KT400 doubts

[sycomantis]

Hello All,
I just bought myself a ASUS A7V8X-X motherboard. I guess it is the same as A7V8x except for the fact that the extra features such as raid, sata etc are not there. Moreover it uses soundmax ADI1980 codec for the sound. I have a few doubts. I wanted to pair this up with an Athlon XP 1700+ JIUHB. The main reason being overclocking. My doubts are ?

1. I have a ThermalTake Volcano 9. What is the maximum temperature that i can let my processor go ?My room temps are at 35c.

2. Do I have to unlock the multiplier ? I heard for KT400 and nforce2 I dont have to unlock. Can anyone please confirm this.

3. The board does not allow me to change the RAM voltage. Can I use the A7V8X bios to enable that feature.

I cannot change the components because I had to spend a considerable amount of money to get these. I am in India and there is no way I can get a better fan. Heck I cant even get proper thermal paste. Under these considerations how much would you advise me to overclock. I have a Gainward Ti4200 Golden Sample. Moreover my ATX cabinet is not very big either.

What exactly do you mean by burn in. Does running prime95 for 1 day continuously constitute a good burn in ?

Thanx a lot.
Syco

 

[sycomantis]

Can anyone also suggest me a sound card. A live 5.1 DE good enough ? It retails for $55 here(converted from rupees).

 

[ScrapSilicon]

^

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: sycomantis

1. I have a ThermalTake Volcano 9. What is the maximum temperature that i can let my processor go ?My room temps are at 35c.

It seems most OC'd T-Breds start to lose stability @ 50C. Your TT Volcano 9 should be able to provide some OC'ing headroom, but temps will increase the higher you OC and the more voltage you feed the core (Vcore setting in the BIOS).

2. Do I have to unlock the multiplier ? I heard for KT400 and nforce2 I dont have to unlock. Can anyone please confirm this.

I don't own a KT400, but its my understanding that the KT400 does unlock all multipliers like the nForce2 boards. However, I don't think this will make too much of a difference as the stock multiplier of the 1700+ (11x) is well-suited for high FSB overclocks. If you can't adjust the multiplier, you should still be able to achieve a nice overclock by raising the FSB.

3. The board does not allow me to change the RAM voltage. Can I use the A7V8X bios to enable that feature.

The option should be in the BIOS. I've owned 4 different Asus boards, and I've been able to adjust RAM voltage on all of them. The RAM voltage will be "Vdimm" in the BIOS. I wouldn't go higher than 2.7V unless your memory mfg. specifically says the dimm can handle more than that (more than 2.7V usually voids your warranty).

I cannot change the components because I had to spend a considerable amount of money to get these. I am in India and there is no way I can get a better fan. Heck I cant even get proper thermal paste. Under these considerations how much would you advise me to overclock. I have a Gainward Ti4200 Golden Sample. Moreover my ATX cabinet is not very big either.

You should be able to achieve a nice overclock with your set-up. How well you do will depend on the stepping of the 1700+, as the latest T-bred B's seem to be doing much better than ones produced earlier in the year.

What exactly do you mean by burn in. Does running prime95 for 1 day continuously constitute a good burn in ?

People still believe in burn-in, similar to breaking in a car. I tend to take the "grip it and rip it" approach. I prefer to push it and then test for stability. when I think I've reached a stable Overclock, I'll run stress tests like Prime95 to ensure it stable. Some people may consider my approach to be burn-in, others run stress tests at default speeds to burn their CPUs in. Your call on that one.

As for the sound card, I'm not sure what the product is. Sound Blaster Live 5.1? If so, I would try out the onboard 6-CH sound and see if you like it or not. It sounds like computer components are expensive and hard to come by where you are, so make do with what you have unless you find it unsuitable. I don't know anything about the onboard for the KT400, but I'm guessing it will be similar to a SBLive! at this point.

Chiz

 

[sycomantis]

The A7V8x-x just sucks. The performance is amazingly low. I seriously dont how why ASUS made it so bad. Regarding all my benchmarks it is much slower than my previous board which was a nforce1220D. I have tried to reduce memory timings. Done everything I could think of but no luck. Anyone has a similar experience ?