Glad to hear you have your mainboard back mate. Perhaps you keep one of your GTX285 until AMD releases HD7000 cards. This will bring some changes to the pricing and perhaps you can get one of the new cards (like HD7950?) for the same money :)
-- Edited by mAlkAv!An on Tuesday 22nd of November 2011 10:48:37 AM
thx mate and yeah agree with you, waiting the 7xxx series is one of the best option even if my goal is only to run dx11...which isnt possible on my 285s but also on the 6xxx serie ...but waiting for the pricing is full of wisdom ,i ll probably do what u told
I will do the same and switch from my HD5850 to a new mid range card if time has come :) It's possible that the release is already in january. Even if you don't like the new HD7xx0 cards the older HD6950 might become cheaper ^^
yo mates, as my mobo oc& sli still wasnt working properly i recontacted my retailler and they finally accepted to take back the mobo and to gimme my money back...
so @ the end of the week i should have a brand new gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 to replace my MSI one....i feel better now haha
on the other side i ll be off again for some hours or days (still have the second pc for minor tasks) and i have now 1.5 hour to save datas and dispatch again my whole pc if i want to catch the mail shipping service today ....lets rushhhhhhh!!
lets say it worked 1 times on 2....got it working while changing from asus am2+ to msi am3 mobo and not from msi am3 to anoher msi am3 mobo...pc mysteries
yup the beer is on the "todrinkasap" list ....but was to early in the day....hm?....not that much finally now...prosit!
some years ago disapointed by asus customer support i decided to go for MSI....after 6 mobos and 10 GFXs i had same problem and decided to give Gigabyte a try...damn it! it seem they are leading the "more s**ty customer support"
i saw/knew that the 990FXA-UD7 rev1.0 was bugged and occurate severe Vdrops ,to fix that gigabyte have stop the production of the rev1.0 and have gone for a revisted v1.1 with load line calibration option introduction, replacement of a resistor and the add of some circuits
for thoses who also have a v1.0 they propose to customer a hard mod consisting to replace a resistor, but if u do this it kills the warrantie, i heared several users have toasted their mobos while trying to do it +.+
so when i ordered it i asked for a 1.1 revision only but....they sended to me a v1.0...
as i can return it during 7 days if i m not satisfed i decided to verify thoses VDrops...hell!! the vdrops are not severe...they are tremendous and to get real 1.36v under full load u need to set the vcore on 1.475v (with some inexplicated peaks @ 1.52v)
i ve send a ticket to gigabyte asking if they can do the hard mod if i send em the mobo or exchange it for a rev1.1
they told me that my use of the mobo wasnt "standart" and that they dont do anything for non standart use & users +.+
quite funny for a high end mobo destinated to the overclockers users
....so after my MSI & Gigabyte adventures ,thoses two succesive slaps on the nose decided me to go back to ASUS...lol..tommorow i send back the gigabyte, they ll credit my money back @ reception and i ll order a ASUS FormulaV which is the only one to have LLC option
shame because i was happy with both MSI and Gigabyte in a general manner but both was occuring big disfunctionnements
my daughter is nice and allowed me to stole her pc another time for some weeks, this way i ll have no problems to finish my mapping tasks
my conclusion : all thoses mobo manufacters are the same biatches and dont care of customers, to deal with that the only sure way is to never buy brand new products and to read a lot on the web before ordering anything
i m soon able to write a full review on all the top end am3+ mobos...ROFL!
lol...after my mail to gigabyte telling em that i m gonna share the info that gigabyte told me to "not use gigabyte boards for non standart use" on forums they sended me a RMA ticket and explained to me that if i succed to convince em they perhaps exchange my v1.0 booard for a v1.1... i answered em that i dont need to convince anyone and that i ll moove back on asus side...so they are no more leading the **** customer service rankin...MSI and ASUS are back to the first places^^ somehow a bit weird that customers have to convince manufacter that their boards are bugged....or i m really too old! lol ....pills ....to close the daily news , i ll have to wait 15 days to get my asus @ home (currently out of stock +.+)
i m sure if my good friend Mick read theses line he will have to fight with an irresistible laughting call...or not haha....AMD forever!!....+.+....omg...
