M4A88TD-V EVO - Setup Questions for O/C & Performance

[Van G]

Bare with me as this is the first hardware upgrade in a number of years. I've put the following in my box:
M4A88TD-V
X6 1055T
8 GB DDR3 1333
MSI N240GT-MD1G/D5
4Gx2|GSKILL F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL
Crucual C300 128GB FW 006

I've installed Win 7 Ulitmate 64 bit with the SSD on Port 1 (AHCI) and my other SATA's plugged into 2,3,6 (various sizes Seagate drives).

My likely simple questions:

1. If I want to manually O/C to approx 3600 MHz, do I need to use the toggles on the mobo for "Turbo Key II" and "Core Unlocker?" From what I understand these are to be used with the Asus software tweaking tools that I've been advised to go without.

2. Power Management: Is Asus EPU a good tool in the Auto Mode?

3. Which drivers off the Asus CD should I use? Which should I leave to Windows Update? Which should I seek from vendor?

4. My end setup will be 2 or 3 SATA drives in RAID for storage/scratch? Should I use the BIOS to setup the RAID or Win 7? Does it matter what port the SSD (system) is on when doing the above RAID (1 or 5)?


Appreciate any feedback and will give more info if required.

 

[Sunny129]

i can't answer questions 2 through 4, but regarding question 1, you don't need Turbo Key II. it is a feature that automatically OC's your CPU (and perhaps various other components...i don't know). when i first powered up my new system, it told me that my 1090T was running @ 3700MHz (my mobo is ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3), and i could not figure it out for the life of me until i stumbled across the toggle switch on the motherboard that enables/disables Turbo Key II. so obviously you don't want to use if if your plan is to OC manually. as regards core unlocker, you obviously don't need that either b/c your CPU has no locked cores on it - on your CPU, all 6 cores are enabled. just make sure the LEDs next to each toggle switch aren't lit up, and you'll know they're in the off position.

 

[Van G]

I ran the OC Tune Utility out of the bios just to see what sort of results it would produce and it had setup for 3248MHz but I've seen the some YT vidz of them being clocked at 4K.

Not sure if Turbo features of the board are similar to Gigabyte features but they aim to OC 3 of the 6 cores instead as opposed to all 6.

I've turned the Turbo Key II and Core Unlocker off.

Still looking to address Q's 2-4

 

[Van G]

Answer to Q4: Each Sata port/channel is independent, it's not like the old IDE where you had a couple channels and the channel speed was bumped down to the slowest device on the channel.

So I have AHCI setup for all Sata ports (no sata optical drive) which will be changed to RAID when I have the other drives
Crucial C300 SSD is on port 1
2 or more drives will form the RAID 0 and will be configured through the Bios.

Which leads to Question 5: what back up volume will I need for 1.5 TB of data and 100 GB of system drive? I'm assuming an eSata or NAS with some software is the right choice?

 

[Van G]

Still looking for definitive answers to 2 & 3.