ASUS P5K Deluxe + e6420

[Zardnok]

So far I am loving this new P35 board. With 15 minutes of tweaking, I have my new 6420 running at 3.4G. Will leave Orthos on overnight and play some more tomorrow. First impressions though, if you need a board to OC with, the new Bearlake chipset is shawiggitywiggityweet!

Chip was just purchased from Newegg with stepping L709A515 and pack date 05/01/07.

edit: Added stepping

 

[Zardnok]

I lied. It did an hour of Orthos at 3.4 and I boosted it up to 3.6 and went to bed. 9+hours later, she is still chugging along. I don't know if it is the board or the new chip, but I think I found a winner. One core is 6 degrees hotter than the other, not sure if that is how my cooler is mounted or just something to do with the chip/heatspreader itself. I used AS5 "instructions" for the thin line of paste over the center, so I am wondering if I am not getting solid coverage in some areas.

I will find out when I take everything back apart to mount my thermal probes.

 

[DXtreme]

What memory are you using?

I'm getting an P5K Vanilla & E6400 (got a super deal new in box)?

I'm new to the whole DDR2 thing.

Thanks!

 

[Hulk]

Nice job.

What's your Vcore setting?

 

[lopri]

Very nice. E6420 @3.60GHz is as good as it gets, I think, especially when many E6600s are struggling around 3.20GHz.

 

[orion23]

Originally posted by: lopri
Very nice. E6420 @3.60GHz is as good as it gets, I think, especially when many E6600s are struggling around 3.20GHz.

Funny you should say that.

My brother's E6400 can do 3.5ghz with about 1.45V and maxes out @ about 3.6ghz. @ 3.7ghz or even 3.8ghz, he will get a BSOD or a sudden restar. (On Air)

...And I think he is not happy with his 3.5!

 

[Zardnok]

Originally posted by: Hulk
Nice job.

What's your Vcore setting?

1.45 Vcore to hit 3.6 overnight.

I tried to get more out of it than the 3.6, but so far no luck. I went to 1.5Vcore and 3.7 and got errors in the first minute of Orthos, dropped back to 3.65 and it got all squirrelly on me, so I had to cold reset everything and start fresh. Granted, that was during the heat of the afternoon, so my room ambient temperature was probably 5ish degrees higher. My computer room faces a lake and the entire wall is windows, so the afternoon heat can beat down. I am using a Titan Amanda TEC cooler which seems to be sensitive to ambient temps.

Strange thing when I was playing around in Bios to start with, I think it was under "Main" and "System Information" that it gave basic info, but one of the lines it had was Max Speed and it was listed as 3800, but now I can not find that line after I have played with it some. Perhaps that was on the old bios and now that I flashed to 0304, that no longer displays. I promise I did not imagine it!

I am going to play around some this afternoon and see what sort of max bus speed I can come up with by lowering the multiplier down to 6 and trying different RAM. I have OCZ plat Rev2 Cas4 and Corsair XMS2 Cas4 RAM both to try out.

 

[Zardnok]

Max bus speed I can get with OCZ Plat Rev 2 is 499. Anything over 500 locks up and I have to reset.

For some reason CPU-Z does not report my RAM timings. Any ideas on why? Wonder if Memset will work on P35 chipset??

Bus clocking is boring... Gonna see if I can get anything else out of this chip...

EDIT: Apparently memset does not work for P35.

 

[1ManArmY]

What bios version are you guys using? What is the difference from 0123 vs 0304? What is version 0202 on ASUS website? How com there are no release notes for 0304? Is the 0304 bios from Asia or Europe?


Okay I'm done.

 

[Zardnok]

I am using 0304. I do not know what the benefit of using it is, but in surfing other enthusiast sites and reading through what folks are doing with their P5K boards, most have flashed to the 0304 bios. Some are even using 0307, but there are problems with this one, so I am using the latest version bios that folks are reporting no problems on.

As for where I got it, I followed a link at XS Forums. Check the mobo forums here and I have a link posted under my thread there discussing this mobo to the new bios.

 

[Zardnok]

BTW, update on the afternoon, I got it Orthos stable for 4 hours at 3.656 using 1.525Vcore. The temps were mid-50s and I decided I was uncomfortable with the Voltage and the temps, so I backed it down to 3.4 and 1.4Vcore for "daily driving".

Final system specs:

E6420 @ 3.4GHZ @ 1.4Vcore w/ Titan Amanda TEC cooler
Asus P5K Deluxe
OCZ Plat Rev.2 PC2-6400 2X1GB
Corsair XMS2 PC2-6400C4 2X1GB
EVGA 8800gts 640
Corsair HX520 PSU
WD Raptor 150
WD SATA 250
Lite-on DVD burner
TT Armor case

 

[AnotherGuy]

nice job... have my p5k vanilla ordered tonite... who knows when it gets here maybe end of next week... since the memorial day, with an e4300.... I wish i can get 400 x 8 = 3.2ghz with a freezer 7 pro. Id be happy with that but i guess even 3.0 i should be satisfied.

 

[1ManArmY]

Originally posted by: Zardnok
BTW, update on the afternoon, I got it Orthos stable for 4 hours at 3.656 using 1.525Vcore. The temps were mid-50s and I decided I was uncomfortable with the Voltage and the temps, so I backed it down to 3.4 and 1.4Vcore for "daily driving".

Final system specs:

E6420 @ 3.4GHZ @ 1.4Vcore w/ Titan Amanda TEC cooler
Asus P5K Deluxe
OCZ Plat Rev.2 PC2-6400 2X1GB
Corsair XMS2 PC2-6400C4 2X1GB
EVGA 8800gts 640
Corsair HX520 PSU
WD Raptor 150
WD SATA 250

I have mine E6600 running at 3.2 (8 X 404) 4-4-4-12 1.385 Vcore bios 0123
will post's specifics later. I had her at 3.6 with 1.4 Vcore for 10 hrs but decided it wasn't necessary to OC that high at this time so I just wanted to run the memory at specs

This is an awesome board, well worth it.

 

[gandoron]

I just built a P5K Deluxe + e6420 over the weekend.

Becareful about the 0304 bios. I believe that's for a p5k, not p5k Deluxe. I flashed to 0304, then reflashed to the newest BIOS from the Asus website for p5k Deluxe, which was 0202.

I'm getting a lot of inconsistant readings across a lot of different applications. Currently, I'm using CPU-Z for CPU Ghz, FSB, and voltage... and CoreTemp for my temps (TAT won't run on my machine). CPU-Z 1.40 is not reading my memory correctly...CAS is 33.0, I believe this is a P35 issue.

Right now I'm running
3.395@485x7 1.475 Volts (set on auto voltage in Bios)
my PC-6400 memory is running 1:1 at 970, but I can't tell what the real memory timings are. Any idea what app I can use to read this?

I'm using an Ultra-120 Ex, idle 32, load 51 (I lapped the core and HSF, then used AS5)

I can also run stable at 3.6@450x8, but I'm unable to get my CPU past this...will try to increase voltage later this evening.

Does the e6420 have a FSB max?
Also, I have voltage spreading on in the BIOS. Any idea what this does?