Your're thought's on GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P Mobo

The P45 is a very capacious overclocker's northbridge, the 9550 is about the current 'sweet-spot' on the price/performance curve, and you might be better served by this RAM:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
I'm running 8G at 1080 and one tenth volt below spec, and I just walked someone else with a P45 based board through a mild overclock; his also ran well below spec'd (2.1) voltage...

Thanks,

I plan on overclocking the q9550 to 3.4-3.8 with Artic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU cooler(cheap and good)




EDIT: About the ram, I was going to buy that same exact ram but someone on these forum's said something about Intel's cpu's no taking advantage of the 1066 but instead working better with 800 MHz RAM

I have a Gigabyte EP45T-UD3P, running a Wolfdale E8600 Dua Core with 4GB of Kingston memory. I have had a hell of a time getting this board to run stable.

Initially I purchased 4Gb of GSkill memory to run it with and after 5 minutes the system would crash. I figured it was the RAM, replaced it with the recommended memory on the Gigabyte website and it was stable.

Until I updated the BOIS to F7...

Now I have a new problem. I download the overclocking software available from the Gigabyte website and updated the BIOS in the same day, so I don't know really what initiated this issue, but, now when I shut down or restart, the computer will jump into an infinite reboot BEFORE it even posts. That's right, i see the splash screen and boom, it resets.

Luckily, the temp fix is simple. I have to reset the PSU from the rear and it boots right up! I assume that this issue is more likely because I was trying to overclock then the BIOS being corrupt, but either way, Gigabyte software screwed something up and I'm not very pleased. I tried clearing the CMOS and still, nothing.. so.. I'm also wandering if anyone else has had issues with this board, especially since the release of the latest BIOS.

Thorox;
I realize that this is kind of long, but you might want to take a look at about the middle third of it or so:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/260710-30-ep45-ud3p-b...

Weikelp;
After updating your BIOS, did you do the obligatory "Load Optimized Defaults" from the BIOS' main page?

Yes, I sure did. When that didn't work I tried the load fail safe defaults. same thing

great board. i use it in all of my friend's build that i do for them. OC very nicely, bios has a lot of great options. I never had trouble with it.

I have one (F6 BIOS) in an HTPC case running a Q6850 @ 3GHz for most stuff, and using Easytune 6 to get a one-button OC to 3.6 GHz for gaming. Smooth as silk.

Is this the post you wanted me to see?


In the interim, I'm going to repost a little write-up regarding the ins and outs of memory - if you've seen it here before, ignore it - if not, probably worth a read to get some of the basics down, before we start 'tweaking':


'Lots of memory that will work never makes the approved list - it's endemic to the industry. For GBs, what happens is the approved memory list is made up when the MOBO is introduced from sticks they have been provided samples of, and never updated thereafter; in addition, many of the memory manufacturers that you'll see there you've never heard of, as (and I've said this before) I'm sure you can pick them up at any gas station in Taiwan, but they're not to be had here. That's also why, for a lot of boards, there are scads of 512M and 1G sticks, but few 2x2s and 4x2s...

You can always use faster RAM with any modern CPU/MOBO setup - you're just likely to have to set it up manually in the BIOS to take advantage of it. Pretty much all DDR2 ram is actually DDR2/800; they 'speed-bin' it, i.e., test and select the sticks that will work at either lower (faster) latencies, or higher (faster) speeds, or both, and sell it at a premium as 2/1066, 2/1200, and so on. JEDEC spec'd RAM has a little EEPROM chip in it that stores the set-up information/tables for running it at 800 at various FSB (Front System Bus) speeds - has the preferred memory multiplier and timing info - this is called an SPD (Serial Presence Detect) just to confuse us; faster, higher rated sticks may (but don't necessarily) contain another set of tables (called an EPP - this one makes sense - Extended Performance Profile, or sometimes XMP - the same, but eXtended Memory Profile ) that will tell the BIOS what multiplier/latncies to use at its higher rated speed - BUT - not all BIOS are created equal: some will read this EPP automatically, and set the RAM at the higher speed; some will require intervention (on a lot of GBs, it's "Load Optimized Defaults" [but, to keep it more confusing - not all BIOS with the "Load Optimized Defaults" fuction actually use it to set the EPP]), and some just plainly don't know the EPP exists (if it does) and you have to set the higher speed manually!

