Confusion in the Land of 775

[deek]

I'm looking to make a cheapish upgrade to my 775 system, moving away from my old GA-P35-DS3R board that fails at quad overclocking.

I'm currently looking at two options:

DFI LANPARTY UT X48-T2R at Newegg.ca for $134.99

OR

GA-EP45-UD3P/R for somewhere in the neighborhood of $120 CDN, easy to find.

I'm really struggling with the decision. The X48 offers benefits, but isn't as good an OC'er. The P45 platform is ol' reliable, but can't handle dual x16 PCI for Crossfire (which I intend to pursue, though mid-range DX11 cards might be fine on PCI 2.0 x8). I'm also worried over the S3 sleep issue the UD3 mobos apparently suffer from.

Any suggestions?

 

[jonpaul37]

Zip has it right, get an ASUS P5Q Pro and call it a day, you'll not see a hit on performance with 16x/8x, or even 8x/8x unless running the 5970

 

[Shadow703793]

+1 for zip.

@OP: Imo, why not build a AM3 based system? LGA775 is dead and DDR2 prices are abut the same as DDR3 prices right now.

 

[deek]

Sorry, should have been more specific. It's not a new build. I'd definitely go with i7 if I were starting from scratch!

I'm currently running:

Q9550 E0 stepping w/ Zalman CNPS9700 LED (I may look into beefier cooling for the quad, in future)
GA-P35-DS3R rev 2.0 BIOS F13 (most recent BIOS)
2x2gb Mushkin Redline DDR2 1000mhz (I own 8gb, but the board can't handle it unless I underclock to 800mhz)
BFG 285 GTX OC (factory settings)
Corsair HX850w (overkill, but got it for a great price when my Antec 650w kicked off recently)
Intel G2 160GB SSD w/ TRIM (recent firmware update)
Caviar Green 1TB (data)
Windows 7 64-bit Professional


I *could* move to i5/i7, but the performance gain would likely not equal the investment. I'm simply looking to upgrade the mobo in order to better support the Q9550 (seems the P35 isn't great at OCing the 45nm quads, it did my e6600 great justice however) and to pave the way for DX11 down the line. I hope to go with a pair of mid-range DX11 cards or a single card SLI solution with the 285 as overkill dedicated PhysX. Depends whether I can sell the 285. Either GFX configuration should carry me through to the next socket tick tock with no trouble. I won't be running 5970s in Xfire. That's too rich for my blood, and yeah ... no way my CPU won't bottleneck that madness.

I've spent a lot of time attempting to OC the 45nm on the DS3R with the ram at 1:1 and PCI-e locked at 100mhz, but I can't get it stable beyond 3GHz, regardless of how many volts I dedicate to the Vcore, ram and/or vMCH/NB. I had zero trouble pushing the e6600 to a nice, comfortable 3.5Ghz. I probably could have gone farther but I was quite happy and stable. Despite the Zalman, it's not temps. Temps are perfectly reasonable under load.

The P5Q Pro sounds like a great alternative, for either potential DX11 setup ... though I can't seem to find it for a decent price up here in Canada. It's almost $50 more than the DFI and the Gigabyte I mentioned in my original post.

 

[orangegator]

I am pretty sure all P45 boards, including the ASUS P5Q Pro can only do x8x8 crossfire. With only a single card, the first slot will do x16. I vote for getting the EP45-UD3P. I have it and it's a great board. My E0 Q9550 easily runs 24/7 at 3.8Ghz at 1.216V. I could go higher with better ram.

 

[deek]

No issues coming out of sleep or hibernation, orangegator?

 

[orangegator]

No issues coming out of sleep or hibernation, orangegator?

I don't use either, so I can't say.

 

[deek]

I don't use either, so I can't say.

No problem, thanks.

If anyone has a suggestion as to why I'm having such a crap time OC'ing my Q9550 on the P35 platform, I'd be interested to hear it (4 phase power? I dunno). However, the upgrade has as much to do with Xfire as it does with potential CPU overclocking (even if I could maintain a decent OC on the P35, my current mobo is lacking Xfire support and I'm looking to move in that direction).

I'm thinkin' I'd be best served getting a P45 x8/x8 and setting up a server box or something with the e6600 back in the P35 saddle (not that a server box will do me much good for much longer if Infinity Ward and the like have their way).

Cheers!

 

[liquidsnake718]

Sorry, should have been more specific. It's not a new build. I'd definitely go with i7 if I were starting from scratch!

