[Cecil]

Got the M489GTD Pro/USB3 for my 555. Going to stick with this as a main rig for a little while untill hex cores from either camp are afordable.

Going under water with an Apogee XT and 2x120+1x120 rad. Aiming for 4.2 daily stable, 4.5/4.6 benchable unlocked. It was doing 3750Mhz unlocked in my 790XT with a GeminiiS.

For ram, got a set of Gskill Eco 1600s 7-8-7-24 1.35v.


Anyway, on to the board. Its definitly a love/hate thing right now. Im not the biggest fan of ASUS, but Gig doesnt have core unlocking on their 8 series boards and I needed SATA3, so I went with this one. First impressions were really good. Its a slick looking board with some nice features, such as single tab dimm slots, an easy tab for releasing cards out of the PCIe slots, a raised 8 pin CPU connector, plenty of USB ports, and SATA ports that are flat on the board and some are 90*.

There is also a core unlocking switch since the SB850 doesnt support core unlocks, and an auto OC switch. One thing I liked was the memOK button. If you are using ram with odd specs (like my Ecos since they are 1.35v), or thats not supported, you turn on the PC with that button and it will cycle through different voltages/speeds/timings to find a setting that works well enough to get you in to the BIOS to set it manually.

The onboard GPU is adequet enough for older games or Blu-Ray playback at 1080P. Doubt many around here care much for that though
Though from what Ive seen, they OC nicely.

Then it turned to hell, at least for me anyway. Board couldnt make up its mind if it wanted to boot or not. So I spent about 4-5 hours trouble shooting, trying multiple CPUs and different ram. At one point it really seemed like it didnt want to work with SATA devices plugged in. Finally after all that, I decided to try using the VGA port instead of the HDMI port

It worked

So it seems my board has a faulty HDMI port. I can live with that, not worth the two weeks Id be without a PC when Ive got a GTX275/9800GT combo Ill be using. Ive got it on my bench table right now with just a stock opteron HSF. So Im keeping the CPU OC down a bit till it goes in my rig. Running OCCT right now at near stock settings just to make sure everything works alright.
240x15 3250Mhz 1.4Vcore unlocked quad, 1600Mhz ram 7-8-7-24 1.4Vdimm, VTT at 1.2v. NB and HT at 1920Mhz.

More testing to follow next week when the rest of my stuff comes in. Have another SSD coming for RAID0 64Gb SuperTalent GXs, and two raptorX 150s for storage and games.

[Neuromancer]

Digital video has never worked flawlessly for me, not like VGA anyway.

Thats cross platform. Might be an ATI thing (since I pretty much only use ATI gfx)

But nVidia has its issues too (my HTPC is running a nvidia chipset and HDMI out does not work on that either as a solo boot device)

[Cecil]

After much work and a few quirks (a lot of these boards dont like certain USB keyboards in the BIOS, my G110 being one of them) I am liking it

My SSD is about 5% faster on here then on X58, and my ram is doing very well too at 1700Mhz 7-8-7 1.475v. The SSD actually has higher max transfer rate on here then what its rated for

[Neuromancer]

Yeah SB850 has some massive write performance gains. Its pretty nutty. Did not see many reviews on the read side improving much.

Get ter benching

[Cecil]

Originally Posted by Neuromancer

Yeah SB850 has some massive write performance gains. Its pretty nutty. Did not see many reviews on the read side improving much.

Get ter benching

Waiting for my other SSD and raptors to come thursday. This is just a temporary install while I get used to it, and see how far it will clock.

[Cecil]

[Cecil]

Got 6-7-6-18 1600Mhz benchable. Lowest timings Ive ever got with ram at 1600Mhz.

[Neuromancer]

Nice thats what I am running my HyperX T1s at right now well 6-6-6. What RAM are you using?

[Cecil]

Originally Posted by Neuromancer

Nice thats what I am running my HyperX T1s at right now well 6-6-6. What RAM are you using?

Gskill Ecos with 1.5v. Havent tried any more yet.

[Cecil]

Here is my first try at a decent run. Need to get my bench OSes installed, and get a little more out of the CPU. For some reason, running as a dual core doesnt want to clock any more then it does unlocked. And ran both, dual and quad cores at the same speed in Spi32m, and as a dual my time went up 10+seconds? Thought Pi was better off with less cores.