Official DFI NF4Ultra-D/SLi owners thread.

Dutch Guy said:
I have spent the last hour looking and threads on DFI street to find out if the 623-3 BIOS or 704-2BTA BIOS is best with Ballistix memory but did not find any info on that.
I think I will try the 704-2BTA version and see if that gives me better stability when using a memory divider.
It should do. I personally found the 623-3 to be a poor clocker and 623-2 much better. I'm now running 704-2BTA which seems as good as 623-2 (well, I have OCZ RAM so of course I now get best performance). Make sure you use the orange slots though :).
 
Dutch Guy said:
Good tip, are they better on most mobo's?
Well it depends. I found that with the 623-2 and this current 704-2BTA, the orange slots ARE specifically for high FSB and the yellow slots for tight timings.

When placed in the yellow slots, I can usually do tighter timings than the orange but it will fail to get past the Backup CMOS if I just literally switch RAM slots. The same applied for high FSB switching over to the yellow slots. These boards are picky...

The orange slots seem more compatible all round which is why I recommended them but it depends on usage really.
 
smids said:
but it will fail to get past the Backup CMOS if I just literally switch RAM slots. The same applied for high FSB switching over to the yellow slots. These boards are picky...
I got that a lot when overclocking this weekend and thought I needed a newer BIOS version as I think that my system is unstable when running on a divider.

I can't remember if I used the orange or yellow slots but I think I have my sticks in the orange slots, but I have not been memory testing so they were running on AUTO for almost every setting which meant they were running low speed but tight timings.
 
I've found that the 623-3 bios works very well with Samsung TCCD/UCCC, Micron 5B and other low voltage ram. if your running Winbond UTT, BH5, BH6, Infineon CE6 ram the 623-2 bios seems to work best for them. Ive not tried the -2 bios because I feel things are going so well with the -3, my UCCC ram is happy running 260mhz with just 2.4v. and these AMD cpus seem to clock high with really low voltages with the -3 bios.
 
Just got my Ultra-D and a quick question, My new Connect3D ATI Radeon X1800 XT
256MB will not fit in pci-e slot one because of the chipset fan and is currently in 3, will i need to remove it. Also as i have come from agp, will i need to lock the pci-e like you lock agp to 33/66.

Help appreciated.
 
It does fit in slot one - and I woul siggest using slot one as slot 2 of the 16x defaults to 2 rather than 16 lanes. This affects performance slightly. Just squash the chipset fan a little - it can take it ;).
 
a 0540 fpmw should be good for 3ghz just get the right tref value specific to the divider you are running, these nf4 dfi boards are very picky when it come to dram settings.
dram drive stength, data drive stregth, max async and read preamble latencies are also key to real good overclock on these dfi boards.
dont leave dram settings on auto as you will be sure to hit an overclocking wall
 
Makes no difference, I've found the above latencies only really need changing when I switch cpu's. Ive used 1gb tccd, micron and cheap value and now 2gb of uccc, and these settings havent changed much. I guess you need to get the sweet spot with these specific settings to get stability at high fsb regardless of ram.

The "trick" to get quick stable dram settings on these dfi boards is to first use "Set Optimised Default" in BIOS, Then set the HTT to the rated speed of your ram, do this before booting into windows and then in windows write those settings from A64 Tweaker down and set them in bios manually next boot...otherwise you will never get a good start. knowing all your dram settings and switching them off auto will make for a more stable system. auto=bad :)

Ok, once you have input the "main" ram latencies manually into the bios thanks to A64 Tweaker you can start fiddling with the stuff that makes a big difference with your max overclock when on a divider.

try these out for size 1st…….

Max Async Latency - 08.0 Nano Seconds

DRAM Drive Strength - 5 (weak 3)

And try these 3 relaxed tref settings out and see which works best for you, 1168 work best for me...

0908= 100mhz(7.8us)
1032= 133mhz(7.8us)
1168= 166mhz(7.8us)

This way is about the easiest and quickest way I found to get good dram setting on the dfi board.

edit: make sure your off the factory flashed bios and on the 623, or 704 bios.
the early 310 or 510 bios just wont do for overclocking
 
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I'm going to have to go against Hesky somewhat WRT tRef:

I would recommend:

AUTO
1560
3072
3120
4708

Although I had quite good luck with 1816.

I actually use Auto now.

The only other thing I would recommend is to not worry too much about getting every last Mhz out of the memory. Just get every last Mhz out of the CPU and keep the memory in check with dividers, but at as tight timings as it will do.

Two interesting links:

tRef - http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23994&page=1&pp=15&highlight=tref

Overclocking - http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Guides/athlon64oc/
 
Cheers for the info, ill try it at home later, don't suppose you have got a link to the bios Versions your using, and which software you are using to flash it, if in windows?. I'm just trying to get my head around the CPU voltage settings with the 104% 110% etc, also do you guys keep the 'CPU VID StartUp Value' the same as the CPU VID control?

Cheers
 
For a excellent bootable BIOS update CD for DFI boards go here:
http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22031

I have OCZ Tony's BIOS 704-2bta which works fine

I set my CPU VID Startup value to the same speed as I have overclocked, currently 1.50V but I have seen a thread saying it doesn't matter what you set it to.

As for the 104% etc. do you need that kind of voltage over 1.55V ??
If so calculate it and change the CPU voltage as well, 1.5*1.10=1.65V, if you want 1.6V use 1.45*1.10=1.595 etc....
 
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Ok so been playing around, and managed to get my opty prime stable at 2.65 with 1.375 (bios) volts running through it. And ram @ 220mhz 2.5 - 3 - 3 - 6.





I stopped Prime just after 7 hours due to waking up. seems stable but i will run again tonight for longer. I'm liking the cpu volts though :)
 
What I always do when overclocking is let Prime run 5 minutes, if that passes I increase until it fails within 5 minutes, I then increase the VCore/VDimm and test again, if it passes 5 minutes I increase the speed again until I reach a voltage I consider the max safe voltage.
 
Dutch Guy said:
What I always do when overclocking is let Prime run 5 minutes, if that passes I increase until it fails within 5 minutes, I then increase the VCore/VDimm and test again, if it passes 5 minutes I increase the speed again until I reach a voltage I consider the max safe voltage.

i do the same with superpi. if it fails the 1mb test its in the ballpark lol.
 
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