Gigabyte GA-EP45-Extreme Appreciation Society

Sorry...I did mean 1.164 -1.184. LOL I've raised the vcore a bit to 1.24 for 3.8ghz (prime stable) I've taken speedstep off. The highest I've pushed it now was to 4ghz with 1.34, although that was leaving it on auto for the vcore so I'll need to do some fiddling and see what can be done manually. It was only the VTT which I set manually for that as I've read the board has a bad habit of giving a high VTT on auto. After 3 hours of prime at 4ghz I was never seeing the temps rise above 54c so I'm really happy about that.

The PSU I'm using is the Corsair HX620. I didn't dare put my old Hiper Type R in it.LOL I'm surprised I've lasted 2 years without joining the "Hiper Explosive Club" in one of the other threads.

I put in an extra HD DVD drive last night and was getting problems. It turns out it was the bundled Gigabyte IDE cable that was the issue. I swapped that out with an older one and it worked straight away. I wish I'd tried that first and saved myself hours of reading, checking and double checking everything.

Like yourself I'm seeing a bit of a drop as well between what I set in the bios and what's displayed in CPU-Z. I think it could be down to the board rather than your PSU.
 
For that difference in voltage, I now know it's "normal" and that most mobo do it, so I won't change PSU just yet :D

Anyway, I've been trying downclocking configurations, and I'm rather unnimpressed so far. I downclocked the Q9650 to 2.2HGhz (that means speedstep runs it at 1.5 at idle) and reduced the voltage a notch, on the ram too...
But the temps stays the same (24C at idle, just a couple C over ambiant) and it's not considerably more silent (it's not loud to start with)

So I guess I stay at >3.0Ghz <4.0Ghz -- it works very, very well like that :D
 
I've been in much the same position as yourself regarding that. My system is pretty quiet (besides the HD4870) so there wasn't really much point in me staying at stock or lower. I did manage to get the voltage down a good bit at stock although for the same noise just opted for more of a clock. Might as well with this beast of a chip. :D

I've settled on a clock as of last night that I'm more happy with and think I'll stick with this for 24/7 use now. I'm using Noctua fans and am loving them for their lack of noise. I think I could definitely get the voltage down with some more tinkering although I'm just happy that the temps are ok and I'm fully stable.

This is after running prime95 blend for 11 hours last night although I'll no doubt try to change a few things and get the volts down. I wanted to make sure it was fully stable first and even with those volts the temps aren't too bad.

41Stable.jpg
 
pretty good results indeed ! Excellent even. How far do you push your memory ? I know mine runs fine at 960, but higher with just V1.9 becomes a problem.

In any case it's a cracker of a setup we've got :D ideal combo !
 
I've not got round to boosting the memory up to even clock speed yet. It's running at 912 at the moment. It's the Corsair Dominator memory so I've still got a good bit of headroom to start clocking that up. I was just wanting to get the cpu stable first.

Indeed...I'm absolutely loving the combo. Flight Simulator X all on ultra and smooth as. :) This was a slideshow before on my old Pentium D.
 
BTW I'd be curious i you (or anyone else) could have a look at their temperatures in the bios... Theres something a bit strange going on here:
+ The bios read a "cpu" temp of about ~50C
+ The board is bout 40C

However, coretemp reports cores (at idle) of <25C, and my various temp sensors report temperatures like:
+ Northbridge : 31
+ PSU : 28
+ Memory : 38
+ "case" : 22 (in the airflow)
Also, the air that comes out is cool...

So I wonder what these temperatures are coming from, I'm surprised to see such a difference...
 
I just checked the difference between the bios temps and the reading I'm getting from Coretemp and my temp sensor in the case. At the moment my bios temps seem to agree with Coretemp regarding the CPU temps of about 35c. The "System" temps seem to be a few degrees more in the bios than what I'm reading with the temps sensors though. That temp seems to be about 10 degrees higher in the bios than what my sensors are saying. Like yourself I should be reading 19c there although it's reporting 29c.

It is worth noting that I've just turned the machine on so I'll check it again once it's been running for a while and take another reading. I rarely ever look at the temps in the bios and usually just use Coretemp and my sensors however your post does ring a bell as I remember looking at it once before and it read 50c CPU and 40c system temp which was way off what I was reading in Coretemp etc. Anyway...I'll check it out again in an hour or so and post back once I've given it some prime to wake it up a bit.


EDIT:

As you can see already I'm showing quite a difference in temps between the various programs...Realtemp and Coretemp aren't too disimilar however the reading from Gigabyte's Easytune seems to be way off. Once I've let prime run it's course for a few hours I'll check back again and see what the bios is saying to it. As for the "System" temp in Easytune....LOL I don't know where it's pulling that one from. My temp sensors are only reading 20.2 in the case, away from the intake fan.