i sended back my old bugged 2.5 yrs old velociraptor to WD two weekz ago, and today to replace it i got a brand new one by WD...another honnest manufacter...respect
i had to build a pc for a mate tonight, was quite a rush to do it as fast as possible because i must build the pc,flash to last bios, install drivers and os and test all that before sending it...
i decided to replace the 840 stock cooler by a stock 1090tx6 stock cooler (had one new in stock :p) because the 840 colling really sux...no pipe, just a piece of alu with a fan...awfull
now i think he have a nice pc, it hit 15000 points on 3dm06 and have dx11....under occt testing for some hours...
the case is one of the best i ve seen so far, all is nicely done, easy cable slaving ,backplate access, nice options like 2fan controls and 1 sensor monitoring...7 fans can be mounted...with 3 also mounted...for 51 euros....it s a top even if it s missing usb3 option
the mobo is decent but nothing surnatural, decent price for a atx sized am3+ mobo
the cpu work nicely and performs very well, i cant see where is missing the L3 cache in use but all games and apps run sweet and this lil 3 core hit 15500 pts on 3DM06...
plays crysis and ut3 nicely with its 3 cores very very buzy...no core is sleeping on this one in "contrario" to some 4 or 6 cores cpus... i havent succed to unloock the fourth core but i ll give this another try later
and on the old uncle pc some changes too, i recently received and installed my asus crosshair formulaV no way to get my SLI working on this board too, only gygabite allowed me to do it (and msi but without cpu oc)
here s a last pict with the sli installed:
too bored to return the board again i offered one 285 to my son and the other to my daughter and decided to give fianally amd gfxs a try with a ASUS EAH6950 DCII/2DI4S/1GD5 which seem to have a large room for some modding and oc sessions:
i m fully satisfed for now as it performs equally to my previous 285s sli and have the famous dx11....lol...not noticed it for now except it unigine bench i also revamped my lateral pannel with an old piece of inox (this **** is fraqn hard to cut and polish :p) and the plexiglas from a caravan window...because the original one was a large grid and was too "open"...now the airflow is top notch
this board allow u to monitor and tweak ur main pc via usb connection from a lappy (rog connect)...awesome and usefull to detect thoses scaring vdrops :)
Awesome looking office and gaming corner there! I do like it! Despite that, it is also cool to hear your son and daughter got your old GTX 285s. If I may ask, are they interested in PC gaming or not so much? Just curious! :)
yeah they re both very interrested in PC, gaming and mapping especially, the daughter like to build maps on the sims game and to play recent games (mass effect, crysis, limbo, ...and minecraft) the son is crazy with minecraft...but he started to map on Unreal Ed(problem with non native language but good to learn english:p) and like all FPS games( some new ones like crysis but mostly old ones like BF2142, halo and the whole unreal serie), i try to keep some serious rules to keep his scool carrier...lol...+ he recently show interrest in pc parts & assembling....paradise for a pc freak dad here....they first was a lil bored by my pc addiction....since i reduced my pc time they show real interrest...
so after thoses builds i found some time to try to get the best of my rig with 2 objectives in mind: first is to get the best from my cpu & GFX with limited max temperatures (40°c for the cpu with cooling on low settings and 75°c for the gfx)....second ojective is more idiot but....i want to beat or at least equal my old 3DM06 23000 pts reccord (phenom II1090@4.0ghz & 2x GTX285 in SLI on a MSI 870A Fusion mobo...
