Asus A7V8X - WTF?

[Atomik]

After almost 2 years with an Asus A7V, I decided to go with Asus again for my next big upgrade - the A7V8X (SATA-RAID, LAN, Sound) was my weapon of choice. I coupled this with an Athlon XP 1800+. Everything is running *decently* but today I flashed my bios with the newest version and decided to do a little benchmarking. I ran Sisoftware Sandra 2002.6.8.97 memory benchmark. I was somewhat dissappointed with the results.
With default settings, I could not run in DDR400 mode. My RAM (Corsair PC3200xms) isn't officially supported by Asus, so I thought no big deal. Even when I entered everything manually (My bios has an option to change the DRAM Frequency from Auto to 266/333/400), the Sandra benchmarks were well below that of a KT333 reference. I overclocked my FSB to 146 and manually entered the DRAM frequency as 442 and got sad and pathetic scores. I even reverted to the bios that websites used while benchmarking my board (1.03), but still got low scores. So, again with default settings, I tried plain ol' DDR333 mode, and again my benchmarks were well below that of the KT333 reference. The only time my scores are somewhat respectable is if I pump up the FSB to 175+ mhz and specifically tell the DRAM to operate at 2xFSB. All of this was done with default memory timings, as well as a multitude of agressive manual timings.

Is my board a piece of you know what? I don't understand why my Mobo/RAM is unable to acheive even DDR333 speeds, let alone the advertised DDR400 speeds (and results). I paid top dollar for top performance and I feel as if I'm getting screwed Anyone care to shed some light on this for me?

much appreciated

-Atomik

 

[mxocr]

hello i have a a7v8x, and a xp2200, they unlock very easy with pencil, i have corsair xms pc3500 1x512mb with heat spreader, and a fastrak tx2 with 4 wd20gigs ,i didnt get the board with raid, cause i already had the card, i find the lan broadcom to be very fast, and the onboard sound is excellent,i also have a g4 ti4400 oc 315c 360m,i am currently running 200fsbx9=1800mhz, i have all the memory settings maxed, the only setting i didnt turn up was the optimal, ultra, setting i left it at optimal ,and tweaked manualy ,i love the board
this is the best ,and most powerful board ,that i have had,my suggestion to you is, get a tbred xp2200 and up they are unlocked easily
with a pencil ,then you can hit the kt400 specs,fsb200ram400ddr, my board started out with the 1005 bios ,and i am now using the 1008 final,i am using win xp pro, and i couldnt be happyer,the only thing that doesnt seem to work, is the cpu overvolt jumper,enabled it is supposed to let you go to vcore 2.05 max,but i cant get any change from 1.850vcore max ,whether enabled or diabled,this is the best ,board ,ram ,cpu, graphics card,i have ever owned.:|:|

 

[pillage2001]

Originally posted by: mxocr
hello i have a a7v8x, and a xp2200, they unlock very easy with pencil, i have corsair xms pc3500 1x512mb with heat spreader, and a fastrak tx2 with 4 wd20gigs ,i didnt get the board with raid, cause i already had the card, i find the lan broadcom to be very fast, and the onboard sound is excellent,i also have a g4 ti4400 oc 315c 360m,i am currently running 200fsbx9=1800mhz, i have all the memory settings maxed, the only setting i didnt turn up was the optimal, ultra, setting i left it at optimal ,and tweaked manualy ,i love the board
this is the best ,and most powerful board ,that i have had,my suggestion to you is, get a tbred xp2200 and up they are unlocked easily
with a pencil ,then you can hit the kt400 specs,fsb200ram400ddr, my board started out with the 1005 bios ,and i am now using the 1008 final,i am using win xp pro, and i couldnt be happyer,the only thing that doesnt seem to work, is the cpu overvolt jumper,enabled it is supposed to let you go to vcore 2.05 max,but i cant get any change from 1.850vcore max ,whether enabled or diabled,this is the best ,board ,ram ,cpu, graphics card,i have ever owned.:|:|

What's your pci speed when you're running 200FSB?? Are you runningat 200FSB??

 

[dszd0g]

Atomik, what scores are you getting? Here are the scores I am getting A7V8X SiSoft Sandra.

I would run it at DDR 333, in most benchmarks it performs better at 333 than at 400. 400 is not officially supported. The FSB is the bottleneck anyways, little is to be gained from even the best theoretical implementation of DDR 400 until the FSB is increased. At the 175FSB you tried, there is a definite benefit to having DDR 400 though.

