After reading about the limitations of the board, I nonetheless went ahead and choose a e4500 with a x11 multiplier.
4coredual-sata2
e4500 + stock cooler
2*512 Kingston Value DDR 400 (i am glad to offload them because they caused me all sorts of pain with a7n8x)
Sapphire X1950GT 256Mo AGP
Neovo 19''LCD 1280*1024
SAMSUNG HDD 320GB 16M P80SD P120S T1333S
Samsung CD/DVD R/W
I started by changing the Bios to 1.60A
I did the pencil mod: vagp and vddr (bought a new digital voltmeter for it)
Changed the FSB jumper
So far so good
I then lost several hours trying to boot at normal speed, boot at overclock speed, get over cold boot/ warm boot problem...
I connected in parallel 2 PSU (using a paperclip to power up the second one), this beats over-inflated marketing specs of most PSU sold
OK time to get serious
BSEL mod with defogger repair paint (had to do several times to get good connection according to Voltmeter)
Cpu Vcore: 1.55V (CPU is 1,325V model, this mod requires 1 connection only)
Put everything back together
Put Be-quiet 500W PSU (average efficency, but rather silent and capable of serving more power than advertised with a reasonable voltage drop)
Clear CMOS
load optimal settings
* CPU: manual: 266
* Flexibility = disabled
* PCIE in sync with CPU ( stabler at higher FSB, see later tests)
* AGP lock 33
* Memory speed : DDR-400
* CAS: 3 (despite spd, would default to 2.5 on auto as if reading spd 166)
* Refresh: 8 (despite spd, would default to 7 on auto as if reading spd 166)
* vRAM = High despite pencil mod because I do not know if vDDR is realy for both DDR and DDRII)
* vAGP= normal because of pencil mod
* V-link = FAST
* V-link Auto Disconnect = Enable
* Ide-Drive Strenght = High
* PCI Delay Transaction = Enable
* PCIE Downstream Pipeline = Disable
* Pipeline DRQCTL = Disable (do not know the impact)
BINGO:
system is ortho-stable for 8hours at 2933 Mhz : 11*266 with DDR 200Mhz running 4/3
Tools used: speedfan/cpuid/ortho/superpi
Temp are a bit high 55°C
Voltage to the CPU is reported 1,5V idle, 1,44 under load (vdrop is a feature desired by Intel, I understand the need of it), Voltmeter confirms undervolt
(beware 12V, 5V, and 3,3V reported in BIOS have little relation with actual values provided by PSU as checked by voltmeter either on the PSU lines or on the MB mosfets)
superpi to 1M =21 sec (out of the top of my head)
Possible to use setFSB to check system stable at 11*280 with DDR 210 running 4/3
(pcie in sync with CPU means 119,2 Mhz, much more stable than pcie-lock at 100Mhz)
But attempts to use 280 and higher in BIOS causes 3 issues:
- warm restart hangs the system (need to power dow/power up)
- DDR timing are relaxed (do not remember if it shows still 4/3 or if it shows 5/8) but something is definitely happening
-> superpi to 1M are >26 sec
possible to use setFSB to check system almost stable to 11*300
but superpi times are still awful
I love the Mhz race, but the overall performance is foremost.
In need of a better tool, I use superpi
in summary,
I choose the board because I had a x1950 AGP
I choose the CPU because I needed a high multiplier to overcome of the FSB limitation of the board and because I knew of the BSEL possibility
I had not imagined that I would HAVE to do the BSEL mod , but this works rather beautifully
Things to do:
- redo vcore mod to reduce it
- check vAGP and vDDR
- replace stock cooler by spare zalman 7000al-cu
- put fan on NB heatsink
- put heatsink on SB
- add 12cm silent fan
- replace stock cooler on x1950GT by zalman and overclock it (already tested to go higher than PRO)
- play with 2,5-3-3-7-2T instad of 3-3-3-8-2T
- validate mem bandwidth with the program memtest from the "Ultimate Boot CD"
- play with WPCREDIT
- play with Pipeline DRQCTL
I was that close to RMA the board
Afterall, after spending some hours on that board, I have managed to build an astounding gaming machine for my teenage kids.
My next rig is the the higher challenge (q6600/8800gt/4*1Mb DDR2-6400 watercooled)