GA-EP45-UD3P - Won't boot with 450FSB

[Octopuss]

[devoh]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P - Won't boot with 450FSB

OK devoh, were even now.....
....after reading your comment, my keyboard is intact, but it took a bit of time for me to regain my composure.

Rockin!!

[Psycho101]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P - Won't boot with 450FSB

It's open for debate really. Tcase is 72.4c. However the DTS sensor reading isn't really the same as Tcase.

For me, as long as it stays at 70 or under for the majority of the time I'm happy. It'll obviously heat up much more with IBT, but it's an exceptionally hot running program by design. If I weren't at virtually the limit of this CPU I'd happily OC more and add more voltage until I get ~70c while Priming and gaming. I have ofc, run CoreTemp for a 2 hour gaming sesion to make sure temps are still in order, consisting 1 hour of WoW and 1 hour of Crysis.

So it's all down to personal taste, PC usage and whether you can afford to replace components possibly earlier than planned.

Have you got that Thermalright fan duct yet? That may help a lot as all the warm HSF air's going to go right out of the case. It may cause GPU temps to rise a little though as there'll be less air being directly exhausted form other areas of the case. You may want to remove a couple of expansion slot back plates so the intake blows some warm GPU air outside.

[Psycho101]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P - Won't boot with 450FSB

Ya I heard a rumor that D-and-W went to the Intel Fab and hand picked his silicon.

-devoh

I heard that too. D-an-W's real name is Andy Pippkin.

"I want that one!"

"But I thought you said Intel was the embodiment of monopolistic, capitalist evil?"

"Yeh I know..... I want that one!.... Monster trucks! Monster trucks!"

[Octopuss]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P - Won't boot with 450FSB

Psycho: yeah I got it, but haven't found the time to play with it yet :)
I am hoping to find 540x7.5 stable once again with one step higher MCH, and it if proves to be, I will experiment with something with lower VCORE (perhaps higher clock with lowed FSB).

Btw: I posted a question about the D strap in Corsair forums, but the people there don't seem to know too much about what I was talking about: TWIN2X4096-8500 and Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3 - The Corsair Support Forums

[profJim]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P - Won't boot with 450FSB

You might want to post Lsdme's strap/ratio chart along with your bios settings in your Corsair thread.

[Psycho101]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P - Won't boot with 450FSB

Good idea. It seems like the RAM guy knows the inner workings of strap settings. He just doesn't know that the D strap is the set of timings recommended for 400+ FSB. I'm sure if he was informed he may be able to give some more info.

I'm guessing he'll just say "Use what ever works" though, and he may be right. The B strap is supposedlly tighter, and should in most cases give better results. I think in a couple of threads Lsdmeasap said that he was surprised by his strap comparison tests and still thinks the tighter the strap the better in most cases regardless of FSB. I'm not putting words into Lsd's mouth. If I can find a post where he states that, I'll link it for you.

[profJim]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P - Won't boot with 450FSB

The biggest advantage to using the D-strap over ~460MHz is that tRD can usually be set 1 step lower (tighter) compared with the B-strap.

With FSB lower than ~460MHz, the B-strap can usually be set 1 step lower than the D-strap.

[Octopuss]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P - Won't boot with 450FSB

Well, the strap doesn't have any high priority really, it's just a mystery sitting in my head :)

I am getting Radeon 4890 btw and have hard time thinking about the cooling. It will probably be the red metal plate from default cooling with Thermalright T-Rad2 and 120mm Noctua on it. Been using Accelero S1 for way too long :D

[Psycho101]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P - Won't boot with 450FSB

The biggest advantage to using the D-strap over ~460MHz is that tRD can usually be set 1 step lower (tighter) compared with the B-strap.

With FSB lower than ~460MHz, the B-strap can usually be set 1 step lower than the D-strap.

Indeed, a good point. I had the same experience with my Q8200. It's just strange that in some cases the Dstrap seems to fail completely though. Even for my current CPU, setting 2.00D to give DDR-800 fails completely, regardless of tRead and other voltage settings.

Weird...

