Cecil
04-16-2010, 05:26 PM
Got the M489GTD Pro/USB3 for my 555. Going to stick with this as a main rig for a little while untill hex cores from either camp are afordable.
Going under water with an Apogee XT and 2x120+1x120 rad. Aiming for 4.2 daily stable, 4.5/4.6 benchable unlocked. It was doing 3750Mhz unlocked in my 790XT with a GeminiiS.
For ram, got a set of Gskill Eco 1600s 7-8-7-24 1.35v.
Anyway, on to the board. Its definitly a love/hate thing right now. Im not the biggest fan of ASUS, but Gig doesnt have core unlocking on their 8 series boards and I needed SATA3, so I went with this one. First impressions were really good. Its a slick looking board with some nice features, such as single tab dimm slots, an easy tab for releasing cards out of the PCIe slots, a raised 8 pin CPU connector, plenty of USB ports, and SATA ports that are flat on the board and some are 90*.
There is also a core unlocking switch since the SB850 doesnt support core unlocks, and an auto OC switch. One thing I liked was the memOK button. If you are using ram with odd specs (like my Ecos since they are 1.35v), or thats not supported, you turn on the PC with that button and it will cycle through different voltages/speeds/timings to find a setting that works well enough to get you in to the BIOS to set it manually.
The onboard GPU is adequet enough for older games or Blu-Ray playback at 1080P. Doubt many around here care much for that though :cool3:
Though from what Ive seen, they OC nicely.
Then it turned to hell, at least for me anyway. Board couldnt make up its mind if it wanted to boot or not. So I spent about 4-5 hours trouble shooting, trying multiple CPUs and different ram. At one point it really seemed like it didnt want to work with SATA devices plugged in. Finally after all that, I decided to try using the VGA port instead of the HDMI port :shock:
It worked :clapping:
So it seems my board has a faulty HDMI port. I can live with that, not worth the two weeks Id be without a PC when Ive got a GTX275/9800GT combo Ill be using. Ive got it on my bench table right now with just a stock opteron HSF. So Im keeping the CPU OC down a bit till it goes in my rig. Running OCCT right now at near stock settings just to make sure everything works alright.
240x15 3250Mhz 1.4Vcore unlocked quad, 1600Mhz ram 7-8-7-24 1.4Vdimm, VTT at 1.2v. NB and HT at 1920Mhz.
More testing to follow next week when the rest of my stuff comes in. Have another SSD coming for RAID0 64Gb SuperTalent GXs, and two raptorX 150s for storage and games.
Going under water with an Apogee XT and 2x120+1x120 rad. Aiming for 4.2 daily stable, 4.5/4.6 benchable unlocked. It was doing 3750Mhz unlocked in my 790XT with a GeminiiS.
For ram, got a set of Gskill Eco 1600s 7-8-7-24 1.35v.
Anyway, on to the board. Its definitly a love/hate thing right now. Im not the biggest fan of ASUS, but Gig doesnt have core unlocking on their 8 series boards and I needed SATA3, so I went with this one. First impressions were really good. Its a slick looking board with some nice features, such as single tab dimm slots, an easy tab for releasing cards out of the PCIe slots, a raised 8 pin CPU connector, plenty of USB ports, and SATA ports that are flat on the board and some are 90*.
There is also a core unlocking switch since the SB850 doesnt support core unlocks, and an auto OC switch. One thing I liked was the memOK button. If you are using ram with odd specs (like my Ecos since they are 1.35v), or thats not supported, you turn on the PC with that button and it will cycle through different voltages/speeds/timings to find a setting that works well enough to get you in to the BIOS to set it manually.
The onboard GPU is adequet enough for older games or Blu-Ray playback at 1080P. Doubt many around here care much for that though :cool3:
Though from what Ive seen, they OC nicely.
Then it turned to hell, at least for me anyway. Board couldnt make up its mind if it wanted to boot or not. So I spent about 4-5 hours trouble shooting, trying multiple CPUs and different ram. At one point it really seemed like it didnt want to work with SATA devices plugged in. Finally after all that, I decided to try using the VGA port instead of the HDMI port :shock:
It worked :clapping:
So it seems my board has a faulty HDMI port. I can live with that, not worth the two weeks Id be without a PC when Ive got a GTX275/9800GT combo Ill be using. Ive got it on my bench table right now with just a stock opteron HSF. So Im keeping the CPU OC down a bit till it goes in my rig. Running OCCT right now at near stock settings just to make sure everything works alright.
240x15 3250Mhz 1.4Vcore unlocked quad, 1600Mhz ram 7-8-7-24 1.4Vdimm, VTT at 1.2v. NB and HT at 1920Mhz.
More testing to follow next week when the rest of my stuff comes in. Have another SSD coming for RAID0 64Gb SuperTalent GXs, and two raptorX 150s for storage and games.