I'm currently running:

Q9550 E0 stepping w/ Zalman CNPS9700 LED (I may look into beefier cooling for the quad, in future)
GA-P35-DS3R rev 2.0 BIOS F13 (most recent BIOS)
2x2gb Mushkin Redline DDR2 1000mhz (I own 8gb, but the board can't handle it unless I underclock to 800mhz)
BFG 285 GTX OC (factory settings)
Corsair HX850w (overkill, but got it for a great price when my Antec 650w kicked off recently)
Intel G2 160GB SSD w/ TRIM (recent firmware update)
Caviar Green 1TB (data)
Windows 7 64-bit Professional


I *could* move to i5/i7, but the performance gain would likely not equal the investment. I'm simply looking to upgrade the mobo in order to better support the Q9550 (seems the P35 isn't great at OCing the 45nm quads, it did my e6600 great justice however) and to pave the way for DX11 down the line. I hope to go with a pair of mid-range DX11 cards or a single card SLI solution with the 285 as overkill dedicated PhysX. Depends whether I can sell the 285. Either GFX configuration should carry me through to the next socket tick tock with no trouble. I won't be running 5970s in Xfire. That's too rich for my blood, and yeah ... no way my CPU won't bottleneck that madness.

I've spent a lot of time attempting to OC the 45nm on the DS3R with the ram at 1:1 and PCI-e locked at 100mhz, but I can't get it stable beyond 3GHz, regardless of how many volts I dedicate to the Vcore, ram and/or vMCH/NB. I had zero trouble pushing the e6600 to a nice, comfortable 3.5Ghz. I probably could have gone farther but I was quite happy and stable. Despite the Zalman, it's not temps. Temps are perfectly reasonable under load.

The P5Q Pro sounds like a great alternative, for either potential DX11 setup ... though I can't seem to find it for a decent price up here in Canada. It's almost $50 more than the DFI and the Gigabyte I mentioned in my original post.

Your system is still very good, I was going to say it is pointless to go the way of i5 if or P55 since your system isnt that much far behind. If I were you, the only way to go is a) Get an XFX 790iboard which has SLI and/or Crossfire. That was one of the best lga775 boards a yearand a half ago. Your CPU is still good and your components are still good enough for you to reuse instead of completely start over. If you were to get rid of this system, or use it for backup AND start to rebuild a whole NEW system thne you can only go X58 as it would be wiser since they will eventually use the same board for the hexacore chips in two years. Just wait for USB3.0 to come out for the X58 and you are all set. If I were in your situation, Id get a full crossfire 16x 16x board and use that quad core to its maximum and just SLI the GTX285 instead, or you can do what you want and get 2 5850's. Id choose that over the overhyped P55 boards which are limited by one 16x lane or 2 8x's

 

[deek]

Your system is still very good, I was going to say it is pointless to go the way of i5 if or P55 since your system isnt that much far behind. If I were you, the only way to go is a) Get an XFX 790iboard which has SLI and/or Crossfire. That was one of the best lga775 boards a yearand a half ago. Your CPU is still good and your components are still good enough for you to reuse instead of completely start over. If you were to get rid of this system, or use it for backup AND start to rebuild a whole NEW system thne you can only go X58 as it would be wiser since they will eventually use the same board for the hexacore chips in two years. Just wait for USB3.0 to come out for the X58 and you are all set. If I were in your situation, Id get a full crossfire 16x 16x board and use that quad core to its maximum and just SLI the GTX285 instead, or you can do what you want and get 2 5850's. Id choose that over the overhyped P55 boards which are limited by one 16x lane or 2 8x's

I absolutely agree. I briefly considered i5 before dismissing it. The investment:return ratio is crap, my system is pretty much on par (though obviously a little behind as you say, but I'm alright with that).

I won't be getting rid of this rig, not for awhile; if anything, I'll use the hand me down parts that are gathering dust and the P35/e6600 to build a backup/server box.

I'll admit, I'm a big Nvidia GPU fanboi and always have been (been Green since they acquired 3dfx back in "the day"). If it weren't for the Nvidia chipsets having a bad rep, I'd probably already be running one (almost grabbed an EVGA 750i FTW board I stumbled across on eBay not too long ago). I'm not super keen on x8/x8 even though there's only one card atm capable of saturation (5970) and even that's disputed. I won't be running dual GPUs in SLI or anything, but I *might* run a dual GPU w/ dedicated PhysX (here's hoping devs consider Batman and appreciate the possibilities). I'm a graphics whore first and foremost. I'd be hard pressed to surrender my pretty PhysX in favor of pure ATI Xfire (though I'm still considering it). If I do run two cards, it would likely be SLI ... but SLI capable mobos are notoriously finicky compared to the Intel stuff.

Also ... G'DAMN if 790i ain't expensive right now. $300+ for a 790i, and it's all DDR3 isn't it? Not looking to upgrade my DDR2. I'd consider 780i, however.

EDIT: Tempting. Possibly have a line on a Striker II for $150 CDN as well ...

