E8400 and 965 chipset not so fast? (P5B Deluxe Wifi)

[m1k30rz]

SO I managed to score a ASUS P5B Deluxe WiFi board, decided to put this with a nice shiny new E8400, 4gb DDR2-800 and 2x 320gb Seagate drives in a RAID0 stripe set (128k stripe).

Now I figured this would be a big upgrade from my old AMD 5200+ X2 system (same RAM, HDD's, RAID set etc, just different mobo/cpu)....

But I am wrong, I hardly notice a difference at all, I'm running Windows 7 RC1. it just doesn't feel that fast, and when accessing the hard drive it seems real held up by it as if it were a huge bottle neck.

The other thing is the board set to auto for the CPU settings thinks its a 2.4ghz, yet I'm running latest BIOS which is supposed to support it according to ASUS website.
After doing some reading, turns out you have to manually set the FSB to 333 and DDR2-667 for the memory this brings it to a 1:1 ratio.

That works fine, I get my 3ghz. Still not fast though?

SO I decided I wanted my DDR2-800 to actually run at 800.. I set it to DDR2-833 (thats the next one up from DDR2-667) and it just bluescreens like a b1tch constantly. I even tried upping the voltage to 1.9 and 1.95, no difference.

Yet in my old AMD board I had the CPU running about 40mhz more on the FSB with no issue and the RAM I manged to get up close to DDR2-1066 passing perfectly in MemTest86+...

So is my motherboard just too old and crap? If I should be getting a new one, whats the best one perfomance wise without breaking the bank?? and gigabyte boards are out of the question, they seem to be rubbish.

Cheers for the help

 

[cusideabelincoln]

Something is off. I'd say there might be a problem with your RAID setup or the RAID controller, if you're just going by "feel".

Otherwise, you should probably run some CPU-only benchmarks to see if the CPU (and memory) is indeed performing as it should.

If you were to get a new board, then any with the Intel P45 chipset should work fine for you, since this is the newest and last mainstream chipset for Core 2.

 

[elconejito]

The bluescreen with 4GB+ running over 800mhz is a known problem. Look up the "offical p5b" thread and scan the last few pages for more info.

Other than that, I'm not sure how much of a difference you were looking for. the AMD chip was running at 2.6 and the e8400 runs at 3Ghz. I don't think it will be a drastic difference unless you overclock it.

If you want a different board, almost any of the P45 based boards will do. If you want to do overclocking then look at the Gigabyte UD3R or UD3P.

 

[betasub]

if you're just going by "feel".

Seems like it. Not a great metric for judging upgrade performance. Benchmarks at least can provide a guide to what's slower/the same/faster after the upgrade.

Even though you've moved to a CPU without IMC, I doubt the processor is the culprit. O-board / software RAID, perhaps?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

If you plan to replace the P5B, I agree with the Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3(x) recommendation. Good board, low price.

I've been working with nVidia chipsets mostly for the last few years, and just got the P45 chipset in the UD3R version of the Gigabyte board for another machine. Why do I mention that? Because the nVidia 680i worked great with an E8400 Wolfdale, once the BIOS had been updated. And a P965 chipset -- touted to be Wolfdale compatible -- should at least show the same compatibility with the Wolfdale and no problems such as your impressions suggest.

As for the blue-screens, are you sure that the setting for the DDR2 is compensated by an other-than- 1 : 1 CPU-to-RAM ratio? If you're not that familiar with the BIOS -- even on the old P965 chipset -- you should probably check and see. Don't have the specs for the P5B in front of me, but you'd think the board would choose the correct settings for the CPU host-frequency and FSB speed, together with the SPD specs in the DDR2-800 RAM.

Considering these latter concerns, I found this passage introducing a review of the P5B motherboard posted in 2006:

ASUS P5B has four DDR2-DIMM sockets, supporting up to 8 GB officially up to DDR2-800, however this motherboard supports DDR2-1066/PC2-8500 memories (we installed four DDR2-1066 modules and they worked just fine at 1,066 MHz). On this motherboard sockets 1 and 3 are yellow and sockets 2 and 4 are black. Configuring DDR2 dual channel on this motherboard is pretty easy: just install each module on a socket with the same color.

EDIT: ONE MORE THING!!! VERY IMPORTANT!!

You may be using the same Seagate 320GB drives I used to set up a RAID0 on one of my machines with an nVidia 780i chipset. The chipset doesn't matter: what I discovered -- and only after one of the drives failed prematurely (unrelated to what I'm about to explain) -- was that I had not changed the jumper settings to enable 300GB/sec SATA. I think the drives shipped with 150GB/sec SATA enabled.

