Originally posted by: cruser1068
Its here I get confused!!! To maintain a 1:1 ratio with my 1066 RAM I would need an FSB setting of 533 right? That would put the CPU at 4.8Ghz...which even if I had watercooling is unlikely to work. Even dropping multiplier to 8 would still result in an obscene CPU speed of 4.26Ghz....way faster than Im ever gonna get stable with my rig. In the past I found going over 3.4Ghz and I would start to get into trouble. So how do you get this nirvana like state of 1:1????? Sorry if Im missing something obvious. Does it mean you have to run the RAM slower to compensate for a faster CPU? And is that really more beneficial than using a different divider. Thanks again for your time.
You have it backwards, a 1:1 setting straps the RAM to your CPU's FSB, NOT the other way around. Stock 266FSB 1:1 strap would mean DDR2-533MHz RAM. Stock 333FSB 1:1 strap would mean DDR2-667Mhz RAM. 534FSB overclock would mean 1067Mhz RAM. As I said, 1:1 divider is roughly 5% extra performance. That is not much, but it is there for those that bleed performance. It's not critical or anything.
Originally posted by: otherwise
By the way, is there any chance that people who have working memory can post exactly what sticks they have? I need to order a new pair tonight and I really don't want to have to deal with the headache of a RMA again
The two I've seen mentioned in this thread are extreemly premium sticks, is there anything decent that is confirmed to work nearer to $100/2x1Gb?
I don't get it. I just don't. I have owned both the Corsair 6400 2x1GB kit and Corsair 6400c4 2x1Gb kit. Not only are they the same chips with a different bin grade, but both kits worked well out of the box on my two Gigabyte boards. I've done 501FSB overclocks with them at 2.1v using Option 2 for the DLL setting in the BIOS, fully stable. They top out at just above 1,000MHz though, I did not use voltages above 2.1v for them. Short of not manually setting +0.3v in the BIOS so they run without errors I couldn't even hazard a guess as to why you'd have issues with them.
Originally posted by: mylittlepony
thod to "Legacy" & FAN Speed Control Mode to "PWM" to maintain highest speed
5. Go into the MB Intelligent Tweaker (MIT) menu at the bottom of the page, set the System voltage control to "Manual"
6. These boards have a default VDIMM of 1.8v, set the VDIMM to co-ordinate with your ram. The Geil I have is specced as 2.1v so I have mine set to +0.3v
7. Set the MCH Voltage to +0.1v
8. Set the FSB Voltage to +0.1v
9. Set the VCORE to 1.45v - Please be aware that this will increase temps!
10. Set the CPU Host Clock Control to "Enable"
11. Set the System Memory Multiplier to "2x"
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Using those settings, I was able to correct the memory timings and fix the CPU speed.
Overall impression from the last few days:
* excellent performance for games (I can run at the highest settings on a 22" mo
* Vista isn't as annoying as I thought it would be, though I've had about 3 bluescreen + restarts over the last few days, not doing anything intense.
* So far, I'm reasonably happy with the Gigabyte board. It's a bit annoying that you have to do a "secret" key combo to get at the memory timings (CTRL-F1 from the main BIOS menu) and that the "optimized" defaults result in the processor running at 2Ghz instead of 2.66. The instructions that came with the board were decent (probably on par with MSI).
No overclocking at the moment, but I would like to at least mildly overclock the system...from what I've read, that's a reasonable goal.
Now for my questions:
1. I'm still trying to figure out my Speedfan readings. I get the following at normal use:
Temp1: 52C (!)
Temp2: 32C
Temp3: -2C (wtf?)
Core 0: 30C
Core 1: 31C
So what is Temp1? Speedfan puts the "fire" icon next to it, but the case never feels that hot, and the other temps seem fine.
I've been unable to get TAT to work on Vista64 (tried a few workarounds I found, but it still doesn't work).
Last question: assuming that I'm just going to go for a mild overclock, could I go back to the BIOS and enable a few of the energy saving features (e.g. EIST, C1E)? On my AMD setup, I enabled Cool-n-Quiet, which worked out well; if I set my Control Panel Power Options to the energy savings mode, it would half the CPU clock cycle without a noticeable performance penalty, but appeared to ramp it back up to full when needed. If I was going to be playing games for awhile, I'd set the power settings to "Desktop", which would prevent Cool and Quiet from running. In other words...could I do a mild overclock and still use the Power Settings to be able to have the "best of both worlds"?
Keep in mind I never had to raise the FSB voltage from stock at 501FSB, and I only had the MCH voltage at +0.05v which is half that.
That is also the setting I mentioned regarding the CPU fan control previously. Remember that PWM setting is useless if you do not have a 4pin fan connector/4pin fan header! I simply disabled fan control on my board to keep the CPU fan going, before I switched to water.
Temp 1 should be your motherboard PCB temp as I recall. Run ATI Tool for 10 minutes with the 3d cube left spinning, and see what happens to this temp. If it climbs higher then yes, it is your motherboard PCB temp. Gigabyte placed it to close to the PCIe slot, it reads high in systems that use 8800 series cards.
@Jhan1
Which temps are you referring to by "system"? 38c sounds like a motherboard temp.
G80 cards radiate a good deal of heat up into the case, I have a theory that Gigabyte stuck their motherboard sensor to close to the main PCIe slot, so they pick up on the heat to easily.
I don't think you should RMA, you would get the exact same results with a new board. I get the same thing with just a 8800GTS, although my temp stays within the mid 40's even with the entire system idle and cold. I might contact Gigabyte and see if they'll tell me where they stuck the sensor...
Just feel the chipset cooler and all the heatpiped fins, as long as they are cool to the touch your chipset isn't running at the temperature that the motherboard PCB sensor is reading.
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Remember Gigabyte boards do not have a speaker built into them. If you do not hook up the case speaker, then you will never hear any error beeps.
Also "Normal" DDR2 voltage is 1.8v. This is official JEDEC specification. Just start counting at 1.8v when you change the RAM voltage from within Gigabyte's BIOS. Gigabyte does at least tell you your specific default CPU Vcore, if nothing else.
Gigabyte board defaults are ALWAYS going to use 1.8v for RAM and 5-5-5-15 timings for RAM! These both must be manually set to your specific RAM specs.
For anyone that has RAM stability issues and is running the latest BIOS release for their board I would suggest changing the Memory Performance option to "Standard". There seems to be some instances of MCH strap settings being set to tightly and conflicting with some of the RAM mutlipliers. This option is set to "Turbo" by board
defaults.
On another note, I'll have the guide finished inside two weeks before my classes resume. My apologies for the wait. I plan to include BIOS photos, but after I flashed to the latest BIOS I lost all my saved BIOS profiles. I recall the settings for my 3.5Ghz overclock, but I will need to do some testing to find the exact FSB and MCH voltages I previously used at 3.74Ghz. I use voltages sparingly, as my reply to mylittlepony above might indicate. It's my first attempt at a real guide, so trying to get the content right is slowing me as well.