Doobie's Abit BE7 i845PE

[DoobieOnline]

First of all, this is a great board! Thanks to Thugs and PJ for the excellent posts that really helped make installation and OC'ing a breeze. Check out their threads for some great information and benchmarks! I wanted to do more testing, but the 2.88GHz (stable) at 160 FSB that my 1.8A C1 maxed out at on my Epox 4G4A+ is the same OC I achieved with the BE7 so I'll just post the benchies that I ran at that speed. Vcore increases got me up to 163 FSB, but for everything to be rock-solid and cooler temps I settled on 160. The good news is the Abit is running the cpu that high with 1.55V versus 1.64V (actual voltages) on the Epox, and I am finally able to take full advantage of my stick of Corsair XMS3200. At 160 FSB, the Epox would only let me run the cpu/ram at 1:1, but the Abit lets me run it at 3:4 which equates to DDR426 (2-2-2-5 @ 2.7V). I am not having any cold or warm boot issues now (knock on wood). The ONLY boot issue that I experienced is when I pressed the reset button from a DOS prompt (using an ME boot disk) before installing XP. I lost video, but the system continued to boot from the floppy so I waited until the drive finished reading, hit control+alt+delete, and it rebooted with no problems. I've restarted maybe 30 times from within XP, and had 3 or 4 cold boots - all at 2.88GHz, and all without issue except the one mentioned.

System Specs
Abit BE7 i845PE (160 FSB, PCI/AGP locked at 33/66)
1.8A C1 SL6LA @ 2.88GHz (1.55V, 42.5c idle)
Alpha PAL8942T (ASII, 32CFM AVC fan set to suck)
Corsair XMS3200 512MB (single stick, DDR426, 2-2-2-5, 2.7V)
Gainward GF4 Ti4600 (40.72 Det's, 315/730)
Audigy 2
WDSE 80GB
Antec SLK3700AMB (430W TruePower PSU, 120mm exhaust with 7V mod)
Lite-On 48x12x48
Win XP Pro (SP1)

I just went straight for the max stable OC, so here are the results at 2.88GHz (160 FSB, DDR426 @ 2-2-2-5):

Sandra Memory: 3256/3256

Sandra CPU Multimedia: 11534/14296

Sandra CPU Arithmetic: Drystone - 5848, Whetstone - 1557/3604

3DMark2001SE: 14757 woo-hoo! (default benchmark)

UT2003: Flyby - 180, Botmatch - 74 (1024x768)

Wish I could've made it to 3GHz, and still may if I get courageous and try the Vcore U-mod that Thugs recommended. I don't know if it would do any good since I was only able to boot into XP successfully at 163 FSB and even bumping up the Vcore to +15% didn't do anything to get it higher. 160 is good and I'm happy as heck to be hitting DDR426 at such aggressive timings, so I'm in no way disappointed. This board is solid and comes highly recommended.

 

[THUGSROOK]

you might wanna drop down to the 4:5 ratio to go higher then 160fsb.
using the +15% voltage should not be a problem unless youre still using the stock HSF.
this board kinda maxes out @ 167-170fsb so you may as well go for them.

HTH

 

[Mikki]

Nice oc, bud! I agree with Thugsrook, and I'm interested how far you can go fsb-wise...

 

[jpetermann]

Way to go DoobieOnline!!!

Glad to see your results. It is an awesome board, and VERY easy to o'clock. Let us know if you get it any higher with the 4/5.

PJ

 

[DoobieOnline]

Thanks guys! Yeah, I actually had it set to 4:5 when I was initially trying to increase FSB but it was a no-go. I switched to 3:4 because I wanted to at least push the RAM as far as I could. I tried the +15% Vcore option which gave me 1.68-1.69V actual but still couldn't get past 163 FSB (this is all with the Alpha installed). I'd be happy to try other suggestions if you have them!

Edit: my girlfriend beat me to the computer this morning, but still no cold boot issues! (keeps fingers crossed)

 

[Mikki]

If you havethe time, I just wanna know how far your cpu will go on that board, if you go 1:1 and give us a look at how far it'll go that'd be cool...

 

[DoobieOnline]

Hey Mikki, the highest I was able to get to (stable) at 1:1 was 2.95GHz with 164 FSB (Sandra reported it as 2.97GHz & 165 FSB) by bumping the Vcore to +15% (1.7Vcore actual). I also installed the new 41.04 WHQL Det's for XP today. Here are the benchmarks:

Sandra Memory: 2458/2457
Sandra CPU Multimedia: 11835/14686
UT2003: Flyby - 181.78 Botmatch - 72.26
3DMark2001SE: 14583

Not too shabby but I decided to stay at 160 FSB, 3:4 ratio for the additional gaming performance.

One setting in bios I don't have a clue about is "Differential Current" with available settings of 4X Iref, 6X, 5X, 7X, Default. Mine is set to default because that's the way it was and I didn't want to change it before knowing what it does. Anyone know?

 

[Mikki]

Cool, thanks Doobie, and nice work!

 

[Toymaker]

Nice work Doobie. I aways enjoy a good motherboard wringing out.

 

[THUGSROOK]

we dont know what it does
5x gave me the best benchmarks.

 

[DoobieOnline]

Thanks guys! 160 FSB, DDR426 is peachy with me and I'll take a 60% OC any day. I'll probably hold on to this board for a month or two until Granite Bay and 2.xxGHz C1's fall a bit $-wise. It's been a lot of fun playing with it this weekend and now I need another project!

 

[DoobieOnline]

[shameless plug] I've got my Epox 4G4A+ up for grabs in the for sale forum here. Let me know if anyone's interested! [/shameless plug]