A8N-Sli with 3500+ Winchester OC Results

M

maverik-sg1

New member
Recently changed from MachII cooled Prescott 3.4@4.4 on P4C800E-Delux to a machII cooled Winchester 3500 on an A8N-Sli Deluxe MOBO.

Now running sweet at the following settings:

Winchester CPU at 266FSBx11 1.55v

HTT x4

Gskill @ 1:1 1T 2.5-2-2-5 (266FSB) 2.9v

6800GT (416/1150) single unit only, other unit is RMA waiting for replacement.

It will run at 295x10 but HTT has to be x3, so I opted for better HTT versus better Bandwidth, seems to becnh better using the set-up above

Runs all superpi, encodes video (4x 1hr 30m films in a row), runs 3d tests and plays UT2004 for over 4 hours no restarts/Glitches etc.. that seems stable to me

MachII never drops below 52degrees under load - BIOS reports -15 on CPU, ASUS probe can't handle (display) sub zero temps so I can't tell you more than that.

Have decided to wait for FX55 to go 90nm before I upgrade CPU though. The only other thing I may do is upgrade to Sli PSU (as advertised at EP) but will see how far I can overclock dual 6800GT's with OCZ Powerstream 520w first.

I have found that the winchester with only 512L2 cache is as fast as my 4.4Ghz Prescott in 3d (singleVGA mode) and slightly slower in superpi, it presents no challenge encoding (Prescotts rock at that) but is quick enough for it not to present a problem.

Bigget advantage for me over the prescott is that I can run the fans on MachII a lot slower and create a much more acceptable noise level for comparable performance.
 
maverik007-2930Screenie.JPG


Looks good to me

I think the Winchester and sub zero temps is mostly a MOBO or BIOS Issue. No complaints here though.
 
Temps are impressive.

-55 @ around 23degrees ambient, drops about 2 degrees max under load with MachII fans running 1500 rear and 1100rpm front.

Boots at -30. Although when first installing I had set-up the MACH II to boot at zero, just to be safe ;)

All temps are on the head, CPU is running around -15deg under load, but I can only go from what the BIOS is telling me.

Strange one though, using CPUID v1.26 it tells me RAM is running at 177mhz, how can I tell if it is telling the truth? I thought I had it running 1:1 with CPU @ 266fsb

Compare that to my old P4 3.4 at 4.4Ghz, which ran at -15 idle and around -1 under load.

I heard that FX55 pump some 104w of heat out too (at stock speeds), so I am waitng for the 90nm unit to be released before I go any higher. Hovering around zero is the point where I worry about condensation.
 
Thats very nice work - I think the problems with the Winchesters and the Mach II occur when people use the MSI board (and maybe Abits?) - I see thats an Asus, I love them boards, they are so stable in comparison to the others.

I think AFAIK the FX55 produces 89W of heat at stock, so it will get toasty when you overclock it - in fact the GT/LS struggles with the FX55 which is why most only go as far as 3.1/3.2ghz due to the 200w or so it produces at that level!
 
name='Phil Stanbridge' said:
I think AFAIK the FX55 produces 89W of heat at stock, so it will get toasty when you overclock it - in fact the GT/LS struggles with the FX55 which is why most only go as far as 3.1/3.2ghz due to the 200w or so it produces at that level!
Click to expand...

Thats true matey. 3.2-3.3 is the max you will see on a GT/LS. You need cascade to get further. Even with extra volts, the GT/LS cannot cope with the heatload. My r507'd Mach II runs -57 evap temp (reported) at 3.3ghz, but wont be fully stable at higher speed. I can run 3D benchies at 3.35ghz but it fails as many times as it runs fine :)
 
Look here for max thermal power of FX-55, very Prescott like:

http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?articleid=592

For power consumption:

http://anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2249&p=13

Two intersting articles, but look at the reduction in power used by the winchester core.

Can't wait for FX55 to go 90nm, I look forwward to a 20% reduction in power/heat - AMD have nailed that process, compared to the Prescott. Prescotts overclock like a russian shot putter on steroids and sweats like the same woman in a sauna :eek: . Slap the added power of 2x6800GT's - You need a mammoth board and a whopper of a PSU. People will be looking to upgrade their mains supply to 3-phase!!

