Asus A8V Deluxe REV 1.2 (overclocking questions)

[You call THAT a pineapple]

Hi all,

I'm in the middle of getting parts for my first pc build (see http://forums.anandtech.com/me...7&threadid=1422251 and i went and bought the Asus A8V deluxe wifi board. After doing a little more research it seems that boards prior to Revision 2 don't have a working PCI lock. Well guess what? That's right, I got rev 1.2

Now I've never done any overclocking before but have become very interested and was looking forward to pushing my new rig to its limits. My question is this, considering this board has no pci lock, how exactly will this affect its overclockability? Will i be able to o/c at all? And most importantly, I am yet to buy RAM for my system, and was going to go for the (rather pricey) OCZ 3200 Platinum Rev 2 as recommended by anandtech because of its great timings and overclockability. Now that I have the castrated mobo, should i still go for the OCZ RAM or just end my dreams of overclocking and get some el cheapo stuff?

Thanks in advance guys,

Dan

 

[Squally Leonharty]

How do you know you have revision 1.2? If you used CPU-Z, then chances are you have revision 2. It's labeled on the board itself. For some strange reason, they forgot to update the internal revision, so CPU-Z reports revision 1.2, while I DO have revision 2.00, as labeled on the board.

 

[You call THAT a pineapple]

Because I'm still in the process of getting parts (still need RAM, CPU and grapics card) I haven't fired her up yet. I have had a look at the board however and it's got Rev 1.2 stamped on it near the PCI slots I assume this means I've got the dud? I talked to one of the guys at the shop i got it from about the possibility of exchanging it and he said that Rev 2 hasn't hit australia yet, and will most likely take a few months to get here :'(

So yeah, guess i'm buggered

 

[Squally Leonharty]

Yeah, your board doesn't have a working pci/agp-lock. This means you won't be able to overclock everything much. I've read 210 - 215 FSB was possible without a pci/agp-lock, but that's risky business.

As for RAM, you could take the OCZ RAM you mentioned and just use it. Once you get a new motherboard in the future, you can use it again for overclocking purposes. If they're compatible, that is. If you do not wish to overclock on your current A8V Deluxe motherboard, you can save yourself some money and get Crucial Ballistix PC3200 or PC4000 instead. They're performing very well for less money.

I suggest you wait for more advice from other people here. A handfull of people know more than one.

 

[You call THAT a pineapple]

I very much doubt that by the time my next upgrade comes around PC3200 will be a viable option I'm thinking about forgetting the overclocking, surely 1 gig of branded ram will still be pretty quick?

 

[You call THAT a pineapple]

*shameless bump*

sorry guys but i'd love a definitive answer

 

[YabbyU]

I'm running the A8V Deluxe with a 3500+
I gig Cosair Value ram 3200 2.5cas...paid $151.00 on Newegg
EVGA 6800 Ultra 61.77

I benched 12250 on 3dmark 03
Doom3 timedemo 1280/4x...55fps.
No Overclocking

No problems with my ram in DOOM3
Value ram has been fine for me so far. I can't compare it to anything faster however.

Hope this helps.

 

[RearAdmiral]

Well you dont need revision 2 to have a working lock, I have revision 1.8 and have a working lock. You will just have to find the right bios and give it a try. Thw working locks go back pretty far, it was just the first batch that didnt work. I'd like to think that they would have it fixed with your board. Good luck with it. Oh yea, the ram. You could go for Crucial Ballistix memory, they can overclock decently with those perfect timings.

 

[You call THAT a pineapple]

Originally posted by: RearAdmiral
Well you dont need revision 2 to have a working lock, I have revision 1.8 and have a working lock. You will just have to find the right bios and give it a try. Thw working locks go back pretty far, it was just the first batch that didnt work. I'd like to think that they would have it fixed with your board. Good luck with it. Oh yea, the ram. You could go for Crucial Ballistix memory, they can overclock decently with those perfect timings.

Are those bios[es?] still available to download anywhere? Which bios are you running that has the working lock? And more importantly is this older bios stable?

Thanks

 

[RearAdmiral]

Yes it has been perfectly stable for me, i havent had one problem with my motherboard. The bios version is 1005.021 BETA. Thats what I use and my locks work great.

 

[You call THAT a pineapple]

Originally posted by: RearAdmiral
Yes it has been perfectly stable for me, i havent had one problem with my motherboard. The bios version is 1005.021 BETA. Thats what I use and my locks work great.

Thanks for that dude. I shall do some googling when i've built my pc and get my hands on it!