No current bios allows for more than 1.55vcore on A8N SLI or MSI!

[Robowang]

Guys, I don't have an ASUS NF4, But have had 2 Gigabyte SLI and had 2 MSI SLI (still have one), I gotta tell you, the NF4 is far from being mature. However I do agree with Housecat.
The MSI Platinium SLI board has the same limitation. No matter what you set the bios for, you can't get over 1.55 (actually closer to 1.52 as measured by numerous apps, including the bios) The original bios had settings for up to 1.75. But wouldn't hit it, Next bios had settings for 1.65, still no go. Next bios (3.0) STILL has settings for 1.6, still the same limitation. Now, I have 2 Winchester core cpu's. One is the newest stepping and a poor overclocker even in the gigabyte's, but the older stepping will do 2674 at 1.52 (highest the MSI will do). With 1.65, there's a good chance it will go over 2700mhz. Ain't going to happen with this board. So, A DFI is coming this week.
So if you are going to bypass the ASUS board for the 1.5 limitation, bypass the MSI, also.
Now, this where I agree with Housecat. When I first did my research, All the indications were that the MSI could provide vcore to 1.75. So considering I just bought this gear as something to play with, I thought the MSI was going to be good fun. But, now I feel disgusted because I was duped into buying this board based on the Hype of MSI O'clock abilities, which were just not there. I WOULD not have bought this board if MSI had not had settings in it's bios (as shown by all the review sites) that it could do. And they are still releasing bios that is doing nothing except gradually lowering the settings in bios.
I know how Housecat feels, and will be glad to get the DFI as obviously, the ASUS has the same problems. Thanx for the heads up, as I actually was thinking that the ASUS would be next if the DFI proved to be a bust.

 

[Tanclearas]

Not really sure what you're hoping to gain from volts so high. My 3200+ is already running at 2.4GHz, and I still haven't upped my volts anywhere near 1.55.

And, yes, you are whining....

No need for all of the !!!!'s and CAPS in the title. WE CAN READ YOUR OPINION JUST FINE WITHOUT THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!

 

[Robowang]

Tanclearas
Well, lucky you. Here you are, overclocking, and then giving guys who are overclocking sh!t. That is a close minded and arrogant attitude. In fact, you sound like a 10 year old. Go play with the rest of the little boys and leave the overclocking to the real men who don't mind pushing things to the limit. I just finished putting a vcore mod and a vdimm mod on my rig. You probably don't have the nads for any of that.
Nobody's whining here. Just want what we paid for and what was advertised, so jump off, bro.

 

[FastEddie]

I just finished putting a vcore mod and a vdimm mod on my rig. You probably don't have the nads for any of that.
Nobody's whining here. Just want what we paid for and what was advertised, so jump off, bro.

I wouldn't recommend any mods to housecat, he'll start whining again, (like when I recommended modding a bios file to get back the vcore adjustment in the bios).

 

[Robowang]

FastEddie and Tanclearas
I don't have a problem using hacked bios'. Or doing mods to the hardware. But, I actually do appreciate the info he put in this post. I wouldn't take just one man's word about a problem like this, but this isn't the first time I read it. I will pass on the ASUS unless the Premium board has removed the vcore limitation. It's my personal decision not to buy it based on the facts and the vcore IS an issue for me. Maybe no one else cares, but I do. I actually have gotten another clue from this post. I should have figured it out for myself, but something just clicked. Apparently ASUS and MSI have put a flag in their bios to prevent overvolts to the Winchester core. Of course, I haven't seen this documented by ASUS or MSI. My bud has a FX-53 and the same mb and he can get 1.7 out of all the bios, so it's not a vcore hardware limitation as I was convinced it was. Very interesting. The vcore mod still only gives me around 1.68 vcore before the overvolt protection kicks in. But now, My 3200+ retail is happily running 2854 as I type this. At 1.53, it was walled at 2674. I know it's a lot of risk and trouble for a 200mhz increase, but it's what I wanted to do. My money, my hardware, and my decision. I don't see the need to explain myself to anyone, and neither do you. Is that agreeable?

 

[FastEddie]

I agree, hence my suggestion to mod the bios file to eliminate that flag. To me, that's not going to "absolutely ridiculous" lengths to get what one wants, but appearantly housecat thought it was and more than insulted me letting me know it.

