Need help configuring P7P55D motherboard bios

[MonstroMart]

Hi!

My old computer died (the MB) a month ago and i just got this week the new parts i ordered. I bought a P7P55D motherboard with a Core i5 and 4GB of Corsair DDR3 Dominator memory (8-8-8-24 got a deal on these). I also replaced my old 8800GTX with a brand new and completely shiny XFX Radeon 5850 to get the HDMI audio out since i'm using my PC as a media center Love this card so far.

After flashing the bios to the last version, re-installing Windows 7 and the MB drivers i quickly opened CPU-Z to see if the MB recognized my hardware corectly (it almost always never perfect) and found that some numbers was weird.

I must admit i'm a little lost with things like XMP, QPI and such.

For one the bus speed reported by CPU-Z is 133MHz. Weird from what i recall my old Opteron 180 bus speed was 200MHz ... could be wrong is it normal ? Also the core speed reported is 1203.7MHz. Is it the core speed of the cpu ? If yes why it's not at 2.67GHz like Windows tell me in the system properties ?

I have DDR3 at 668.8MHz frequency. Since the bus speed is at 133Mhz and this is DDR3 why it's not working at 3x133MHz ? From what i recall my old system had DDR2 400 memory working at twice the speed of the bus (2x200MHz = 400MHz).

I'm really completely lost with this new DDR3 memory.

My ram is set at 9-9-9-24 while it is supposed to be 8-8-8-24. From what i understand i need to enable XMP setting in my bios but by doing so my ram will have a frequency of 800Mhz so how is it possible with a bus speed of only 133MHz ?

Also in my MB manual it is said when enabling XMP to use only one ram module by channel so am i going to lose dual channel ? If yes is XMP worth it over dual channel ? Do i need to set anything else in the bios while enabling XMP since the ram will work at a higher frequency than the system from what i understand (or not understand) ?

Last n00b question there's 2 settings in the bios i'm not sure if i need to disable. Intel Speedstep Tech and Intel TurboMode tech­. From the small description in the bios it's not really things i would want to use but dunno a better explantion than 3 words would probably help me to understand what both are exactly doing.

Thz in advance to all knowledgable people who will spend time answering these n00b questions.

 

[ehume]

Hi MM. I'm a recent inductee myself, so I've been where you are.

First of all, you want to enable the Turbo Boost, Speed step, EIST, the various C states, etc. The turbo is what kicks you chip into fast territory when it needs to do extra work. The other stuff slows down your chip when there is nothing much to do, and protects your chip from excessive temps.

Don't enable XMP until you know what you are doing.

Your memory is dual channel. I suppose you could disable a channel, but you'd have to work hard to do so.

If you want your RAM down at 8-8-8-24, you will probably have to set it there manually.

Your DDR3 memory is double data rate, which means that 1600MHz DDR3 is running at 800MHz inside the RAM. That's why stuff that reports from inside the memory gives you rates that are half what the system sees.

Your memory controller on the 750 is capped at 10 x BCLK. That means you will only get 10 x 133 = 1333MHz DDR3 - which will get reported from inside the RAM as 667MHz or so. To get a higher DDR3 speed, you will have to increase the BCLK, which is something you should not do yet. For example, my memory is rated at DDR3 2000MHz. For that I would need 12 x 167MHz (my 860 allows a 12x multiplier) but I am unwilling to run that fast with the limited cooling I have. So I run at 12 x 133MHz, or DDR3 = 1600MHz.

Hope this helps.

 

[MonstroMart]

Hi MM. I'm a recent inductee myself, so I've been where you are.

First of all, you want to enable the Turbo Boost, Speed step, EIST, the various C states, etc. The turbo is what kicks you chip into fast territory when it needs to do extra work. The other stuff slows down your chip when there is nothing much to do, and protects your chip from excessive temps.

Don't enable XMP until you know what you are doing.

Your memory is dual channel. I suppose you could disable a channel, but you'd have to work hard to do so.

If you want your RAM down at 8-8-8-24, you will probably have to set it there manually.

Your DDR3 memory is double data rate, which means that 1600MHz DDR3 is running at 800MHz inside the RAM. That's why stuff that reports from inside the memory gives you rates that are half what the system sees.

Your memory controller on the 750 is capped at 10 x BCLK. That means you will only get 10 x 133 = 1333MHz DDR3 - which will get reported from inside the RAM as 667MHz or so. To get a higher DDR3 speed, you will have to increase the BCLK, which is something you should not do yet. For example, my memory is rated at DDR3 2000MHz. For that I would need 12 x 167MHz (my 860 allows a 12x multiplier) but I am unwilling to run that fast with the limited cooling I have. So I run at 12 x 133MHz, or DDR3 = 1600MHz.

Hope this helps.

Thx ehume yes it does help a lot

Oh DDR3 is still double data rate. Just a new version of it. Logical is not it? I feel really dumb right now rofl. I focused on the number 3 too much

Ok so the memory controller is capped at 10x133Mhz and from the memory spd reported by CPU-Z my ram is correctly configured by the MB. To run it at 8-8-8-24 i would need to enable xmp in my MB bios OC settings which would "overlock" my base clock frequency at 160Mhz to run the ram at 800Mhz (10x160) right? Not really a good idea even if i have an Antec 9000 case. Could probably also set it manually to 8-8-8-24 i guess without using xmp profile so the frequency stay at 667Mhz.

There's still something not clear to me.

Why CPU-Z report a core clock speed of 1203Mhz for the CPU ?

 

[kranky]

For some reason your multiplier is 9 when it should be 20. (20x133=2.66Ghz, the stock speed for an i5-750 CPU).

 

[MonstroMart]

For some reason your multiplier is 9 when it should be 20. (20x133=2.66Ghz, the stock speed for an i5-750 CPU).

Is it because of Intel Speedstep Tech ?

The bios says the multiplier is 20 but once i'm in windows the multiplier is reduced automatically.

 

[ehume]

CPU-Z reports a CPU speed of 1200MHz because the CPU is loafing. I often get that result with my machine. By design, it drops down when it is not doing anything strenuous.

But you do need to check in your BIOS to make sure the default CPU multiplier is at 20x.

As for those memory timings, do NOT try the XMP unless you are ready to have your machine not boot. With my MB, when the machine fails POST it goes to the default settings. I have never had to do a BIOS reset to reboot. But you and I use boards by different manufacturers.

To change memory timings you use the detailed settings available in your BIOS (I have seen the reviews; you have that capacity) and tweak the first three numbers - change 9-9-9-24 to 8-8-8-24. If you have 1N/1T vs 2N/2T, leave that at default for now.

While you are in your BIOS, explore every corner while changing nothing. That way you learn what is available for changing.

 

[MonstroMart]

Thx a lot ehume for the help.

Yep the multiplier in the bios is 20. I did a test by starting a blu-ray movie and cpu-z at the same time and the multiplier dynamically changed from 9x to 16x at the beginning then went down to 12x.

I think i'll leave memory setting as they are right now. I tried to run Oblivion, Fallout 3 and The Witcher and the only thing i can say is this computer doesn't really need help running games right now at 1680x1050

Thx again

 

[dajeepster]

do a bios update.. current is version 1207
and do a chipset update also... this will help alleviate a few random problems... both can be found at support.asus.com

I'm running both the P7P55D Deluxe and P7P55D Pro with i860s.