ASUSTeK is the most prolific motherboard manufacturer in the world. They command 40% of the motherboard market for PCs today. Their motherboards are in all manner of PCs from ASUS designed and sold PCs, as well as larger builders like HP and Dell, to the enthusiast user who purchases components individually looking for the best overall system that they can build. ASUS designs motherboards for everyone running desktop computers. Budget PC builders to enthusiast overclockers, if you’re building a PC, chances are you’ve looked at an ASUS motherboard when deciding on your components.

This type of market dominance comes from the ability to bring new technologies to market early, if not first, and in a variety of models that ensure they have a motherboard that fits your criteria. From a stable desktop office PC to a Core i7 980X liquid nitrogen overclocking beast, and in every price range in between. One of their more popular brands is the Republic of Gamers (R.O.G.) series.  First started in 2006, this product line spans motherboards, video cards and even R.O.G. Laptops. Republic of Gamers newest motherboard is the LGA1366 X58 chipset-based Rampage III Formula. The Rampage model line has always signified the highest quality and latest features available, designed specifically for gamers and enthusiasts alike for the Intel platform. The Formula is the newest edition to the existing Rampage III boards consisting of the “big brother” Rampage III Extreme, and the “little brother” Rampage III Gene.

This review will cover the performance and features of the Rampage III Formula.  Overclocking capabilities of the board will be pushed and 24/7 overclocking capabilities will be tested.

Features:

The feature list of the new Formula motherboard is extensive and covers every detail. Listed below are the stand out features one may not find on other motherboards.

• 2 SATA 6Gbs ports
• 2 USB3 ports
• Dual ESATA
• Intel designed Ethernet
• 3 way multi GPU (16x, 16x/16x, or 16x/8x/8x)
• Dual removable BIOS chips and BIOS switch onboard
• Rear Clear CMOS button for Case users
• Onboard Power, Reset, Clear CMOS and “Go/MemOK!” Buttons
• Extreme Engine Digi+ voltage regulation
• ASUS ProBelt – Onboard voltage read points
• ASUS GameFirst – Tool to manage network access to give priority to games
• ROG Connect
• QPI LLC Jumper
• LN2 Mode Jumper

The motherboard also has plenty of other great features that are intrinsic to the X58 chipset and ASUS motherboards in particular. To include them all would be a novella at best, so for the sake of brevity the entire list of features can be viewed at ASUS’ website here. The Intel ICH10R handles most of the storage duties, including 6 SATA 3Gb/s ports and all of the USB 2.0 ports including the special ROG connect port. The JMicron JMB363 controller handles ESATA duties and can be run in SATA, RAID0 and RAID1 modes. The feature list mentions that it is also used for PATA duties, however no legacy storage ports are included on the motherboard. Marvell 9128 PCIe SATA 6Gb/s controller handles the SATA III duties and NEC of course handles the dual USB 3.0 ports. Using the USB3 ports for fast USB2 storage drives is a good idea as was found in our A-DATA USB3 Flash Drive review.

The Packaging:

Packaging is a marketing tool for retail establishments (commonly referred to as “Brick ‘n’ Mortar”) but also effects those that receive products through mail shipping services. From utilitarian to extravagant, packaging varies as much as build quality and features. ASUS ROG motherboards are designed as feature rich, top of the line products, so it should come as no surprise that the packaging is also designed with a keen eye on features and looks. The retail package consists of a heavy stock paper box with a plastic carrying handle at the top, packaged around two separate stiff corrugated boxes stuffed inside. This style is common for the ROG series of motherboards that they produce (Rampage or Crosshair). Using two separate boxes not only helps to address physical protection to the product, it also showcases the product by using a thick but clear plastic shell over the motherboard. This allows the outer box to be equipped with a flap covering a cutout so that one can view the product physically without the need to open the package.

Opening the box reveals the two separate cartons inside. One houses the motherboard as already mentioned. The second package holds all of the accessories and documentation as well as the software. Driver disks are so 1995; the ROG motherboard disk is a DVD-ROM disk that includes all of the drivers to get you up and running, whether XP, Vista, 7 or Linux. It also holds all of the software features ASUS designed into the motherboard including system monitors, tweaking programs, EPU controls, anti-virus software, a PDF copy of the manual (Adobe reader is also included), BIOS logo maker, ROG connect software (with Connect, Poster and TweakIt), and ROG Video and it is a bootable Linux CD for BIOS recovery. Full featured right down to the DVD.

In the last two pictures there are two items that seem so obvious to have been included with motherboards for years, however no one but ASUS has. The ASUS quick connect in the last picture is for attaching front panel wires so that you will have one easy connection to your motherboard once it is installed in the case. Instead of fumbling around with a manual or a flash light hoping you managed to fit that tiny connector to the correct pins, it’s easy to read no fuss, no muss connections.

Another unique item in the box is the SATA cable labels. For years with IDE devices messing up the wires was pretty difficult to do and it did not really matter if you did. Most PCs used a single cable to attach HDD and Optical Drive, later it became common to have 2 in a system, even then the IDE cable for the optical drive was a ATA33 40 wire 40 pin cable instead of the 133 spec 80 wire 40 pin cable (it feels thinner).  Still very simple to keep track off.  However on a modern system a Gamer might be running 2 drives in raid0 for Operating system another 2-3 in a redundant array for large storage and still another cable for the Optical drive, as no legacy ports exist on the motherboard. Stickers for labelling both ends of your data cables makes it simple to Identify which drives are which.

