Intel Motherboards: Something Wicked This Way Comes...
by Gary Key on October 12, 2005 2:13 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal: Overclocking
FSB Overclocking Results
Memory Stress Testing
Memory stress tests look at the ability of the Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal to operate at the officially supported memory frequencies of 533MHz and 667MHz DDR2 at the best performing memory timings that the Corsair CM2X512A-5400UL revision 1.3 will support.
The Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal was completely stable with 2 DDR2 modules in Dual-Channel at the settings of 3-2-2-4 at 2.1V.
Filling all four available memory slots is usually more strenuous on the memory subsystem than testing 2 DDR2 modules on a motherboard.
The Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal was completely stable with 4 DDR2 modules in Dual-Channel at the settings of 3-2-2-4.
We will now increase the memory frequencies to 667MHZ to see what effect this change has on the memory timings and stability of the board.
The Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal was completely stable with 2 DDR2 modules in Dual-Channel at the settings of 3-3-3-8 at 2.1V and leaving the Command Rate at 1. We will now try 4 modules at this speed.
The Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal was completely stable with 4 DDR2 modules in Dual-Channel at the settings of 4-4-4-16 at 2.2V with the Command Rate left at 1. This resulted in a slight decrease in benchmark scores during testing, but did not have near the effect of decreasing the scores when changing the command rate to 2. The command rate had to be switched to 2 once we passed the 675MHz level on this board.
FSB Overclocking Results
| Front Side Bus Overclocking Testbed | |
| Processor: | Pentium 4 Prescott LGA 775 840EE Dual Core 3.2GHz |
| CPU Voltage: | 1.4125V (1.4V default) |
| Cooling: | Gigabyte G-Power |
| Power Supply: | OCZ Power Stream 520 |
| Maximum CPU OverClock | 245fsb x 16 (3920MHz) +23% |
| Maximum FSB OC: | 272fsb x 14 (3808MHz) +36% |
Memory Stress Testing
Memory stress tests look at the ability of the Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal to operate at the officially supported memory frequencies of 533MHz and 667MHz DDR2 at the best performing memory timings that the Corsair CM2X512A-5400UL revision 1.3 will support.
| Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal Stable DDR533 Timings - 2 DIMMs (2/4 slots populated - 1 Dual-Channel Bank) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz (800FSB) |
| Timing Mode: | 533MHz - Default |
| CAS Latency: | 3 |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2 |
| RAS Precharge: | 2 |
| RAS Cycle Time: | 4 |
| Voltage: | 2.1V |
| Command Rate: | 1 |
The Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal was completely stable with 2 DDR2 modules in Dual-Channel at the settings of 3-2-2-4 at 2.1V.
Filling all four available memory slots is usually more strenuous on the memory subsystem than testing 2 DDR2 modules on a motherboard.
| Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal Stable DDR533 Timings - 4 DIMMs (4/4 slots populated - 2 Dual-Channel Banks) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz (800FSB) |
| Timing Mode: | 533MHz - Default |
| CAS Latency: | 3 |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 2 |
| RAS Precharge: | 2 |
| RAS Cycle Time: | 4 |
| Voltage: | 2.1V |
| Command Rate: | 1 |
The Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal was completely stable with 4 DDR2 modules in Dual-Channel at the settings of 3-2-2-4.
We will now increase the memory frequencies to 667MHZ to see what effect this change has on the memory timings and stability of the board.
| Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal Stable DDR667 Timings - 2 DIMMs (2/4 slots populated - 1 Dual-Channel Bank) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz (800FSB) |
| Timing Mode: | 667MHz - Default |
| CAS Latency: | 3 |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 3 |
| RAS Precharge: | 3 |
| RAS Cycle Time: | 8 |
| Voltage: | 2.1V |
| Command Rate: | 1 |
The Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal was completely stable with 2 DDR2 modules in Dual-Channel at the settings of 3-3-3-8 at 2.1V and leaving the Command Rate at 1. We will now try 4 modules at this speed.
| Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal Stable DDR667 Timings - 2 DIMMs (4/4 slots populated - 2 Dual-Channel Bank) |
|
| Clock Speed: | 200MHz (800FSB) |
| Timing Mode: | 667MHz - Default |
| CAS Latency: | 4 |
| RAS to CAS Delay: | 4 |
| RAS Precharge: | 4 |
| RAS Cycle Time: | 16 |
| Voltage: | 2.2V |
| Command Rate: | 1 |
The Gigabyte 8N SLI Quad Royal was completely stable with 4 DDR2 modules in Dual-Channel at the settings of 4-4-4-16 at 2.2V with the Command Rate left at 1. This resulted in a slight decrease in benchmark scores during testing, but did not have near the effect of decreasing the scores when changing the command rate to 2. The command rate had to be switched to 2 once we passed the 675MHz level on this board.
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SpaceRanger - Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - link
Yup.. Just compared the two, and they are IDENTICAL Pic's, just doctored to show THG and AT... VERY WEAK!!!!!THG:
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a342/Arathon/ten...">THG 10 Monitor Image
AT:
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a342/Arathon/ten...">AT 10 Monitor Image
johnsonx - Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - link
I doubt one photo or the other was actually doctored, but it is pretty amazing that NOTHING is moved between the two shots... not even the mouse has moved so much as a butt-hair.This does lend credence to the theory that Gigabyte prepared the 10-monitor shots themselves.
at80eighty - Thursday, October 13, 2005 - link
You got issues with butt hair ? :-)
BigLan - Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - link
It looks like this shot was taken at a gigabyte facility, probably in taiwan or china... the blue and red stickers on the monitors look to be chinese characters.vijay333 - Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - link
My guess would be that Gigabyte did this for each one of the sites that it had sent samples to, assuming that they would not be able to set this up themselves (monitors, cards etc). Still, this should have been mentioned in the review itself...Gary Key - Thursday, October 13, 2005 - link
Good Day,I did not want to use the Gigabyte lab shot since THG had already published their version of it. However, since we could not get the revision 2 3D1 cards in time for testing I thought there would be more comments about lack of proof on 10 monitors than issues with the lab shots. I should have noted that in the article.
I was able to get 8 monitors to work with the video setup I had available. However, I found utilizing four monitors was an ideal situation with the two 7800 GTXs. :-)
Bitter - Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - link
Seems a bit....odd, that THG has the exact same picture of the 10 display setup using the exact same displays with associated cables and hardware (and even boxes) in the exact same place...with the sole differance being the background color and logo. Yet THG had their review on 10/4. Yet both sites talk about setting up the system with 10 displays as if they had the gear in house...I smell something rotten here. When you look at the test setups they read almost in stereo. Did either one of these sites actually have the hardware "in the shop" to test any of this out on????johnsonx - Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - link
yeah, as soon as I saw that shot I quickly clicked on "Comments" to see if anyone else had already pointed it out... early bird gets the worm I guess.If I had to guess, I would venture that both THG and AT reviewed the hardware at a common location hosted by Gigabyte.
phaxmohdem - Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - link
Obviously this board is teh suxors since there is no uber AMD variant. What is this now THG?? Pfft.More seriously though, that is kinda cool in its own right. While I wouldn't mind having 4 monitors, 10 seems a bit overkill unless you are an uber l33t day trader or something. I mean wholy crap! Can you imagine the heat that bad boy will put out too? STRONG ass power supply + P4 Dual Core + 4 High End Graphics Cards??? + HDD's + RAM = Heat Stroke in the comfort of your office chair.
Chuckles - Wednesday, October 12, 2005 - link
So...4x$500 for graphics+~$250 for the board+$1000 for the CPU+$200 for RAM.
$3500 for a system. Geez.