EP45-UD3P goes flying or: a successful weekend of max fsb
May 2, 2021 9:31:24 GMT -5
Mr.Scott, Aleslammer, and 7 more like this
Post by ground on May 2, 2021 9:31:24 GMT -5
About two months ago, wytiwx started a thread on hwbot searching for advice to get 700 fsb, and I, given its one of my favorite things to mess with, off course had to keep an eye on that. Once it narrowed down to EP45 gigabyte series I was intrigued - I had been watching a couple of those on local ads; there were 2 EP45-UD3Ps listed for 40€ each. Given that my last cold session had been over half a year ago and currently am on vacation, I decided to order 20kg of dice for a couple days after the boards arrive and go in blind.
Tuesday - I search through my collection and track down 14 Wolfdale chips; 1 E8600, 3 E8500 and 10 E8400. I give them a quick rundown on P5E Deluxe, where I struggle to get them over 610 fsb; most chips didn't even manage that. I also finally re-test my pile of DDR2 and find 5 sticks of 512MB corsair that do 700-750 MHz valid on air. Will be plenty, right?
Wednesday - EP45-UD3P #1 arrives, I give it a quick spin and struggle even getting 600 fsb to post. Memory also clocks about 30-40 MHz worse then on P5E Deluxe. I drop my expectations of even seeing 700 fsb this weekend and, given my past track record of not being particularly successful with 775 in the past decide that if I can't get close to 700 this weekend I'll finally get rid of my 775 stuff (I've been tempted many times past couple months, the platform has been a pain many times.)
Thursday - uneventful, mostly doing stuff around the house and cleaning up my bench area.
Friday - 11 AM: Dice arrives at the doorstep. I grab the box and carry it upstairs, with low expectations. If stuff doesn't work out I can just go bench my growing pile of 1366 chips that haven't seen cold yet I am thinking.
Grab board #1, take off the stock heatsink, install a small waterloop and C2D IHS on the NB as to prevent cracking it, throw LN2 pot on the CPU, add some acetone and dice and boot up the system. Suddenly, she flies. Got 695 valid within 5 minutes of pulling down; seen 700 fsb too but it crashed before I could validate. Given how bad my memory was, I decided to bury that in dice as well. Well, maybe its board limit? So time to dig out an old waterblock base and throw that ontop of the NB and fill it with dice instead of running a waterblock. This worked really well; got all the way to 715 fsb (didn't find 715 valid, but more about that later) with that first chip already. Thinking I was crazy lucky, I decided to throw in the second chip; that one ended up doing 726. With CPUz crashed, I tried to see how far I could get with just setfsb open once. Around this time the second UD3P showed up at my door. Given that I felt done with that chip, I decided to give the board a quick post test before going on and strapping my E8600 into it and see if it flies as well. Got to 720 fsb before it started causing issues. Swapped to the 726 chip from earlier and got it to 725 quite easily. Tore down for the day, went to bed.
Saturday - 12 AM (slept in given I benched through half the night) - Grab 2nd EP45-UD3P since I felt like trying that one again. Random next E8400. Struggled booting at 700 fsb, but after booting at only 650 fsb it unexpectantly also validated 725. Got a feeling I'm constantly running in memory limit at this point given that two boards and 2 CPUs got stuck at the exact same wall now. Tested 2 more chips that walled at 705 and 720. Still, quite a successful session.
Rigpic: abload.de/image.php?img=img_4600r1j26.jpg
Boards + mem + chips used (missing 2 wolfdales): abload.de/img/img_4622bpjya.jpg
725 valid on video:
Hardware used:
2x Ep45-UD3P
1x PCI S3 video card
1x PCI postcode
5x corsair 1066c5 binned for 700+ air
1x E8600 (720 fsb max)
2x E8500 (715 & 720 fsb max)
3x E8400 (705 & 2x 725 fsb max)
Not a single piece of hardware died during the session either
Motivated to try higher once I get better mem here...
Tuesday - I search through my collection and track down 14 Wolfdale chips; 1 E8600, 3 E8500 and 10 E8400. I give them a quick rundown on P5E Deluxe, where I struggle to get them over 610 fsb; most chips didn't even manage that. I also finally re-test my pile of DDR2 and find 5 sticks of 512MB corsair that do 700-750 MHz valid on air. Will be plenty, right?
Wednesday - EP45-UD3P #1 arrives, I give it a quick spin and struggle even getting 600 fsb to post. Memory also clocks about 30-40 MHz worse then on P5E Deluxe. I drop my expectations of even seeing 700 fsb this weekend and, given my past track record of not being particularly successful with 775 in the past decide that if I can't get close to 700 this weekend I'll finally get rid of my 775 stuff (I've been tempted many times past couple months, the platform has been a pain many times.)
Thursday - uneventful, mostly doing stuff around the house and cleaning up my bench area.
Friday - 11 AM: Dice arrives at the doorstep. I grab the box and carry it upstairs, with low expectations. If stuff doesn't work out I can just go bench my growing pile of 1366 chips that haven't seen cold yet I am thinking.
Grab board #1, take off the stock heatsink, install a small waterloop and C2D IHS on the NB as to prevent cracking it, throw LN2 pot on the CPU, add some acetone and dice and boot up the system. Suddenly, she flies. Got 695 valid within 5 minutes of pulling down; seen 700 fsb too but it crashed before I could validate. Given how bad my memory was, I decided to bury that in dice as well. Well, maybe its board limit? So time to dig out an old waterblock base and throw that ontop of the NB and fill it with dice instead of running a waterblock. This worked really well; got all the way to 715 fsb (didn't find 715 valid, but more about that later) with that first chip already. Thinking I was crazy lucky, I decided to throw in the second chip; that one ended up doing 726. With CPUz crashed, I tried to see how far I could get with just setfsb open once. Around this time the second UD3P showed up at my door. Given that I felt done with that chip, I decided to give the board a quick post test before going on and strapping my E8600 into it and see if it flies as well. Got to 720 fsb before it started causing issues. Swapped to the 726 chip from earlier and got it to 725 quite easily. Tore down for the day, went to bed.
Saturday - 12 AM (slept in given I benched through half the night) - Grab 2nd EP45-UD3P since I felt like trying that one again. Random next E8400. Struggled booting at 700 fsb, but after booting at only 650 fsb it unexpectantly also validated 725. Got a feeling I'm constantly running in memory limit at this point given that two boards and 2 CPUs got stuck at the exact same wall now. Tested 2 more chips that walled at 705 and 720. Still, quite a successful session.
Rigpic: abload.de/image.php?img=img_4600r1j26.jpg
Boards + mem + chips used (missing 2 wolfdales): abload.de/img/img_4622bpjya.jpg
725 valid on video:
Hardware used:
2x Ep45-UD3P
1x PCI S3 video card
1x PCI postcode
5x corsair 1066c5 binned for 700+ air
1x E8600 (720 fsb max)
2x E8500 (715 & 720 fsb max)
3x E8400 (705 & 2x 725 fsb max)
Not a single piece of hardware died during the session either
Motivated to try higher once I get better mem here...