CPU:really more easy to OC on this mobo than on MSI and gigabytes ones, the Load line calibration does perfectly its job and allowed me to keep decent voltages on both cpu and cpu-nb, i was abble to boot @ 4.2 ghz but i have reach my 40°c max temperature limit so i backed it to 4.1 ghz with VCore= 1.5v and LLC on "very high" (still "extreme" to test )
CPU-NB: no problems to hit 3000mhz with v=1.26v and LLC on "high"
GFX: no way to unlock hidden shadders even after bios flash and no way to tweak voltages with "voltage tweak" selector on position 2 (which happen to me after original bios recovery) but with stock voltage i was abble to keep the card under 75° and to push the gpu clock from 810 to 850 and the memory form 1250 to 1300 the gain i not enormous but also 500 pts on 3DM06
And a complete revamping on this one (fans,PSU,Case & GFX exchange)
ASUS P5N-E SLI Intel Q6600 OCZ DDR2 4x2GB/800 Toshiba 500GB MSI NX8800GT-Zilent OEM-Dell PSU NZXT Apollo in:Zalman:2x120mm out:Zalman:1x120mm
as i had a second 6950 under the hand for some days i gave a short try to crossfire, here are some results:
3DM06: Xfire off:23339 on:23550
3DMVantage: XFire off:20134 on:26372
3DM11: XFire off:5128 on:8565
in games the result is nice on a global way but i noticed a lot of visual glitches and artefacts (especially on water reflections and complex skys) Crysis plays like a dream in very high setting with a constant 75 fps, no more drop downs...very stabble but...awfull artefacts and glitches on sky n water all long, Crysis 2 seem to play better but i also noticed some **** in some places though i must admitt that DX11 or perhaps AMD GFXs impressed me a lot: textures are more reallistic, shadows an lighting is better in all tested games and benches
i never encountered such problems while using sli and nvidia (tested SLI on MSI8800GTS320...MSI8800GTZilent...MSI9800GTX...and GTX285Superpipe) it only happened on...Crysis2...before it was patched, then the problem was gone
i just googled a lil an it seem that some video settings and a driver fix can solve the artifact problem...so...lol^^
"micro shuttering" (i dont remember excatly the name) i never noticed on sli ...nor on crossfire this time...but my old eyes are they abble to detect such subtle variations??...probably not
...was a fun week with lot of screws and cables !....muhahahaha
EDIT: i wanted to add that AMD stock CPU coolers suxx badly today same s**t on phenoms and bulldozer: just a big sculpted piece of alu with no more heatpipes inside! only the 6100 have a small copper plate...but i m rofl here:...0.5mm high and 4cm diameter....a Shame!
i had to install 2 old unused phenom II stock coolers and an old AC-freezer64 to replace thoses cheap radiators +.+
-- Edited by Bl!tz on Tuesday 17th of January 2012 11:18:10 PM
owning a kingston SSD since some month i have some occasionnal and randomly freezes (1 freeze/week), i saw on kingston site that a corrective software was ready for an update
no way to get the soft running and updating my SSD, after messing around some hours i noticed that AMD ACHI driver was showing my SSD in IDE mode even with the option on AHCI in the bios...+.+
my luck is that i have an independent sata ASmedia E1 port....i plugged my SSD there bypassing AMD control by this way and hop no more problems in three clicks my SSD soft was updated...results are very weird though
plugged in the ASmedia E1 port the performances of the SSD are down so i replugged it in my normal sata port1 (back under AMD AHCI control) after the update
...and performances are back again...lol...AS SSD bench still dont reconize the SSD correctly and the results are making no sence, it seem that CrystalDiskMark work better on AMD systems:
Just out of interest, do you have a as ssd screen for comparison? As ssd uses heavily compressed data files which is the worst case scenario for sandforce controllers.
-- Edited by mAlkAv!An on Tuesday 24th of January 2012 10:03:52 AM
ok here are some AS SSD results, i know it s more "true" on performances but i have serious doubts on its compatibilitie with AMD AHCI drivers:
-the results are changing from one test to the other more than with other tools (looks like if its impacted by backgrounds programms running and by the % use of the ssd...+ the test is so short compared to others tests...lol...or it s a superfast tool or it just take less mesurements!