And during the past couple of years, DFI has taken over in releasing some of the best oc'ing boards available. When the A8N Sli Deluxe was released, it was the only board available for quite some time. So all the whining about bad asus for changing the bios and not giving me a magic one by sunday is a crock of crap. I mean, get a grip housecat. Move on to a better overclocking board if that's your choice and may your oc's never crash and burn, but quite acting like it's some conspiricy by Asus to get just housecat's money. :roll: :laugh:

 

[Tanclearas]

Originally posted by: Robowang
Tanclearas
Well, lucky you. Here you are, overclocking, and then giving guys who are overclocking sh!t. That is a close minded and arrogant attitude. In fact, you sound like a 10 year old. Go play with the rest of the little boys and leave the overclocking to the real men who don't mind pushing things to the limit. I just finished putting a vcore mod and a vdimm mod on my rig. You probably don't have the nads for any of that.
Nobody's whining here. Just want what we paid for and what was advertised, so jump off, bro.

Ummm... what? What the hell are you talking about? At what point was I "giving guys who are overclocking sh!t"? I simply stated that I've managed a decent OC without needing to go anywhere near the 1.55 limit. The only "shit" I was giving was with respect to the excessive use of exclamation points (you know.. those "!" things...) and capital letters.

As for the needing nads comment, well, brains are more effective than nads. But then again, guessing at your age, that's probably about where your brains are. Let me guess... you apply 1.65v even if it's not needed? Smart. Real smart.

 

[housecat]

FastEddie, just leave man. You arent helping a soul besides bumping the thread.

People DO want to know this information.. much to your disbelief.

I just wanted to let the community know, and here you are trolling around just arguing for no good reason.

And no one is f'n whining troll.
I payed about $200 for the Asus, and about $200 for the DFI.
I certainly have a right to let people know what surprises I found on the Asus.

Why you have a problem with this I have no idea.. but in the end you look like an a$$

If you want to use the Asus with a lack of voltage options on new bios revisions then fine.
But dont sit around point and be a troll in this therad. Then push people towards hacked bios, unless you are going to manually edit every single bios revision Asus puts out until the end of time.
We all know about editing bios, you are not the genius you think you are for suggesting that. But its a bad suggestion, I want a board with a bios done by the manufacturer engineers.

I think its fair to pay $200 for a board, and get the voltage options listed in the reviews of the boards on the new bioses.. dont you.

I just want to let people know that this board (and the MSI apparantly as well) does NOT support 1.55vcore+ from the factory.

I have little sympathy for brand loyal noobcakes who dont want this information to get out.

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: housecat
I dont know why you keep talking sh!t about OCing considering your own rig there is OC'd.

Who's talking sh!t? I have no problems with OCing. I do it myself. What I'm poitning out to you whiners is that ASUS is selling a product that does what they say it will out of the box - run your system at stock settings. That's what you paid for, that's what you get, maybe more, but not less.

Originally posted by: housecat
Thats not right, and you'd prefer to keep it all hush hush.. another day another corporate b!tch is born I guess.

lol yeah I'm totally part of the machine....FIGHT THE POWER!!!!1

 

[housecat]

Originally posted by: Insomniak
Who's talking sh!t? I have no problems with OCing. I do it myself. What I'm poitning out to you whiners is that ASUS is selling a product that does what they say it will out of the box - run your system at stock settings. That's what you paid for, that's what you get, maybe more, but not less.

Ok. Since you are willing to do anything here to defend Asus and their board..

I guess then it DOES do what it was advertised out of the box..
they just dont provide any bios updates without disabling advertised features.

Thats a whole lot better.

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: housecat

Originally posted by: Insomniak
Who's talking sh!t? I have no problems with OCing. I do it myself. What I'm poitning out to you whiners is that ASUS is selling a product that does what they say it will out of the box - run your system at stock settings. That's what you paid for, that's what you get, maybe more, but not less.

Ok. Since you are willing to do anything here to defend Asus and their board..

I guess then it DOES do what it was advertised out of the box..
they just dont provide any bios updates without disabling advertised features.

Thats a whole lot better.

Can't argue with that.

 

[cronic]

food for thought.... my fx-55 loves the volts (1.62). dfi allows mw to do this at my own risk. Thanks again DFI! By the way the A8N-SLI is the 5th ASUS motherboard, and the 6800 ultra is the 4th ASUS videocard I have owned in the last 4 years. So for me to switch brands to DFI certainly should say something. Rock on DFI!!!!!!!!!

