Core 2 650mhz FSB!!

[Echo]

From bit-tech - 'Asus released a new beta BIOS to us today with the option to push the front side bus up to an eye-watering 650MHz.'

This was in a review of the P5B over at bit-tech

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2006/08/03/asus_p5b_deluxe_wifi_ap_edn/1.html

Awsome!!

 

[imported_Iceman]

Crossfire is problematic

Per the referenced bit-tech.net review:

... Most notably there are two PCI-Express x16 slots though and if you were wondering if the P965 northbridge does supports ATI CrossFire technology I'm afraid we have to disappoint you: plugging in two graphics cards causes a boot failure. The bottom slot is only an x4 (which is backwardly compatible to x2 or x1) and is connected to the ICH8R southbridge.

... The universal, black x16 PCI-Express slot can be used with a standard x16 graphics card, "as long as the graphics card supports x4 mode". Asus is indescript about what cards are compatible and what aren't, and during evaluation of this detail we were unable to get the board to boot when a second card was installed.

Iceman

 

[Echo]

Do you think the beta bios would work on a P5W??



I guess the 650 MHz would be good for those benching Super PI on a P5B, and aren’t interested in crossfire.



You could still run a 7950 on it though

 

[maverik-sg1]

Do you think the beta bios would work on a P5W??

I guess the 650 MHz would be good for those benching Super PI on a P5B, and aren’t interested in crossfire.

You could still run a 7950 on it though

The BIOS question? No it wont work, they are two different chipsets, although if you try it an works feel free to post back here However, if it does not work and u need a new motherboard, its done at your risk

Also, but 7950GX2 wont work properly on this mobo yet, not sure if it's a driver issue or if it requires a BIOS update, either way, on it's release it was not compatable (should be resolved soon though).

Of course there are two new single GPU graphics cards coming out in the form of G80 (Sept/Oct) and R600 (Dec/Jan) - it would be interesting to see how these perfom as the 7950 has set the benchmark for single card performance.................. but thats another story

Although, 650mhz FSB is AWESOME, we dont have any ram that runs that speed so any gains over 500mhz are probably hampered by slower RAM and looser timings.

 

[sacha35]

Regarding the ram mate could you not as said just loosen the timmings a bit cos the gain in bandwidth and MHz should more than compensate for the looser timmings, or is it totaly diferant on the intel rigs?