Gigabyte K8NNXP-940: Built on Athlon64 FX51 Strengths
by Wesley Fink on October 9, 2003 11:52 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
FSB Overclocking Results
With the very complete selection of overclocking options on the Gigabyte, we had very high expectations for the overclocking performance of the board. What we didn't know, and still don't know, however, is what kind of total overclocking range will be available to FX users.| Front Side Bus Overclocking Testbed | ||
| Default Voltage | Maximum Overclock | |
| Processor: | Athlon64 FX51 2.2GHz |
Athlon64 FX51 2.2Ghz |
| CPU Voltage: | 1.5V (default) | 1.6V |
| Cooling: | AMD Stock Athlon64 FX51 Heatsink/Fan | AMD Stock Athlon64 FX51 Heatsink/Fan |
| Power Supply: | Enermax 465W | Enermax 465W |
| Maximum OC: | 2409MHz (+10%) 219FSB |
? |
The above overclocking setup at DEFAULT voltage allowed us to reach a stable FSB of 219MHz. Running our standard Quake3 bench at 2.4GHz yielded Q3 test scores right at 500fps. The maximum overclock, unfortunately, remains a mystery. As you will see in the benchmark suite, the standard test performance with the new F1 BIOS is outstanding. However, there are still problems with multipliers and FSB settings on this motherboard. 11.5X worked until we hit 215FSB; then, mysteriously reset itself to 210, no matter what we set. The 12.0X multiplier worked at 200, and would start generating mysterious FSB and multiplier values above this setting. We even tried downclocking the multiplier, but could not set higher FSB settings that would be retained. We suspect Gigabyte will quickly fix this because this is a very promising board, but for now the Maximum overclock simply cannot be reported. We will revisit this in the near future when we receive a BIOS update.
For a quick comparison, we ran the FX51 in our nVidia Reference board. In that board, by setting the memory to 333, we were able to boot our FX at a CPU setting of 230 at 1.6V. We suspect it may do even better, but with multiplier and FSB settings not completely working, it would be unrealistic to report a maximum overclock at this time. We still believe that with this Gigabyte board, it will be possible to reach the maximum overclock our FX51 chip can achieve. The Gigabyte is remarkably stable in all we can do with it so far, and hopefully a BIOS update will fix the overclocking issues that have surfaced.
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juc - Friday, October 10, 2003 - link
can you try and put in a lower clock opteron and see what type of overclocking you can do w/ it?, is the regular 14x opteron unlocked? it would be nice if it was.Reflex - Friday, October 10, 2003 - link
#1: A RDRAM version would completely eliminate the advantage of having an on-die memory controller on the CPU as it is very very high latency by design. The A64 thrives on very very low latency/high IPC, and RDRAM does not provide that.Honestly, what would be truly ideal is a QDR solution. But everytime I hear about it being close nothing seems to come of it. Too bad...
Anonymous User - Friday, October 10, 2003 - link
Considering the performance gain, money ain't that important :-)Anonymous User - Friday, October 10, 2003 - link
#1,Samsung PC-3200 512 MB DDR SDRAM $125
Samsung PC-3200 512 MB ECC Reg. DDR SDRAM $174
+49
Corsair XMS3200 PC-3200 512MB DDR SDRAM $175
Corsair XMS3200 PC-3200 ELL 512MB DDR SDRAM $220
Corsair XMS3200LL-RE PC-3200 ECC Reg. 512MB DDR SDRAM $235
+15 (+60 compared to slower timings)
completely unmeaningful to anyone with the money to buy an fx.
Anonymous User - Friday, October 10, 2003 - link
Looks like a cool mobo, and an amazingly fast CPU, but . . .Who's going to buy one of these!?!?!?
The price you'll spend on memory put's this way out of most people's price range! And before you yell at me for saying that, look up pricing for registered modules!
You could probably buy an awesome Athlon 64 system now, then upgrade your mobo and CPU to FX when the 939 pin version comes out, and still spend less money than paying this ridiculous premium on memory. Plus, it would be upgradable to future FX chips, not an unsupported beast. Anyone remember socket 423?
Say goodbye to the idea of 'surpassing the 4Gb memory limitation,' unless you have like $10,000 to spend on memory!
My real question here is why, when the Athlon 64 (non-FX) is such a success, would they make this strange beast?
What I would LOVE to see (I know you're going to hate this one) is a really tight RDRAM chipset ready when the 939-pin chipset comes out.
What do you think? Quad Channel 1200Mhz RDRAM on the new FX? Ain't gonna happen, but I can dream.