 

[donnelly]

My abit AX8 KT890 based board is cheap and goes to 1.75. Its not marketed as an overclocker board, its brother the AN8 is.
Still it gives me more settings than premium NF4 boards like the ASUS one you mentioned.
Its common knowlege that winny cpu's need 1,6 volts to get the most
out of them, 1.55 will get a nice boost and allow ok overclock but won't give you anything like the best.

I agree that 1.55 is poor when compared to almost all nf4 boards, and although it seems that everyone has gone on the offensive
on you im sure their are many who glanced at your post and decided not to buy this board.

You keep repeating your point again and again, i think everyone who cares has got it so calm down relax im sure you have helped peeps.

The others who defend ASUS i will say this, sure they are reputable and make good boards, but sometimes they make bad boards too!

Maybe ASUS just neglected the overclocking community with a silly bios limitation due to some marketing whim about target audiences.

SLI boards are hard to get 100% stable even at default voltages and ive found most a64's won't overclock as far on them they are
more complex and introduce many more variables, maybe asus had a hard time getting it stable and wanted to reduce any unneccesarry
variables. DFI has it own fair share of problems too!

All this means that it is a barrier is meant to be overcome, thats the fun in overclocking if you need a moded bios then use it! This is how
overclocked used to be you HAD to mod the board! sometimes with an iron and solder! The more extreme still do!

Otherwise use some of that cash AMD saved you in producing such a great chip and buy a new board like the abit AX8 or whatever.

Stick that asus on ebay, give it a friend or whatever, get rid and buy something else.


I bought my abit AX8 on the fact i wanted to see what it was like, their were NO Detailed reviews"
No-one to tell me what max voltage it had, it could have very easily been another barrier but it wasn't its was great.
I was prepared to sell it on and took the risk, if you build your own pc their is always an element of risk again that should be part of the
fun of overclocking


In short
======
You have done people a favour informing them of the limitation just the way you went about it didn't get you the respect :-(
Take that as a learning experiance and move on. People are very defensive of their hardware and their company.

Good luck

D

 

[housecat]

I traditionally always used Abit boards since the Pentium 2 days.
They have been exceptional for a very long time. I'm not surprised you had good results donnelly. I decided to try Asus again for the first time since the Athlon slot A days, and was disappointed now as then.

So far we have the
ASUS, MSI- no voltage with new bios over 1.55vcore
DFI, Abit- over 1.55vcore available
Gigabyte and others- not known (so do your research on this if planning to buy one)

I'm going to add this to the OP.

I've also came to believe the best OCs come from slightly over 1.55vcore.
More like 1.6-1.65v it seems where some of the guys have gone to get those monster 2.8ghz OCs on the A64

People are very defensive of their hardware and their company.

Yes, but i find it so damn pathetic.. its a freaking motherboard. Besides I OWN the board too!!! I have equal right to "rip into" the board (if you can even call this that, I prefer calling it "TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT IT")
I would have appreciated knowing this before I bought it.

While most threads degenerate into "my hardware rocks" threads from dumbasses being defensive of their hardware... this is one of those few, useful posts that actually help someone on forums like AT.. this is very helpful information!

 

[donnelly]

pity their is no KT890 based SLI boards, but be aware that even the dfi board make give you issues, just of a different kind, its bios may not like your memory i hope it works out.

 

[housecat]

Originally posted by: donnelly
pity their is no KT890 based SLI boards, but be aware that even the dfi board make give you issues, just of a different kind, its bios may not like your memory i hope it works out.

Thats why I'm keeping the Asus until I get the DFI.. just in case I run into some strange memory incompatibility or something.

I've been wanting the DFI since before I had my Asus.
This was just the final straw.

 

[donnelly]

i have tested about 6 winnys so far and they all far into the 2.5-2.7 catagory even with 1.75 volts, bear in mind those monster 2.8's are probably water cooled, or extreme air cooling and a really good chip
certinally i have not hit 2.8 with 1.75 volts, 3500+ and straping on the dual delta 80'mms. 2.45 is exacly where id place your chip at 1.55 volts, 1.7 volts shud see you around the 2.65 mark.

People are very defensive of their hardware and their company.

"Yes, but i find it so damn pathetic.. its a freaking motherboard. Besides I OWN the board too!!!" ,

its expected in these forums your not the first to get flamed and you won't change
the flamers opinions, this is not a good place to complain it will just PISS you off more.

