Socket 939 Roundup: Battle at the Top
by Wesley Fink on July 30, 2004 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939: Overclocking and Stress Testing
FSB Overclocking Results
| Front Side Bus Overclocking Testbed | ||
| Processor: | Athlon 64 FX53 Socket 939 2.4GHz |
|
| CPU Voltage: | 1.5V (default) | |
| Cooling: | Thermaltake Silent Boost K8 | |
| Power Supply: | Antec TruePower 430W | |
| Maximum OC: (Standard Ratios) |
204FSB x13 2652MHz (+10.5%) |
|
| Maximum FSB: (Lower Ratio) |
267FSB x 9 at 1:1 Memory | |
Our FX53 easily achieved the next speed level of 2.6GHz on the Gigabyte. In fact, the two nVidia nF3 boards tied for the highest overclock of this FX53 at 2652MHz. This is a bit faster than the 2.6GHz, which will likely be the speed rating of the FX55 to appear later this year. On recent Gigabyte boards, the BIOS overclocks have been more modest, with the rest of the overclock only doable with EZTune in Windows. It is good to see Gigabyte allowing a higher OC in BIOS, since we could achieve 267 in BIOS at lower multipliers. However, any higher value requires EZTune after booting into the OS. We still did not reach spectacular levels with EZTune, topping out about 280, but these levels should be more than enough to satisfy most users.
Memory Stress Test Results:
Since you need a score card for Dual Channel setup on 939, DIMMs 1 and 2 are the first DC bank on the Gigabyte, and yes, this can be very confusing. Our advice is to check memory and your start-up screen carefully to make sure that you are really in Dual-Channel mode when setting up a 939. Everyone seems to be doing it differently.The memory stress test is very basic, as it simply tests the ability of the Gigabyte K8NSNXP-939 to operate at its officially supported memory frequency (400MHz DDR), at the best performing memory timings that our Mushkin PC3500 Level 2 or OCZ PC3500 Platinum Ltd Modules will support. Memory stress testing was conducted by running RAM at 400MHz with 2 DIMM slots in a Dual-Channel configuration.
| Stable DDR400 Timings - 2 DIMMs (2/4 DIMMs - 1 Dual-Channel Bank) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| Timing Mode: | N/A |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| Bank Interleave: | N/A |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2T |
| RAS Precharge: | 10T* |
| Precharge Delay: | 2T |
| Command Rate: | 1T |
The Gigabyte 939 was completely stable with two DIMMs in Dual-Channel mode at the best 1T Command Rate settings.
Filling all four available memory slots is more strenuous on the memory subsystem than testing 2 DIMMs on a motherboard.
| Stable DDR400 Timings - 4 DIMMs (4/4 DIMMs - 2 Dual-Channel Banks) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz |
| Timing Mode: | N/A |
| CAS Latency: | 2.0 |
| Bank Interleave: | N/A |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2T |
| RAS Precharge: | 10T* |
| Precharge Delay: | 2T |
| Command Rate: | 2T |
The K8NSNXP-939 was able to run with all 4 DIMM slots at the same aggressive 2-2-2-10 settings used for 2 DIMMs. However, as we have seen on the other 939 boards running all 4 DIMMs, Command Rate must be reduced to 2T when filling both Dual Channels.
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RyanVM - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
Also, networking benches would have been nice (throughput and CPU utilization). It would be interesting to see what kind of impact Gigabyte going with a 3rd party ethernet controller has in comparison to the MSI board using the NF3's controller.On a somewhat related note, when will the Neo2 actually be available for purchase?
Marlin1975 - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
How about telling board makers to use better Sound for their boards.I got my board as it came with a VIA Envy soundcard. When I see RealTek sound that tells me they don;t care about quality, but about what they can say comes with the board.
Even C-Media has a new full (non-ac97) soundchip out now that can;t be that much more then a realtek 850/650/655 chip.
Wesley Fink - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
#7,8,9 - Corrected. Since ECS did use a SiS chip on their VIA board for secondary RAID, I got confused and spread the chipsets around :-)Stefpet - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
...but when will we see K8T890 or nforce4 motherboards?I don't want to be forced to replace the motherboard with a new one to get that top performing PCI Express card later...
Crassus - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
Final words, somewhere in the middle of the page:"The ECS is a remarkable step forward for ECS"
:c)
Great work, though.
RyanVM - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
Silly me, I meant ECS, not Epox.RyanVM - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
"8 USB 2.0 ports supported by nF3-250" for the K8T800PRO-based Epox KV2?Wesley Fink - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
#4 - Corrected. With more than 9000 words a number typo seems inevitable.BLHealthy4life - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
Still can't find the MSI K8n Neo2 mobo for sale anywhere.Been waiting and waiting....and waiting some more...
AkumaX - Tuesday, July 20, 2004 - link
Our FX53 topped out at about 2.59 GHz on the ECS KV2, which is slightly below the 3.6+ achieved on the top 939 boards