 

[deek]

I'm no pro overclocker, but I'm not totally clueless. I had very few problems OCing my old e6600 well beyond stock. Not sure what the issue is with the quad. I've Googled dozens of reports claiming similar problems with the same board. In many of those cases, the user made the move to P45 and found they were able to attain impressive results with their 45nm quad, with relatively little effort. Even so, you could be right. Maybe I just suck.

Thanks for the link. As mentioned in my original post, the UD3P is my first choice in P45, always has been. It will run 8x/8x if I use both PCI-e for GPUs, the first slot does not maintain 16x if both are in use. At least, that's my understanding.

 

[jsc]

My E0 Q9550 easily runs 24/7 at 3.8Ghz at 1.216V.

Congratulations. You definitely won the CPU Lottery.

 

[jsc]

My E0 Q9550 easily runs 24/7 at 3.8Ghz at 1.216V.

Congratulations. You definitely won the CPU Lottery.

 

[deek]

From an earlier post of mine:

I've spent a lot of time attempting to OC the 45nm on the DS3R with the ram at 1:1 and PCI-e locked at 100mhz ...

In the Gigabyte BIOS the setting is 2.0, which equates to a ratio of 1:1 according to CPU-Z. The DS3R supplies a default vdimm value of 1.8v. I've set it to both +0.2v and +0.3v during my attempts, resulting in ... you guessed it ... 2.0-2.1v.

I've done this before. If it were something as trivial as unlinking my ram or screwing up the vdimm I would never have attained any sort of reasonable overclock with my previous processor.

I do appreciate your interest and your willingness to help, but I've already spent many hours on various forums posting my BIOS settings, Everest/CPU-Z reports, failed Super-Pi and P95 runs. I've lowered my cpu multiplier, experimented with fsb straps, attempted to avoid possible fsb holes ... I've been down this road. I'll be glad to answer any questions you might have if you can think of something I might have missed, but I really don't want to start from scratch detailing my depressing journey of utter failure.

 

[deek]

Yeah, that was my thought. "3GHz should be no problem, what the hell?" 345 fsb, stable. 348, bonkers. No rhyme or reason. Jumped it up to 405 or something, hoping to avoid the strap or the fsb hole, still no dice. I ended up pumping additional volts into pretty much everything: vcore, vdimm, (G)MCH, PCI-e, fsb voltage ... got to be ridiculous considering I was only looking for 3Ghz at that point! So I backed it off and gave up. Running stock atm.

I was actually running the RAM at 1:1 with a 333 fsb, so 667mhz during OC. Timings were crazy loose, like 5-5-5-18 or something. The default profile for those dimms is 5-5-5-16 at 1.8v, requires manual set to 1000mhz 5-5-5-12. Runs fine at 800mhz at 1.8v, though (think that's what it's at right now, haven't bothered to correct it since last CMOS reset). Apparently they can do 1100mhz without much problem, with no additional volts above 2.1, not that I made it anywhere near that threshold.

Crazy, for sure. Seems I'm not the only one to have the same issue with P35 and the 45nm quads. I recall a thread where a fella had my exact problem: couldn't attain 3Ghz stable. He was pissed. I would be too if this were a new mobo, but it doesn't owe me a damn thing. My Antec 650w gave up the ghost during madness, took my data drive with it (500gb 7200.11). Thought that was the problem. Replaced it with a new 850w Corsair ... still no love!

 

[LoneWolf_53]

For what it's worth I have that DFI LP UT X-48 T2R board and a Q9550 (C1 stepping) installed in it along with 2GB of OCZ Reaper PC2-9200.

It runs completely stable under full load as my daily user at 3.5Ghz and gives me good temps there as well.

I had to tweak for quite a while to get it there and stable but it's been great since.

 

[deek]

Thanks, LoneWolf! Are you using that ridiculous rear mounted cooler, the one that sticks out the back of the case? If that nonsense is actually required to cool the NB alongside the thermaltake tower sink that blocks the majority of high-end CPU coolers, I find the DFI that much harder to swallow. If I could slap a normal sized aftermarket heatsink on there with a 40mm mini kaze and be okay, I'd be happy. I do love the layout of that board, though. And that's a killer price for a decent x48 platform, even if it is end of life.

 

[LoneWolf_53]

Thanks, LoneWolf! Are you using that ridiculous rear mounted cooler, the one that sticks out the back of the case? If that nonsense is actually required to cool the NB alongside the thermaltake tower sink that blocks the majority of high-end CPU coolers, I find the DFI that much harder to swallow. If I could slap a normal sized aftermarket heatsink on there with a 40mm mini kaze and be okay, I'd be happy. I do love the layout of that board, though. And that's a killer price for a decent x48 platform, even if it is end of life.

