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P6T and i7-920 - first impressions...

psykix

psykix

psykix

Associate
Joined
17 Jan 2007
Posts
576
So.. I bought this combo today...

I bought the motherboard, cpu and an XSPC water block for the cpu...

I've fitted all this into my LQ-1000 case, and it all went like a dream (apart from having to try to drain the system as this ain't the easiest of systems to drain)

I'm running 2 x Seagate Cheetah 15k.5 300Gb SAS drives in raid 0.

CPU is running at stock speed atm and I'm only running 2GB OCZ Platinum in dual channel mode.

Once I get my extra 1Gb RAM and upgrade the bios, then I'll do some benchies and post them here..

Rock solid so far, but haven't done anything taxing with it.

I did toy with whether to go RAID 1 or RAID 0, and opted for RAID 0.

I'm going to try adding a Dell Perc 6/i SAS controller and see how that goes, as they are problematic in most mainstream boards without modification.

Will keep you posted!
 
Can you boot from the SAS raid? i.e. use the SAS raid as the Windows boot drive. I was reading the manual and it says the SAS when in ACHI/raid mode could only be recognised from within Windows.
 
Last edited:
Yep, boots just fine - Vista didn't recognise the SAS Raid array, so I had to point it to the drivers on the DVD that comes with the motherboard. I had to actually point it to the folder though as it wouldn't find them when I just told it to search the DVD..

I have no SATA II drives in this atm, but will be adding one just to transfer my files onto the SAS drives.

Works a treat!
 
They were 2 surplus drives - I've replaced them with 450Gb SAS drives.

They run REALLY hot.. (you will burn your hand on them) I don't think they are noisy, and I have the side open at the moment.

I'll run some benchmarks later and see what it's like.

Still haven't oc'd the CPU yet - that's running at 39deg but the 220mm fan isn't blowing into the case atm...

Can't remember if HDTach shows temps?
 
Hard drive benchies.. Using onboard SAS controller RAID 0 64k stripe.

HDTune.jpg
 
I have a separate Perc 6/i card which is recognised on this board.

However, if I use the fanout cable, it will only work with 1 drive connected, and that has to be on the second of the cables.

If I plug any more drives on it, then none are recognised.

Any ideas?

Maybe the fanout cable is faulty? But to be honest, they are not cheap and buying another to test with is an expensive option if it turns out to be the same!

Cheers!
 
So.. I got around to making some changes...

Turned out that my SAS fanout cable was screwed, so bought another one.

I overclocked at stock volts with a 180 bus and 20x multi - boots into Windows no problem.

Ditched using the onboard SAS controller.. Using a Dell Perc 6/i with the latest firmware. 3 x Seagate Cheetah 15k.5 drives in RAID 0 with a 32k stripe size.

Temps are 41deg idle 73deg under Prime 95.

Hard drive bench below.. much better, but I suspect the drops are because the O/S, pagefile etc are all on the same drive.

HDTune_Benchmark_DELL____PERC_6_-1.png
 
I need some help here :-)

If I run prime on CPU only then it's fine - if I do a blend test then it blue screens fairly quickly. I'm pretty sure this is to do with my RAM.

What settings should I set for the RAM in the BIOS? At the moment it is all set to auto. I'm using the RAM in my sig which I know isn't the best, but it was what I already had...

Ta!
 
Yeah your SAS are looking better. Did you check what the onboards give you ?

Also, you say you overclocked - but you listed your CPU at 2.66 so wheres the overclock ?
 
I've dropped it back down to stock speed - the CPU was fine with a 3.8Ghz overclock on 1.25vcore, but the memory is not liking it one little bit...

In fact, the memory is not liking even a 3.2Ghz overclock - so either I'm doing something wrong, or the memory is crap!
 
sithlord said:
Yeah your SAS are looking better. Did you check what the onboards give you ?

Also, you say you overclocked - but you listed your CPU at 2.66 so wheres the overclock ?
Click to expand...

The onboard SAS only has 2 ports, so I can't compare like with like - the screenshot I first posted was for 2 of the drives on the onboard controller, in RAID 0...
 
I see you have the same mobo as me, just select 1206 mhz in the memory column to be safe, 3.8ghz should be safe for priming then. Try 1.31 volts to the CPU as well.
 
Ah, ok thanks will give that a whirl now...

What are you temps on load though?

Mine hit about 82deg.... Not sure if I should worry about that!
 
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