtx LoL. he said he was a programmer too rofl
If your router is just RIGHT below your room; use the closets.
drill a hole in the floor of your closet, to the top of the closet below( or some inconspicuous place) then run the cable. That way you'll not need to hunt or snake the cable at all.
All you need is a long drill bit, a long steel BBQ skewer (to shove the cable from floor to ceiling of the closets) and the tool to crimp on the connectors.
Its much easier than trying to snake a cable up a story or down.
I had both the 7800 512 and the 7900 GTX, the 7900 GTX was by far better than the 7800 card.