Asus P5N32-SLI Premium

[Quakindude]

My rig is a P5N32-SLI Premium, Bios Rev 0503, with a Conroe E6600 CPU. I am using OCZ revision 2 DDR2-800 Ram, P/N OCZ2P800R22GK which I purchsed from NewEgg for $265.

First off, a couple of images from CPU-Z.





As you can see, I had the CPU at 2.86Ghz on a Zalman CNPS9500. Loaded temps running one instance of Folding@Home was 55c. This is reported both by Core Temp (Google it) and sorta by the Asus Probe utility. It is of note here that the Asus Probe utility was reporting temps 10-15 degrees C cooler prior to flashing my Bios to 0503. Once I figured out how to overclock the CPU independantly of the ram, I was swimming in golden gravy and dealing with some decent overclocks.

The Ram, currently at 852Mhz and stable as a rock, has been to 919Mhz. However, that caused some system slow downs, Super Pi to error out or take longer and, lower benchmarks in Sandra and 3D Mark 06. At that point, I was using the Asus Bios auto overclocking settings and the ram voltage was only at 1.8v. Now that I've set it to 2.0, I may even surpass the 919Mhz mark. This ram has been an outstanding product so far. I will play with the timings a little later. I think with the higher voltage, I'll be able to tighten them up a bit from what they're currently at as depicted in the CPU-Z image above.

To get these overclocks, I had to go into manual mode and I would be able to provide detailed instructions and pictures of what I've done if anyone desires it.

Right now, the only thing keeping me from Overclocking this CPU even higher are the temps. The E6600 has a Thermal Limit of 61.5C. I saw that somewhere on Intel's website, but can't find it now. Core Temp reports my Temp limit for this CPU as 85C. Until I see otherwise on Intel's website, I'll go with the 61.5C I saw there at one point. I try to take 10% off that and not let my CPU go over 55C, which is where I'm at now with the CPU overclocked to 2.812Ghz running two instances of F@H, which puts a 100% load on both cores. This is done using a 1250FSB setting.

I have an Enermax Chakra case which has a massive 250mm side fan set to intake which helps keep the passively cooled chipset at temps in the high 30's. There's a front intake 120mm fan, a rear exhaust 120mm fan and an 80mm Antec Tri-Cool set to Medium in the very top of the case, which I modded the case for, along with the 120mm exhaust fan in the OCZ GamerXStream 700W PSU.

All this being said, I'll probably drop the CPU overclock to 2.75Ghz to get my temps down a little more. The CPU Multiplier is locked on the E6600's and below, so there's no futzing allowed there. The LDT is still at 5 and I'm not experiencing any memory related issues by having left it there. Since this is the link between the north and south bridges, it would be interesting to see if it would need to be dropped to 4 if I had two Video cards in SLI.

This Bios supports volatges for the north and south chipsets, so I could possibly squeeze out more performance by upping the voltage a tad on those and then seeing what the memory will get to.

I'm not seeing the inability to overclcok this board, specifically the 590 chipset, that a lot of folks were talking about. Perhaps the ram has made all the difference in the world in this case.

Capper has asked me to do some reviews of these new components and I plan on getting those done over the next couple weeks. The first one up will be the eVGA 7950GT card and the VF900 cooler. I've seen some significant overlocks on this board already. At stock speeds of 560 core and 1.45Ghz memory, I've pushed it to a stable 615 core and 1.75 memory overclock. However, while it runs stable at those speeds, 3D Mark 06 reported lower scores, so the memory is obviously not keeping up. I've lowered it to 615 Core and 1.68 memory, so I'll see later tonight what that nets.

Ah well, now I'm meandering in my thoughts and will shut up. For now.

[drew and not u]

Your core voltage seems like it could be a little high. My E6400 is happily chugging along at 1.36v on a 375MHz FSB. Perhaps you could drop the voltage a bit to get your temps down.

[Quakindude]

You know, i had just gone through the Bios again to down clock the CPU a little bit and noticed that the CPU Vcore was set to 1.55. So I set it back to 1.26 and the overclock is 12C cooler and still stable. I can only imagine that the auto overclock raised the Vcore that much. I'll now try overclocking a little more on the FSB to see what I can get out of it at this voltage.

Good looking out!

[drew and not u]

No problem man, I would be veeeery surprised if you couldn't at least get past 3.0GHz. I bet on that board you could even hit 3.2, maybe higher.

[Quakindude]

I'm really starting to dig this board. I'm working some mojo all over it, brought my work home today...LOL!.. and am about to get back into it. I posted over on the Asus forums about this over-volting and so far, one guy has chimed in that his was over-volted to 1.55 as well. So now I'm gonna start raising a stink with Asus and their crappy Bios auto-overclock feature.

[GV2NIX]

Hmm, so Conroe's can get hot! That's unfortunate that that's what's keeping you from going any higher. I agree that your vCore seems a little high. Post your results if you lower the vCore and manage to bump up the clock speed.

[halutzparilla]

i know that it can go hot, when i overclock it to 2.95ghz at 1.4Vcore, it went to 60C in idle, and as you can see i'm using an Intel 975BX, and i did my overclock tweak together with the modification of the board to get control over the vcore and the rest of the capability that intel locked...

well, i'll be waiting for your result of overclock, coz i returned my bios back to stock/default settings due to this result of unstable temp and constant boot up...

[Quakindude]

Well folks, I've hit 3.0Ghz with ease. Fully loaded for 20 minutes, two F@H going, the core temps never went above 45C! WOOT! I was also able to get this OCZ ram to a stable 866Mhz. I've run Super Pi to 1m and gotten 17s. I've done some Sandra tests, but really want to burn it out a bit before I declare this a stable over clock. But from what I'm reading out right now, I'm probably gonna be rock solid. I did have to relax my memory timings a bit more for the 866Mhz speed though. Well see what Sandra has to say about that.

I have CPU Vcore set to 1.250 in my Bios. Core temp reports the maximum Vcore you can go to while CPU-Z seems to report that the CPU is running at a lower voltage than what I've set it to in the Bios.

Also going to run 3DMark06 again and see if I can break 6k.

[GV2NIX]

So the lower vCore worked! Congrats! Keep us posted!

It also might be interesting to see if you get better results with a 1:1 RAM overclock.

Usually when I feel lazy or things just aren't turning out correctly, I just Google Image stuff until I find what I want. At the very least, seeing examples can give you some guidance.

[Quakindude]

That's right folks. I've managed to overclock, stable as a rock, my 590 SLI chipset mobo with a Conroe E6600 CPU from a stock 2.4Ghz to 3.2Ghz Prime stable, 17 minutes, 39s, on 32m Pi calcualtions, 16 seconds for 1m. All on air! while not going over 1.25v on the CPU and temps are at 45C according to Core Temp.

I also broke 6k on 3D Mark06.

Oh, and the memory? How about a stable 875Mhz? Yep, with relaxed timings, from 4-4-4-12 to 5-6-6-17, I've managed to overclock the ram considerably. And there's still room to push both the CPU and the memory. But I'm tired and have my son's football game to go to, so I think I'll try to hit a 1Ghz overclock tomorrow.

The video card has gone from a stock 460 Core/1.45 memory to a solid 495/1.64.

Of course, nothing is true unless you see the screen shots right?