Asus Striker II Formula 780i

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.
 
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.


I totally agree with you on that. For me I have a Maximus Formula SE sitting in my closet just in case ATI gets the better hand then Nvidia on these next cards. If not, I will hold it as a backup board for the time being.
 
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.

A Q6600 G0 3.3Ghz max? Wierd. The same chip on a X38 would do it on 3.6Ghz
 
What reviews did you see?

This one

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.

Reading your guy's review- I will assume im correct about 2X 8800 ultras vs 2X HD 3870X2's ! :)
 
With regards to dan's comment about the 680i lt. I believe they still had most of the problems of the regular boards at the start as well. The "--" post codes and what not. While the 780i has been good to me, I did purchase an extended exchange plan just in case. But so far no indications of any trouble. From what I've read (not all that much) the memory corruption was caused by bad voltage regulation to the nb. Which i guess could be changed without a major change to the reference design. I could be totally off though. And it overclocks quads quite well, if not better than the old p965 I had.
 
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.
 
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.

All you have to do to get enough air flow to the bottom card is open the PSU chamber. Just open up that plastic vent thing used for cable management. Trust me you'll get enough airflow. I had my 2-Way SLI setup in a P182 for awhile so I know it can work.
 
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.
 
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.

Yes you can use a USB drive to flash the BIOS using the EZ-Flash utility.
 
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.
 
One thing about the newer bios i forgot to mention. When I first fired up the machine on the old 0601 bios the gfx card fans appeared to be running at full speed constantly. I was concerned the Notcua fans I had put in place of the tri cools were crap! With the new bios my wifes machine with only 2x80mm fans is noisier since the GPU fans are far slower now. Does give me some leeway to add a faster fan to the mobo area inlet which only has an Akasa Orange 120 at the moment.

Edit: There's a new review of this board up too http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2008/01/25/asus_striker_ii_formula/1
 
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 setup. 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 stabalize 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.
 
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.

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.
 
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.

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.
 
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.

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.
 
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.
 
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
 
I did, I did :( And what made me not want to reinstall is the gimping of the 1x slot above the video slot

Why? What do you need that slot for?

I have yet to ever use anything besides x16 slots. Most of the decent RAID controllers I've used were all PCIe x4 or x8. Which don't fit in the x1 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 :D
 
With Mr Bennett's review of the P5E3 i think I'm gonna wait for x48 and buy some ddr3 and lose SLI For a bit.

if the 9800gx2 is indeed a SLI-inthe-card thing I bet those drivers trick them into using the second one as well since if SLI is enabled on one card and detected by the drivers why wouldn't the other if the drivers already ahve it enabled? Seeems far out I know but even now with ddr3 showing its' teeth I think ti's time I leave ddr2
 
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 :D

I couldn't stand that. I'd have to run cable.
 
It is sad, i won't lie. I've wanted to get off wireless forever but we're moving soon and my parents know I want roughly 3 cat6 jacks in every room and a cisco-server class ethernet hub that can take 20 inputs NP. May daisy chain this current router for portability in things such as laptops.
 
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.

Reducing the Memory voltage to 2.1v hasn't been detrimental and the NB seems to have been a little cooler too for some reason.

However, my nightmare last night was with the damned network connections. To start with I only had one cable plugged in (I gave a Gigabit Network btw) and had no problems at all. Fired up Vista last night and nothing. The network would not connect at all, giving only a 169 IP address despite being on my 172.16 network and Vista saying that it was connected at 1GB. So I plugged into the second nic with no joy, so tried the teaming, and nothing. Still only getting 169 address, which is the 'run home to mummy there's something wrong' address range. So I figured either installing Comodo Firewall pro or the latest network drivers had to be the issue. Rolling them back or uninstallaing Comodo did not help so I reinstalled Vista. No go there either so I eliminated the OS level, but now my dual boot XP doesnt appear as an option to boot :( .

One last ditch this morning, i powered down the machine at the back and I cleared the CMOS.....

The network started working again.

Damned weird.

Anyone else have issues with the nvidia onboard? Even with the 680i? Seem like they are temperamental to say the least.

Do i have to reinstall XP again or can I get it on Vista's boot menu manually?

Thanks guys
 
Suggestions for what exactly?

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
 
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'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.
 
no one had nic issues with this board? They keep dropping off completely or only one of them working at 10MB. Tis damned weird.... not to mention driving me up the wall!
 
Okay, I have finally got to the bottom of the symptoms of the issues with the NIC but the only cause can be the hardware.

Firstly, when both NIC are enabled only one will run at 1GB the other only runs at 100MB meaning that if I team them together, I only get 200MB. Then if the machine is allowed to 'sleep' neither of them will get anything but a 169 address until I clear the cmos.
 
I am running an eVGA 780i now. I feel it is the best board I have ever run.
Thats my 2 cents worth.

Same feeling here with my Striker II Formula :D
Most people only talk about the extra pci-e 2.0 chip.
But if you look further in bios, theres a lot more to discover.
Almost everything can be adjusted to users needs.
And i love the loadline calibration :D
On my 680i fsb 500 was nowhere possible, even with NB,SB and mosfets under chilled water.
780i runs fsb 500 on air with far less voltage !!
 
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.

Well if you want to go SLI you are stuck with NVIDIA chipset based motherboards. So far none of the 780i SLI boards have been any better than their 680i SLI counterparts. In fact the P5N-T has been more problematic according to Kyle than the Striker Extreme was. Apparently he hasn't been impressed with the Striker II Formula and I've not had any hands on with it myself.

The only way to get around that limitation (being stuck with NVIDIA chipsets for SLI) is to go for an Intel D5400XS motherboard and a pair of LGA771 Xeon's or Core 2 Extreme QX9775's.
 
justfire whats the loadline calibration all about then? Reading it it only sounds useful when you're overclocking?
 
Thanks Dan.

WRT my NIC issues a few people have had similar ones with the P5N-T losing nics after sleep. Saw over on the Asus forums and Nvidia forums.
 
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.
 
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.

They also sell something called fish tape at Home Depot which is like a tape measure, only the metal tape part is much thicker and there is a loop at the end to tie stuff onto in order to facilitate pulling the wire through the holes more easily.
 
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