2 Days with my Bad Axe. My thoughts

The Asgard · 17 Sep 2006 at 14:07

Greetings,
Really had a awesome time with my Rev 305 ICS BadAxe. Its the most stable board I have ever owned. I have tried a few Conroe boards ( P5B, DS4, P5W DH lastest 1.85 MCH ) and this one just rocks. At first I hated it because of it been very unfriendly to a failed OC but once I had figured the Bios out it pretty much boots every time. Its great with the 3rd party tools like SysTool and the Intel montoring software works well. Fan Control is excellent. Overclocking stability is excellent. Vdroop underload just isnt there which has allowed me to drop my voltage from 1.5 to 1.425 for a 3.5 Overclock on my 6600. This is my first Intel board and I always assumed Asus had the best quality boards, wrong. The BadAxe oozes quality from the supplied cables to the board itself. No fancy heat pipes just BIG mother heatsinks that do the buisness.

If your looking for a quality, hardcore motherboard with plenty of features and the ability to get down and dirty this is the board. Just make sure you get one with a ICS clockgen on not a IDT version. The IDT won't allow a 1333 bootstrap.

Durzel · 17 Sep 2006 at 15:14

You have to mess about with the IDK to overclock it properly though don't you? I thought it only let you overclock to about 30% and that's it?

The Asgard · 17 Sep 2006 at 15:39

Durzel said:
You have to mess about with the IDK to overclock it properly though don't you? I thought it only let you overclock to about 30% and that's it?

On the IDT clockgen you are allowed a max OC of 30%. With an ICS clock gen this goes up to 50% and gives you a 1333 strap. Obviously with Systools you can go higher. To unlock the extra Bios options you need to use some conductive paint on a couple of pads. I 10 sec job. "OC Debug"

Arthalen · 17 Sep 2006 at 16:27

@Asgard:

You've seen my posts on the X1900GT, and I'm now looking for a Dual 16x PCI-Ex Crossfire Compatible board. Any recommendations ?

The Asgard · 17 Sep 2006 at 17:03

Arthalen said:
@Asgard:

You've seen my posts on the X1900GT, and I'm now looking for a Dual 16x PCI-Ex Crossfire Compatible board. Any recommendations ?

This or the P5W DH. P5W DH is easier to get your head around.

I prefer this because of the rock solid OC and power stability. The 1333 bootstrap is nice too. Something no other board gives you. Nice for high FSB's. This is a real class board with lots of options for mods.

I'm running 3.5G with 1.425 volts something the P5W DH could not do because of the vdroop under load.

If you do decide to go for this make sure you get one with the ICS clockgen chip and Rev 305. *** REALLY IMPORTANT ***

Bradmax57 · 17 Sep 2006 at 17:54

The Asgard said:
If you do decide to go for this make sure you get one with the ICS clockgen chip and Rev 305. *** REALLY IMPORTANT ***

How can you tell about the clockgen bit?

The Asgard · 17 Sep 2006 at 23:08

Bradmax57 said:
How can you tell about the clockgen bit?

The clockgen chip will say either IDT or ICS on the chip. Sticks out like a sore thumb

Bradmax57 · 17 Sep 2006 at 23:36

The Asgard said:
The clockgen chip will say either IDT or ICS on the chip. Sticks out like a sore thumb

so its luck of the draw then

Durzel · 18 Sep 2006 at 02:14

I don't want to sound like Im trolling here but...

All the threads I've read about on XS particularly one from Tony (OCZ employee) about the Badaxe suggest that when you're using the 1333 strap you LOSE performance over the equivalent FSB in 1066 strap. So if 1333 strap lets you get higher FSBs, just how much higher do you need to go until you've clawed back the performance lost from switching from 1066?

The vdroop thing I can definitely see as a positive, but personally speaking if 1333 strap meant I could get 50 extra FSB (for example), but I needed at least that just to match the performance I was getting when using 1066 strap - what's the point of switching it at all?

The Asgard · 18 Sep 2006 at 07:58

Durzel said:
I don't want to sound like Im trolling here but...