Now, you have control over the basic system clock (I'm going to cal it B_CLK), once you start manually timing the MOBO through the BIOS. B_CLK times four is your FSB (once again, Front System Bus); B_CLK times your memory multiplier is your DRAM rate; B_CLK times your CPU's multiplier is your CPU frequency.

Examples: if you set your system clock to 333, you will need a 2.4 memory multiplier (333 x 2.4 = 799.blahblahblah) to run your RAM at 800, and if the CPU multiplier is, say, 8.5, you will get a CPU clock of 2.83GHz; at that same B_CLK you would need a memory multiplier of 3.2 (3.2 x 333 = 1065.6) to take advantage of 1066 RAM. Now, lots of CPUs that are rated at a 1333 nominal FSB will run a lot faster, sometimes with a little more 'oomph' from a voltage increase; for example, I run a Q9550 that is rated at 1333 FSB (333 B_CLK) times an eight point five multiplier, for a 2.83GHz speed. It will comfortably run with the B_CLK well over 450 - and here's where faster RAM comes in. The smallest RAM multiplier available from a MCH (Memory Control Hub - or 'NorthBridge') is 2.0, but, with a 2.0 multiplier, that means at a 450 clock, your RAM will need to run at 900 (again, 450 B_CLK x 2 = 900), which most 800 RAM just won't do! This is referred to as a 'RAM limited bus', meaning the CPU can't run a B_CLK any higher than (roughly) half the RAM's available speed - and thus, the need for faster RAM. Mind you, this only applies if you both can, and intend to, run your FSB above 1600 (once again, a B_CLK of 400+ times 4 gives you a 1600+ FSB)...

To further complicate matters, people often misunderstand the actual quantitative speed improvements inherent in faster ram... Here's the mistake: 1066 is 33% higher than 800 ([1066-800]/800 = 266/800 = .33), so 1066 RAM must be a third faster than 800, right? Not so! You have to figure in latencies. Most 800 will run at 4-4-4-12, while most 1066 is rated at 5-5-5-15, or, even worse, 5-5-5-18. Here's how to appraise the situation in reality: at 800 MHz, a RAM bus cycle is 1.25 μSec long (1000/800); at 1066 (1000/1066), it is roughly .938 μSec long - so, with an 800 stick at a 4 average latency, a RAM bus transaction takes 1.25 (cycle time) times 4 (latency), or 5μSec, while at 1066 it is .938 (cycle time) times 5 (latency), for a transaction time of (roughly) 4.7μSec - so you see, by going to nominally 33% faster RAM, you actually gain three tenths of a μSec per transaction - .3 (transaction gain) over 5(transaction total) = .06, for a real-world improvement of 6%

My experience with 'GB-friendliness' by manufacturer has been: mushkin - GBs love mushkin, but it's pricey, and the speed selection is limited; G.Skill - works well, has a functional EPP, and will usually also run at 'auto' settings, unless you run four sticks; OCZ - likewise; Kingston, Crucial, & Corsair - seem to account for most of the problems I see here with RAM (wich, of course, could possibly be due to the fact that more people buy them, as they're generally cheap), with Crucial having a few times had problems with apparent 'degrading' over time, i.e., a previously working OC simply 'goes bad', and MemTest86+ shows it to be RAM...

That's part of it; that particular piece boils down to:

1066 is very useful, as with 800, your FSB is limited to 1600 (400 system clock) - and most CPUs and MOBOs can go well above this - if only the RAM would let 'em...
At 1066, on the other hand, your FSB could be taken to be taken to 2133 (533 system clock) - far above what most boards and CPUs can do; the 1066 itself only gives you a 6% direct memory throughput advantage, but it, in essence, unlocks your FSB/CPU...

More, I wanted you to see:



and:



These are the 'guts' of the actual overclock...