-while running successivly two tests with this one it hit different results with too high scores variations...no changes but different results = lack of accuracy or bad mesurements imo...
-the status of the SSD still wrong, the tool see it as in IDE mode
-the SSD performs better after update (clearly fastest boot noticeable around 2 seconds fastest) and AS SSD show the opposite....lol
-Kingstom customer support agree on the weirdness of AS SSD infos displayed and about results (lol that s normal as the results are crap in as ssd), it seem to be more specificly related to the ASUS formulaV than to AM3+ 990 boards ...i m a pro to grab black sheeps!
1)before update AMD AHCI
2)before update ASMedia E1
3)after update ASMedia E1
4)after update AMD AHCI
i found this bench interressant while running several tests results are stabble + it seem that all serious reviewers are using it to complete infos from the other ones
was funky to play with my SSD and to test it with all thoses tools, still i m very happy with it, and more now since i ll no have thoses periodics freezes ....but anyway even with some randomly freezes the boot time worth em
hm....after a long calm period (no breakdowns) suddently some days ago....while my son was playing Crysis2.....BSOD.....and no way to get the pc working again....bios screen, overclocking failure message and....and after a few seconds the PC was shutting down alone i dispatched it, dispatched my sons one too to do some testing....i got all working on a "table" and in my sons case ....i suspected mobo, ram , psu, case buttons,HDs, DVD writter and even fans....lol....i just have found the guilty part: my WC pump is dead +.+....the latest thing i ve add to the PC all makes sence now, the mobo find the cpu too hot and auto-shut the PC down ...all my good aircooling stuff is in use on other machines so here i am with a FX6100 stock cooling mounted on my old 1090t( hollycrap ****!!)....lol.....back to stock frenquencies + two PC cable management to redo + a WC to rma next time i ll suspect this part first, my reparation plan was a big flop on this one but bahhhhh.....hopefully it s a part under warranty.....this crusade costs me another thermal paste tube though
i did a lil build for my nephew to replace his dead Q6600 and his crap psu.... i found some nice prices imo:
CPU phenomII 965 3.4ghz: 89 Euros PSU:Corsair Gaming Series GS500, 500W:54 Euros Mobo:AsRock 960GM/U3S3 FX: 40 Euros RAM:Kit Dual Channel DDR3 Corsair Value Select, 2 x 4 Go, PC-10600, CAS 9: 41Euros
the phenom 965 is not a "new" cpu but it rock solid and for this price it s a good deal 1st asrock mobo in my hands and i was impressed by the softwares that came with, simple to use Corsair PSU is top notch and one of the more silent i saw so far...not modular but ehhh...for this price
the pc hit 17000 3DM06 pts with no CPU OC paired with a 9800GTX this was a fun and fast mounting session with no problems
i received a brand new corsair H100 to replace the dead one....i installed it on my sis PC ,she s very happy with her bulldozer temperatures now ....and i just ordered new parts to build me a new one:
1 * Waterblock CPU EK-Supreme LT - UNI Nickel (EN) Plexi
1 * Magicool - Radiator Xtreme 240 (240S) full copper
Nice mate. What WC (parts) have you bought finally? Shipping and installation was all ok?
yoo...thx bro,
shipping was ok except some parts coming fom germany lol (avides shipping delay was quite 12 days +.+) but finally all arrived in "decent" time...