 

[Atomik]

mxocr: 200mhz FSB? That's quite nice dude. I tried to do that last night but my comp was having none of that. What sort of cooling are you using? I have a Thermalright AX-7 heatsink with a Delta 5500rpm 85 CFM fan, yet my cpu still runs at 55c, even with a plethora of additional case fans. I unlocked my 1800+ with the actual unlocking kit. Never seen it done with a pencil, although that would have been cheaper.

pillage2001: At 200mhz, the PCI is locked at 40. This makes for a somewhat unstable situation. Is in not within Asus's power to just keep the PCI locked at 33 no matter what FSB speed you run at?

dszd0g: Here are my membench scores: moo. They are a little bit better than I initially thought, although I'm still not taking advantage of my cool looking heat spreaders on the ram. Really that's what it all comes down to

Edit: I actually managed to do 195x9 on this board, which impresses me. I guess I had to take matters into my own hands to squeeze some performance out of this mobo I was able to get my RAM up to 2x205mhz, but had to run at an 8 multiplier. I think 195x9 is definately the sweet spot between decent ram+cpu performance.

 

[mxocr]

yes i really am running at ,actually 203fsb ,thats were it goes from 40 pci to 41pci ,the new core thouroubred +2200 and up, at least mine ,didnt have the laser cut through the L1's, so i penciled them like old times ,and it gives me all the multypliers, i have a swiftech mc462a ,and i put a fan on the northbrige ,that i used arctic silver again on every sink,i have an antech i think they call it chieftech or such, it looks like the alienware cases with the door over the drives,with case empty 7 fans with install 9 fans, i am running at 203x9,iam pretty sure i could go 9.5 but theres not enough vcore.i believe it is the ram that got me to 200fsb the corsair xms pc3500,i have been up to 210fsb, at cas 2, but i dont think the built in lan, likes the high pci,its like 43 or so up there.

 

[mxocr]

[ WCPUID Version 3.1 (c) 1996-2002 By H.Oda! ]

Processor #1 : AMD Athlon XP (Model 8) / C67DD20C
Platform : Socket A (Socket 462)
Vendor String : AuthenticAMD
CPU Type : Original OEM Processor (0)
Family : 6 (7)
Model : 8 (8)
Stepping ID : 0 (0)
Brand : ----
APIC : ----
Name String : AMD Athlon(TM) XP 2800+

Internal Clock : 1817.90 MHz
System Bus : 403.98 MHz DDR
System Clock : 201.99 MHz
Multiplier : 9.0

L1 I-Cache : 64K Byte
L1 D-Cache : 64K Byte
L1 T-Cache : ----
L1 Cache : ----
L2 Cache : 256K Byte
L2 Speed : 1817.90 MHz (Full)

MMX Unit : Supported
SSE Unit : Supported
SSE2 Unit : Not Supported
MMX2 Unit : Supported
3DNow! Unit : Supported
3DNow!+ Unit : Supported

Host Bridge : 1106:3189.00 [VIA Apollo KT400]
South Bridge : 1106:3177.00 [VIA VT8233A]
VGA Device : 10DE:0251.A2 [NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4400]
Memory Size : 512M Byte
Memory Clock : ----

OS Version : Windows XP Version 5.01.2600 Service Pack 1
-------------- : ----------------------------------

##--- Date 11/01/2002, Time 05:28:29

 

[Atomik]

Damn that's a decent system. You should try 9.5, since 2200+ rated speed is 1800mhz. You should be able to handle a 100 mhz overclock.

 

[mxocr]

http://www.service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=4926058 yea i need some more vcore ,1.850 aint enough, i need 2.0 vcore, anybody gets that overvolt jumper figured out ,let me know. if there will come a vcore mod ,there always does on the asus and abit boards, the 3dmark 2001 was just playin ,theres guys on there with 3gig p4 radeon 9700 pro gettin 22000,so were still the under dog, but i like amd especialy when they let you unlock there cpu's.

 

[dszd0g]

mxocr, did you try using your 2200+ without using a pencil? From what I hear the Thoroughbred cores automatically unlock in the A7V8X, without having to do anything. The layout of the bridges changed. It's even possible that you changed which CPU it defaults to and not the multiplier (I just noticed it is reporting as an Athlon XP 2800+).

Atomik, if you notice that bottom KT333 is not stock KT333. There is a different KT333 which specifies PC2700 memory (the top one you are comparing to), that is the performance of the KT333 stock. The one you are comparing it to on the bottom is a KT333 running at 166FSB or something (overclocked).

BTW, before this thread the highest I had seen anyone get the A7V8X was 190FSB.