 

[Lean L]

way too subjective... test the cpus with actual benchmarks instead of how it feels

 

[m1k30rz]

Okay so I managed to get my FSB up to 399 and RAM at DDR2-800, all normal voltages, should I be increasing the voltage of the cpu any?? it seems stable, ran 3dmark06 and got over 12k which I think is pretty good? 8800gt in my machine

 

[m1k30rz]

also voltage is set to auto, but in CPUID it says 1.568 volts?? isn't that way too high? what should it be and how do I fix it?

 

[BonzaiDuck]

Originally posted by: m1k30rz
also voltage is set to auto, but in CPUID it says 1.568 volts?? isn't that way too high? what should it be and how do I fix it?

If this is a fairly recent version of CPUID/CPU-Z that you're using, then I must tell you . . . . ABSO-FREAKIN-TIVELY, POSi-FREAKIN-LUTELY -- YES!! IT IS TOO . . . FREAKIN' . . . HIGH, MY MAN!!

Let me . . . suppress my animated behavior for a moment, and suggest to you that you need to do some not-so-light reading -- starting with Graysky's Over-Clocking sticky. If the "Auto" setting of the motherboard is pushing the VCORE to 1.568V, and IF the reading from CPU-Z is accurate, then you are on the verge of frying that chip -- your E8400.

What does the BIOS Monitor tell you about the sensor reading for VCORE?

The safe range for the E8400 is 0.85 to 1.3625V. You need to set the voltage within that range, keep an eye on the monitored VCORE value (which will differ from the "set" value), and proceed more slowly with your over-clocking effort.

EDIT: There should be a VCORE or CPU voltage setting among the other voltage settings under an "over-volting" or similarly labeled BIOS menu/sub-menu. Frankly, this should've been fixed and taken off "Auto" from the git-go.

The procedure that I follow is to make note of all the BIOS Monitor readings when the entire configuration is set to default -- running the memory and CPU at stock settings (and, in this case, the E8400 so that it is shown to be running at 3.0 Ghz.) With what your motherboard SEEMS to have done to the voltage under "Auto," I might not even trust the reported value at "stock" settings. Generally, Auto settings notoriously tend to be higher than they need to be.

Probably a good place to start, once you've done a little more reading and convinced yourself to proceed more slowly, is a fixed setting around 1.30V. And check the BIOS Monitor and CPU-Z to verify that this "set" value returns a reading that is fairly close to that -- even if lower.

 

[Pneumothorax]

Your problem is you're running a TOO OLD version of the bios. I did the same thing as you when I tried to run my brand new E8500 in my P5B deluxe and just about crapped in my pants when I saw the 1.56+ Volts in CPUZ!! I'm not up to date on the P5B + 45nm Wolfie situation, but I believe only the latest Beta Bios on the p5b deluxe supports stable 45nm operation. After flashing the bios, my P5B finally put the correct core voltage when set to the AUTO setting. IMHO, I'd put in an older 65nm Core or even a P4 chip in their and re-flash the bios, then put your E8400 in there. BTW the E8500 E0 never was a good overclocker after I hit it with such high voltage.

PS It's the 1238 BETA Bios. MAKE SURE U UPGRADE TO THIS BEFORE running your E8400 again.

 

[m1k30rz]

Running the latest version of CPUID, latest BIOS 1238 BETA.

Yeah I thought that was the case I hope it has not damaged it. Why the hell is the BIOS's AUTO setting, causing it to run so freakin high? Even using the BIOS with everything set to Auto it runs 1.568... that seems mental!

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: m1k30rz
Running the latest version of CPUID, latest BIOS 1238 BETA.

Yeah I thought that was the case I hope it has not damaged it. Why the hell is the BIOS's AUTO setting, causing it to run so freakin high? Even using the BIOS with everything set to Auto it runs 1.568... that seems mental!

45nm wasn't available when 965p was introduced, not by a long shot. It's rather amazing that it works at all

 

[m1k30rz]

Woop woop, set the voltage to 1.20 volts in the BIOS, set the FSB to 401mhz and the DDR at 800, (well 801 lol) and now it runs MINT super quick, no crashing, ran 3dmark06 in a loop all night no worries

 

[LoneNinja]

What tasks are you not seeing improvement in? Most tasks are bottlenecked by things other than the cpu. For basic computer use and simple tasks I can't feel a difference between 1.5Ghz and 3.0Ghz with my Phenom.

You really should run some benchmarks.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: LoneNinja
What tasks are you not seeing improvement in? Most tasks are bottlenecked by things other than the cpu. For basic computer use and simple tasks I can't feel a difference between 1.5Ghz and 3.0Ghz with my Phenom.

You really should run some benchmarks.

A bit late to the party, he's got it settled. CPU was massively overvolted due to running on P965 with a beta bios with defaults for 65nm cpus, and it was most likely throttling due to ridiculous heat.