Temps19.jpg
 
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Thats interesting and seems to match what I am seeing. In any case seems our result seems to match won't worry and will trust all the other sensors :D

The only 'nitpick' here is that since it seems to auto-regulate the fans from that sensor, maybe it's just overdoing it. Having core temperatures in the 25 is a bit 'extreme', I wouldn't mind trading 5C for 1/3 of the RPMS :D
 
"As you can see already I'm showing quite a difference in temps between the various programs...Realtemp and Coretemp aren't too disimilar however the reading from Gigabyte's Easytune seems to be way off. Once I've let prime run it's course for a few hours I'll check back again and see what the bios is saying to it. As for the "System" temp in Easytune....LOL I don't know where it's pulling that one from. My temp sensors are only reading 20.2 in the case, away from the intake fan."

Your Realtemp has the wrong Tj- it should be 100C not 95, so temps are all 5C too low:)
 
Thanks for pointing that out, surge. I just installed Realtemp there and hadn't noticed the TJ Max settings. It's now fixed and reporting exactly the same as Coretemp. Cheers!

BusError, I'm running all of my fans from a fan controller so fortunately that's not a problem. The Noctuas are pretty much silent at full pelt although the only one I need to regulate, for noise, is Windy Miller's protoype Stoolermaster that came with the case and will be getting replaced soon.
 
I think the Easytune System Temp is the Northbridge Temp
I have just got this board and my Q9650 is currently at 9 x445 with minimal effort. Will post more details when I have time:rolleyes:

Apart from the VDrop issue (which is OK when you allow for it) I think this board is great:)
 
I opted for the same crap that you sent back. Haha! It does the job of controlling the fans so I'm not too fussy. I did originally have my eye on the Nzxt Sentry LX although it was out of stock at the time I ordered my system. It does look quite good, feature-wise, so I may yet change to that if I add any more fans to the case.

The 10m digital coax cable arrived this morning so now I can enjoy the full Dolby Digital Live. Nice! :) That was a big plus point of the board as I was loathed to spend £100 or so on a soundcard just for DDL as I've already got quite an expensive one attached for music production and general listening.
 
darn, guess the one I wanted to buy but was out of stock ? :D

I think I'll wait until I reach the proverbial 250 posts and place a celebratory order :D

I only use the coax SPDIF myself, I got a 48 bits digital mixer with all my office audio; so I just need straight 48khz digital out really. I wish there was a coax /in/ but well, it's not stricly mandatory either.
 
Haha! I know what you mean about the "celebratory order" and needing something to give another purchase some justification. I thought I had quelled my insatiable quest for more tech, temporarily, however between the price of the board and chip we got I have this feeling of having such a bargain that I'm finding it very hard to convince myself that I neither NEED trackir nor watercooling. This forum is bad for my bank balance. LOL

That's handy with having your digital mixer. I'm getting more tempted to go for a digital mixer now. :) I'm considering getting rid of my analogue mixer and just running everything through my firewire i/o device. It's got a spare spdif in and out should I need it although it's mostly for the analogues that I'm using it for just now. It will be good to free up some desk space though as I just can't justify having 20 channels on the desk. I don't know how much stuff I envisaged having through it when I bought it years ago.LOL
 
smids said:
No problems here on a GA-EP45-UD3P... I think they are virtually the same in this regard. I used a Corsair Flash Voyager FAT32 formatted 2GB drive. I love this board!
Click to expand...
Seems the EP45-UD3 series are better in some aspects.

The 3D benchmarks are where the GA-EP45 UD3P really stood out from the crowd.

Consistently scoring high, at times outstripping boards costing double (including Gigabytes own EXTREME P45 board), the UD3P demands some serious consideration from any gamer wanting a last throw of the dice before i7 hits the shelves.
Click to expand...
Source
 
What kind of FSB walls are people getting with quad core Q9x50 chips on this mobo?

I'm currently hitting 440ish on an old X38 and would like to get 480-490ish :)
 
[timko];12927952 said:
What kind of FSB walls are people getting with quad core Q9x50 chips on this mobo?

I'm currently hitting 440ish on an old X38 and would like to get 480-490ish :)
Click to expand...

There's a whole thread on XS on the UD3P. 500Mhz seems pretty doable.

What chip you running?
 
Thanks for the link Smidders :)

I'm currently playing with an E0 Q9550 which has a 8.5 multi and with the FSB wall I'm currently facing at 440 it means I can only pull 3.74Ghz out of it. Lowering the multi doesn't alleviate the issue so it's definitely a wall :(
 
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