Mmmmm yep GT's seem to give enough cooling to get the best from a FX55, my machII will almost be back there in Prescott hell if I got one.
 
Custompc

Maverik - noticed on ur screen shot that you got the custompc benchies installed - what figure did you get? You're old setup was around the 1.80 - 1.90 mark wasn't it ?
 
I maxxed our at 1.79 but never submitted the score, mostly because shortly after my DFI PRO875B blew up!!

Athlon 64 3500 running as shot in that screenie gave me 1.64, which looking on the leaderboard I have the quickest A64 (non-FX or opteron) so far :)

Running Gskill LE RAM, CPUID posts I am running 172Mhz 2.5-2-2-5, I thought I was running at 266FSB :confused: There is no way to set the RAM up other than to state if it's auto or DDR266,333,400,500,550,600. If you choose a setting other than Auto, it locks you out of the CPU overclock screen :confused:

I am going to run sandra04 and see if I can get a real reading, something aint right - the maths dont show its even 3:2 or 5:4, if I am using my calculator righ anyhow. :(
 
Turns out MOBO had dropped a 3:2 divider in there so RAM was running at 171Mhz whilst the CPU was flying at 266.

BIOS would not let me adjust CPU without dropping divider in the RAM - so I installed aiBooster, ntune and clockgen. Fiddling with them in windows changed the BIOS so I could play with RAM and CPU independant of each other.

BUT - A8N-Sli will not run 1T timings above 240FSB (if you are lucky!!) so I have had to drop a 5:4 or is it 6:5 running ram at 333mhz. CPU is running at 266FSB x 11, RAM is at 219FSB at 2-2-2-5. Sandra scores 6290/6260 bandwidth with CPU scoring 12364MIPS/ 4753FPU/ 6170 MFLOPS.

I guess I can run customPC banchies again now to improve that 1.64 now I have a bit more badnwidth, should squeeze a few more points out of it.

EDIT 13.23pm 31/01/05 - RAN CUSTOMPC BENCHIES AT 270X11 CPU WITH RAM AT 214 1T 2.5-2-2-5 SCORED 1.73 JUST .05 POINTS BEHIND MY OLD SCORE WITH 4.5GHZ PRESCOTT RUNNING AND JUST 0.02 BEHIND FX-53 @ 3.1GHZ. WILL NOT RUN AT 272 SO AM TRYING 270X11 WITH RAM AT 2-2-2-5 1T . Still not bad for the Winchester, nearly FX performance and close enough to the Prescott to make overall performance look stunning (with 3d marks combined of course)!!

JUST WAITNG FOR THE BIOS UPDATE SO I CAN RUN RAM 1:1 WITH CPU AT 1T TIMINGS :D



new edit: 1.73 is best score I can achieve until the new BIOS update comes out (to run 1:1 with 1t timings). Best 3dmark2001SE score with 6800GT @ 415/1130 is 27562, which is the same score I achieved with a 3.2 extreme edition @ 4Ghz :D
 
Thanks frunk, but I try to avoid Beta BIOS unless it's really necessary.

New relase should be out end of Feb.

Unit is relatively quick and stable so I will wait.

Cheers

Mav
 
Dropping the HT multi to 3x shouldn't have a big effect on your bandwidth AFAIK, especially if it allows you to get a higher HTT. The HT bus is far from saturated, so having a total HT frequency of 800Mhz rather than 1000 makes very little difference.
 
Guys,

Just a note to say the ASUS project was abandined via RMA, I have blown up 2 personally and saw another one go shortly after.

I am not saying they are bad boards I just feel that perhaps my luck was non-existent.

The final straw was not being able to run my very capable gskill ram in 1t timings above 245HTT (on a good day).

So after a bit of RMA hell I felt the need to go the way of the DFI solution - this has not been without problems but with the rewards that come with it, I am in the zone and very happy with the board within a few weeks of purchase I have become the highest A64 (no FX) in the custom PC benchies (1.77), got me a 3d mark score of lots, 11308 in 3dm05 and 24m16s in superpi on the 32m test.

I was not for the want of trying, but my asus sli days are over........for now ;)
 
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