installation was very stressfull ....the first time....lol....i dispatched and reassemblated the whole loop @ least 7 times and i feel now comfortable with the manip ....which was the target in fact .....u always prefer this tube over this one ....and perhaps this one a bit shorter .....and this one behind that cable and....blahblah to the end
the parts i ve pick because their prices was "cutted"(only quality parts though for a single cpu loop):
waterblock:EKSupremeLT acetal plexi
pump:Pump EK-DCP 2.2 (400lph)
rad:MagicoolXtrem240 full copper/4x120mm zalman & xygmatek pushpull
well....after 9 month of solid use my ASUS HD6950DCII just died....first black screen under crysis2 intense action action ....definitive black screen 5 minutes after rebooting the PC...by luck they gave me back my money...so bye bye ASUS and back to my fav manufacter....lol....i just ordered this lil baby
just to tell, i was fully happy with the 6950, it was rocking all the games i ve try on highest settings...cant wait to try the 660Ti....and tbh i quite like the idea to see nvidia & its physx back in my PC
It's a nice card mate, I'm planning to buy the same when I have the money ^^ People complain that this is one of those GTX660 Ti's that come without Borderland 2, but personally I couldn't care less about it, so no issues :)
thx m8, yeah weird... i hope amazon will add the steamed borderland key with it...it s with borderland include here in france (At least the 4 biggests hardware sites f.e...but ...grrr... it s not mentioned on amazons one +.+.... i ll tell you )
i was firstly aiming for a GTX670, a GTX580 , a HD6970 or a HD7950....but when i saw the ratio performances/consumption/pricing i jumped on the MSI's 660TI-PE-OC....performances including noise level, temperatures, OC possibilities and of courses benching...lol....this one kicks 660's concurent butts quite all long :p )
agree about pricings in fr....drives me sick to see all cheaper everywhere but here....got the 600ti (shipping include for 306€) getting it from other lands didnt worth it because of highest shipping costs it seems that germany & us are some kind of hardware paradize...like always france is "too much" +.+
card seem to works nicely , all scores are up....except my ...my.....3dm06 score....but it seem all 6xx owners are complaining about lowest scores...no idea why but with exact same hw except the gfx:
phenom@4.0ghz/DDR3-1333
MSI-8800gt:14979 MSI-GTX285:19673 ASUS HD6950: 22500
MSI660TI:21347
something s probably wrong somewhere because 3dm11 :
max temperature i ve seen was 55°c with the fans around 50%, the card is completly silent , OC very well, have a "anti-dust system, and....two nice blue leds on the fans (lol) and performs nicely
i tryed to add a 8800gt dedicaced to the "physX" tasks...but no changes in benchs,similar performances on UT3 heat-ray physX map....weird , i ll try with a GTX 285 dedicaced to the physX...just to verify if this option work or not....i m quite suspicious now...isnt a 8800gt enough to run the physX ? @ least a GTX285 should do it ! +.+
well...hm....about physX, i ve dedicaced a GTX285 to it and all benches scores are down by some points... ....on the other hand DM-HeatRay-PhysX runs better....mini FPS jumped from 15 to 25 (which isnt enough to me) and avg FPS from 28 to 40....
so imo adding a second gfx for physX isnt a good idea: the price of the card itself + the power consumption doesnt worth the poor gain in fps
...if someone know a physX test, game or bench that can contradict this , i ll be very happy to do some testing
Yeah, good to surpass the bottleneck, 1700MHz is great. In comparison to a GTX670 it's just the memory bandwith that differs... theroretically you would achieve the same performance with 2000MHz VRAM (+33%) on a GTX660Ti ^^
The primary thing I read about using older cards as dedicated physX cards is that it's recommended that to use a card that is only one (two at the most) generation(s) older than your current GFX dedicated card(s). You need a 'matched' speedy physX card to keep up with the GFX setup, otherwise you get back to that 'ol bottleneck issue again where your gfx cards are waiting for the physX card. ...that said though, you'd think a gtx285 would be a good card for physX??
lol....yeah the GTX285 do a job but a very poor job in fact, mesured with frap avg fps jumped from 25 to 40 on heat ray physx...for 100w it s not enough, in allways i have given the gtx285 to my daughter back (thx to her for letting me freedom to test ) and i m running this 660 in solo...i ve pick this model instead of a 670 especially for the lowest energy consumption and it had make no sence to add another card for physx if the consumption doesnt worth the perfs
....all maxed out i have constant 200 fps on dm-shangrila ....my reference torture and mesurement map, so i can tell it: i m happy