Some people will actally be trying to annoy you for their own amusement!, they see a complainer as an
easy target for flaming.

You need a stronger case to put forward really, RIP into that board, other that the max voltcore what else is wrong with it, chances are that
the memory may also have limitations of max voltage.

What i would do now its LIST every option of overclocking inthe BIOS, VOLTAGES, FSB ETC and we will compare it to my board or other NF4's , if its really poor, you can strenghten your argument and
make a new thread. That will get you respect! Rise from the ashes, and burn that board!

 

[housecat]

Well the vcore is the only thing that I've seen actually being limited by the bios.

But the board wont go above 245fsb@1T.. thats a very well known problem.. and pathetic.

I never intended to come out swinging on this.. I just wanted a post that got ppls attention and let them know about this to save some guy some trouble..

something Anandtech, HardOCP and others should have done.. granted they couldnt do it on the boards launch.. but they certainly couldve updated their reviews, goes to show what these sites will do to maintain corporate relations.

 

[Robowang]

Amen Brother donnelly. testify! After doing the vcore mod, my bitch about the board is done. Should not of had to do it, but so far it's good. I am watercooling the cpu, chipset and both 6800gt's, so I felt comfortable putting the 1.68 volts to it. Still have a DFI coming this week, tho. Too much fun.

 

[donnelly]

the closest i get to preaching is the vertigo comic "Preacher! by Gareth Ennis and Steve Dillion"
You f**ks You cannot do this to me, I WANNA FLY THE SHUTTLE!

Sooner or later their comes a time when all you wanna do is shout F**K THE WORLD!,
It CAME FOR ME, SO I DID AND NOW I FEEL JUST FINE.

Hey i think ill make that my sig, waduya think?

 

[donnelly]

 

[MatrixVPR]

Originally posted by: donnelly

Sooner or later their comes a time when all you wanna do is shout F**K THE WORLD!,
It CAME FOR ME, SO I DID AND NOW I FEEL JUST FINE.

Hey i think ill make that my sig, waduya think?

Yeah i think you should make that your sig. and i think it's a good defense to housecat. I was thinking the same thing in fact. Some times peoples expectations get let down and if your passionate enough about something it leads to the "CAPSLOCK" lots of "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" No one should be flaming housecat he has the right to let his emotions get the best of him. All of you that are calling him a whiner, well your just whining about his whining and frankly I'm getting sick of it! DON'T MAKE ME TURN THIS THREAD AROUND!!!! Oh, and by the way i love my A8N!

 

[Big Bunny]

What I was looking for in here was some solid evidence that the Vcore limit was holding back someone's overclock. I haven't seen anything yet from anyone who has been singing the chorus to housecat's rant. No one has really countered his rant with solid evidence that the Vcore limit *is not* a problem, either, so here's my attempt:

I personally am running my A8N-SLI Deluxe with Vcore at 1.525 V, 9.0 Multi x 292 MHz = 2600+ MHz, stable on air cooling. I am pretty happy with that configuration, since I am getting a pretty solid overclock without doing anything too hardcore, like hacking my BIOS or using an advance cooling setup. Vcore is not holding me back in the least, hell, I don't even have it maxed out.

Does any extreme overclocker have evidence that the Vcore settings in the released BIOS are holding them back?

 

[mofrack]

My overclock is not hardcore by any means, but still provides a significant performance bump compared to stock operation. Now, I am watercooling, but I also dont think that vcore topping out at 1.55 is much of a problem, if one at all. And if you want over 1.55 vcore, you are going for a pretty damn serious overclock and shouldnt be running an Asus anyway.

Housecat needs to get a DFI, an Abit, or voltmod his A8N. Thanks for the info, Housecat, but anyone I know that owns or plans on getting an A8N knows about the vcore range, doesnt care, or both.

Cheers.

 

[Robowang]

Big Bunny
As I posted earlier, I did get 180mhz higher (2674 to 2854) by doing a volt mod on my MSI SLI, taking it from 1.53-1.55 to 1.62-1.64 vcore as measured by several software monitors. I do watercool, so only seen 2 degrees C increase in CPU temp. I do the same thing to cars. Buy fast ones and add components to make them faster. I am a 1/8 mile whore. I love the rush. Of course, this is not everybody's thing, and I respect that and would like the same in return.