No I am not using that extra cooler and you can see my temps are just fine.

I decided not to after using the thing on one of my X58 boards and finding it no benefit whatsoever.

Makes me wonder why they even bother including the thing as I experimented with it since the i7 boards do generate substantial heat and I tried it in both locations that they suggest as well as even going to the length of using some thermal paste to see if that helped any and it did not.

My temps remained exactly the same whether the part was installed or not so naturally I decided there's really no point in using something that takes up needless space for no benefit.

I also had one of the DFI techs share with me that he doesn't use them either in any of the test systems.

 

[LoneWolf_53]

3.5ghz should be a breeze on ANY board.

Perhaps if you're gifted but there are quite a few who hit a wall around 3.4Ghz with the Quads.

I played around quite a while to get that thing stable where it is and it just did not seem happy anytime I took FSB beyond 412Mhz. I initially wanted 3.6Ghz and had that CPU running there for a year on a P45 board however on this X48 it just didn't seem as cooperative though I'm quite content and temps are far better than they were on the P45 board.

 

[deek]

No I am not using that extra cooler and you can see my temps are just fine.

I decided not to after using the thing on one of my X58 boards and finding it no benefit whatsoever.

Did you even bother with the NB tower cooler they supply? Or something else?

 

[LoneWolf_53]

Did you even bother with the NB tower cooler they supply? Or something else?

I'm confused you quoted my answer to that question?

No I did not use the supplied tower cooler as my tests proved it next to useless and I found out DFI forum staff were not using it either.

Their suggestion was to add a fan if temps were an issue which in my case they are not.

There will always be variables to consider as cases vary and what peripherals a person uses compared to another person will change the dynamics of what happens inside a case.

If chipset temps are reading high then I would add a small fan to deal with them before using that tower which when placed inside the case (as instructions say is recommended) interferes with PCI slots and outside the case just provides something to get caught on and possibly damage your motherboard.

As I stated my experience after experimenting with both locations was that there was no improvement in chipset cooling so the tower went back into the motherboard box.


ETA: It just dawned on me that I wonder if the confusion stems from the fact that you don't realize that tower cooler is one and the same whether it's used on top of the NB itself or sticking out the back of the case? The motherboard design gives the option to use it in either location.

 

[deek]

I'm confused you quoted my answer to that question?

ETA: It just dawned on me that I wonder if the confusion stems from the fact that you don't realize that tower cooler is one and the same whether it's used on top of the NB itself or sticking out the back of the case? The motherboard design gives the option to use it in either location.

Bingo! For whatever reason, I thought the board included two Thermalright heatsinks: the tower for the NB and the funky thing that sticks out the back of the case. I had no idea they were the same unit. Honestly, I'm still a little confused with regard to the stock cooling. The UT comes with a heatpipe assembly, correct? The LT comes with the tower/heatsink combo and a southbridge sink, no pipes. I think the differences between the LT and the UT caused me some confusion.

 

[LoneWolf_53]

My UT still has the heatpipe assembly on the board too but they just made this additional provision on the UT boards (both my X48 and X58 have it) that allows you to place that tower heatpipe cooler so that it attaches to the NB itself messing up slots in the process or so that it attaches by the back and sticks out where your PS2 ports are on the back plate.

I've tried all the positions and in the end omitting it altogether caused me no loss in performance.

 

[deek]

I was originally looking at the LT version of this board, as I have a nice copper NB sink w/ a 40mm kaze and a low profile southbridge sink w/ fan sitting around still in the plastic. BUT, I can't seem to find the LT for cheaper than the UT, at least not on par with the price Newegg is asking ... though I *can* find the DDR3 version of the LT easily enough, for $10 cheaper. Too bad I don't have any DDR3 laying around.

Still, I haven't found anything remotely close to this deal in terms of price for an X48 platform, at least not for a board with a decent reputation. Even the majority of highly regarded P45 mobos are $20 more. The board has a perfect layout for what I have in mind, too.

So close to pulling the trigger on it ...

 

[LoneWolf_53]

Don't know what else I can tell you other than I'm quite happy with DFI since I switched to that brand.

They've definitely cost me more but I got sick of bad caps and flaky behavior from that other brand that shall go unnamed.

One thing that pleased me which I did notice right off is that this X48 runs the same processor a fair bit cooler than it did in the LP DK P45 board that it was in before.

And by cooler I mean about 10C cooler and it's the same CPU with the same heatsink, case, and peripherals as before since I only swapped out the motherboard.

I'm down a little bit on the OC since I had it at 3.6Ghz for a year and now it's at 3.5Ghz but I don't see that as being worth 10C difference in temperature especially since the voltage is still about the same.