All the threads I've read about on XS particularly one from Tony (OCZ employee) about the Badaxe suggest that when you're using the 1333 strap you LOSE performance over the equivalent FSB in 1066 strap. So if 1333 strap lets you get higher FSBs, just how much higher do you need to go until you've clawed back the performance lost from switching from 1066?

The vdroop thing I can definitely see as a positive, but personally speaking if 1333 strap meant I could get 50 extra FSB (for example), but I needed at least that just to match the performance I was getting when using 1066 strap - what's the point of switching it at all?

If you look towards the end of the XS thread someone did a test with pi between the different straps

1066 strap,437x8=3.5ghz, ram at 1:1 w/ 5-5-5-15 = 16.390s
1333 strap,437x8=3.5ghz, ram at 1:1 w/ 4-4-4-12 = 16.490s

With the 1333 strap I have seen people getting performace of 500 FSB. Can't try it myself but I have not had to touch the chipset voltage yet. Which is a good sign.

To me what this board is all about is running at high OC's with less voltage. Something anyone on air should be trying to achieve. Its just the most stable board I have ever used.

On a side note I might give your board a try and see what all the fuss is about.

tomos · 26 Sep 2006 at 02:07

good read, just checked my mobo and it has the chip on there that says ICS, but its a 304 rev. any big diffs between that and the 305?

james32 · 26 Sep 2006 at 02:16

tomos said:
good read, just checked my mobo and it has the chip on there that says ICS, but its a 304 rev. any big diffs between that and the 305?

yours has the old chip, only version 305 has it

Bito · 26 Sep 2006 at 22:08

So does anyone know whch clockgen chip the boards from OCUK have then ??

tomos · 26 Sep 2006 at 22:14

could be a mix i would imagine

hornytoe · 27 Sep 2006 at 18:26

Bito said:
So does anyone know whch clockgen chip the boards from OCUK have then ??

My board has just arrived today, it has the ICS clockgen, however they have sent a rev.304 board and not the advertised and paid for 305 :mad:

I'm bouncing off the walls, but I'm not sure why :confused:

Does anyone know the difference between 304 and 305?

tomos · 27 Sep 2006 at 18:27

yep, says 304/305 on the mobo itself

Hulleyrob · 27 Sep 2006 at 19:19

1066 strap,437x8=3.5ghz, ram at 1:1 w/ 5-5-5-15 = 16.390s
1333 strap,437x8=3.5ghz, ram at 1:1 w/ 4-4-4-12 = 16.490s

The differance in times could just been down to the memory timings. X bit labs showed bigger differances by just changing memory timings ...

Rob

The Asgard · 27 Sep 2006 at 23:04

hornytoe said:
My board has just arrived today, it has the ICS clockgen, however they have sent a rev.304 board and not the advertised and paid for 305 I'm bouncing off the walls, but I'm not sure why Does anyone know the difference between 304 and 305?

Not a lot m8. Not sure it makes any difference. They key thing is you have the ICS clockgen. Be happy

Ditto for tomos

tomos · 27 Sep 2006 at 23:15

ta mate

any advice on clocking on this board? havent clocked intel before.

could you pls post an example of your settings/voltages for cpu/ram/NB etc one of your clocks as an example?

The Asgard · 28 Sep 2006 at 08:10

tomos said:
ta mate

any advice on clocking on this board? havent clocked intel before.

could you pls post an example of your settings/voltages for cpu/ram/NB etc one of your clocks as an example?

Depends what you want out of your system and depends on your ram. I have the G Skill hZ 6400 4-4-4-12 which is excellent ram. I like nice tight timings and a FSB that lets me get the max out of the memory at default voltage.

My latest chip is a week 29 and should easily do 4G. I ran it at 3.8 @ 1.5 straight out of the box but like I said above I'm actually running it at 3G@ default volts. Clocking set at 25%, pci at 101, everything else at default. Strap at 1066, memory at 667, This gives me 3G with about 420 on the memory.

You just need to find a sweet spot for your setup.