[Psycho101]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P - Won't boot with 450FSB

I'd recommend against a T-Rad 2 unless you can source a back plate from somewhere, or the 4890 comes with one as standard (some do, some don't).

I had to RMA my card because the T-Rad bowed it that much, the GPU core and metal surround started to come away from the PCB.

I know what you may think, I thought the same, that I must have tightened it down too much, but I didn't. I used the bare minimum of force. As I could see the crd was being bent as I tightened the cooler, I loosened the screws with the card installed and PC on until I got an over heat (PC shuts down, back of card gets really hot). I then tightened about 1/5 a turn at a time until temps were good and everything was nice and stable.

I'm now using a Scythe Musashi on my second card while I wait for my first to be returned for CrossFire. I have another Musashi waiting to install onto that one too. It cools 2-4c better than the T-Rad 2 and it's quieter than a single Noctua fan when it's on low.

With a 19c ambient, my GPU is currently idling at 30c, which is exceptional IMO for both fans on low. With the fan at the VRM end up to half way (1000-1100 RPM, minimum is I think 800 RPM, max is 2000 RPM) I can get a rock steady 765 on the core. I choose to run 750 for better temps and because the 15MHz makes little difference. Now I'm hitting 750MHz on the GPU, the VRAM is more the bottleneck, what with the 4850 having half the bandwidth of the 4870 and 4890. The fans are both 100mm and only 12mm thick, but are super silent. A Noctua could easily be zip tied to it instead if you wanted.

There's not much performance boost unfortunately going to a 4890 from a 4870, maybe 10%, if that. I'd strongly recommend you hang on to your current card, then Crossfire them. It'll work fine. Also if you encounter a game that doesn't like Crossfire or isn't compatible yet, having the 4890 as the primary card and disabling CF means you're getting max single GPU performance. It's the best of both worlds.

If you're not planning on going crossfire, you amy want to wait. In a matter of months (way before Christmas) ATI'll have their HD 58xx series out. It'll be about the same price as a 4890 is now. If not interested in DX11, you can still buy a 4890 when the 58xx is released. I bet you'll pay less than 1/2 price from some places.

[Octopuss]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P - Won't boot with 450FSB

This is interesting, first experience like that. Maybe ****ty PCB on that particular card? Or older revision of T-Rad2? Or just bad luck? Who knows.

The price is a good point, but then again, I wanna upgrade just for the hell of it, plus I can sell my current card for a very decent price - Asus 4890 cost ~5100 and I can sell my 4870 with all the stuff on it for 2800. Uhm, what's that in eur... 110 and 200. Another important thing is, in a matter of weeks my 4870 will not be worth a penny with new cards being announced and everything.
Oh and I wanna play around with new ways of cooling, so why not on a new card :D
The money I'd spend is not THAT terrible to cry over it, plus I am selling my guitars, which will raise the budget by substantial amount :D

Anyway, the bloody PC is hot as hell right now - the NB heatsink is very warm even with a fan on it, lol. I guess 1.3 MCH does its thing :P
Tomorrow evening is in the name of windtunnel and VCORE experiments. Damn I like to have the memory running at high frequency, the idea of juicy CPU speed is fine, but giving up on FSB... I don't know!

[Psycho101]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P - Won't boot with 450FSB

I think a mix of bad luck and more bad luck that I didn't have some kind of back plate to hand really. If someone has a back plate I'm all for recommending a T-rad 2 as it was a great coolar and looked the business. The Musashi looks great too though.

There are some pics od mine installed in NimrodAUS's thread here: New Build GA-EP45-DS3 + Q9550 - Page 32 - TweakTown Forums

[Octopuss]

Re: GA-EP45-UD3P - Won't boot with 450FSB

Czech republic. 1 GBP=29.3CZK currently :)

Haha washer mod! I did that the next minute after installing the cooler, because I could turn the bloody thing around with virtually no force at all. So I put 2-3 layers of thick paper under the retention bracket and voila! It holds like a rock.


Oh and I just got an idea - when I do the windtunnel mod, I might as well add a fan to the top slot of the case as an extra outtake.

[Psycho101]