Next: The Rampage III Formula In-Depth

The idea of a low clock challenge is to provide a playing field for benchmarkers to prove their tweaking skills in a given benchmark. Setting specific limitations constructs the playing field and opens the doors to a lot of people to compete that might not have the newest or best hardware that a wide open competition would require. Overclockaholics.com recently had a low clock 3Dmark 01 challenge which locked CPU clocks to 4.2GHz and limited Nature Frames Per Second to 1200FPS for single card or 1400FPS for dual card entries. These two simple limitations really setup an array of possible winning combinations that require tweaking skills at both the software and hardware level.

Needing a bit of a break from pounding my head against the wall with a memory review, I took a couple days to get back in the 3DMark 01 tweaking seat – which hasn’t been sat in for some time – and tried my hand at the Overclockaholics.com 3DMark 01 Low Clock Challenge. Here is my story of how I came to winning the single card category last weekend.

There are two primary platforms that can be competitive in this type of challenge, using an Intel C2D on the 775 platform or the slightly less potent Intel i7 socket 1366 platform. The reason i7 is actually a worse a platform for 3DMark 01 is the fact that the Nature benchmark scores are terrible on the i7 platform at 4.2GHz compared to C2D. You will soon find out that I had plans to take care of that. Essentially though, I had both platforms setup ready to rock but my goal was to be competitive with the i7 platform using whatever means necessary. I began preliminary testing on the Intel i7/X58 platform with phase cooling on the CPU. The need for sub-zero cooling on the CPU will also be explained shortly.

With the GPU on air, it was apparent that being competitive just wasn’t going to be possible. At a minimum, 90K was going to be required to win this thing, at this point in the weekend, I think the top score posted for single card was around 89.5K already. Even with the CPU under sub-zero conditions allowing for a very nice uncore clock – which helps 01 scores tremendously – the Nature FPS were just too low to compete. That is when the big guns were brought out to help the little GTX260 play with the C2D boys.

A little rubber eraser, 1 KingpinCooling.com Tek9 4.0 Slim, a 50K ohm variable resistor, a couple shop towels, and this setup was ready to rock 01’s world. The variable resistor was the only mod done to the card which was done to bypass OCP. Other than that, this is just a straight up Gigabyte GTX260 216SP video card. Here is a complete list of the hardware used for the rest of the competition.

Over the course of two six hour sessions, this system was beaten, abused, and downright throttled. The GTX260 nicely surprised me willing to run through Nature at -140C. Normally these GPU’s will cold bug well before that without a special BIOS so either these cards had that special BIOS, or this card is just a freak of nature. Either way, the GPU clocks definitely helped the score and took the single card results for the competition to the next level. Here are a couple photos of the two bench sessions.

Most of the benching was done with the GPU at -120C and the CPU at -30C ~ -35C. The digital multi-meter is showing the resistance across the OCP mod which I set to 13.33K Ω. This allowed GPU voltage of 1.25v to be used at clocks in excess of 1000MHz. For the suite of benchmarks, GPU clocks were set to 1026MHz with shaders running at 2052MHz. The GPU memory clocks were most stable at 1215MHz but could creep close to 1300MHz. For Nature however, the GPU clocks were set as they are in the screen shot below, 1080/2160/1215. Here is the screen shot of my best – and winning – single card result.

Obviously this isn’t even the best this setup could pull off at 4.2GHz because Nature is far from maxed out. If I could get GPU clocks high enough to hit the 1200FPS limit in Nature, the overall score would have been at least 92K. Either way it didn’t matter as this was enough to win the competition and take home a very much needed KingpinCooling.com F1 EE CPU pot. I have been benching with a MMouse Rev3 CU pot for so long that the upgrade to one with more mass is guaranteed to help with multi-threaded benchmarks like Vantage and 06 with the i7 processors. To wrap things up, here are a couple photos of the setup during tear down. Plenty of snow was produced during the bench session, nothing like winter in July.

I would like to thank Overclockaholics.com for a great contest, the rest of the competitors for pushing me to go LN2 on the GPU, and KingpinCooling.com for the prize. All I can say is that this card is far from done.

My last OC Report just over a month ago was on a kit of memory I referred to in a review as the Goliath of memory from the first testament. This OC Report isn’t about some mere biblical fairy tale character, it is an all out Greek myth. Except this Greek hero isn’t some weak PC3-16000 kit of memory – ‘rolls eyes’ – this kit is straight from the top of mount Olympus. Hanging out with the Greek mythological gods, these sticks put Hermes and his winged shoes to shame. Clocked by Nomos on the 401 – like a chickenshyt cop in an airplane – doing over 1067MHz an hour on their way down to London-town, the Blade PC3-17000 8-9-8-24 kit has taken over the reigns as the deity of mount OCZ.

Let me simplify it for those too slow in the crowd to keep up, or those that simply slept through their first year Greek mythology class in university…they are rated for absolutely ridiculous clocks. The PC3-16000 CL7 OCZ Blades were great. They offered top bin specs and impressive overclocking head room…but they got nothing on these sticks. Well, maybe they do, but that is what I am going to find out today.

Right now is normally the point in an OC Report that I tell you what an OC Report is. That won’t be the case this time. If you don’t know by now, then you need to pull your anterior end out of your posterior end, take a deep breath, and have a look through my signature. The answer to the question “what is an OC Report?” might just be in there bookended by insults and rude gestures. With that out of the way, here is the table of contents for the afternoon…

Directory:

• Specs :: 36-24-36…That’s What She Said on the Phone

• Photos :: No Centerfold But Close
• Test Bed :: It’s Classified
• Go Time :: 32M SPi OC Report
• Nothing Stuffy Here :: Benchmarking Results
• Conclusion :: Amazingly Shallow Thoughts…By 3oh6

To finish off the full disclosure statements, or start them I guess, my agent tells me I have to tell you all that this kit was supplied to me by OCZ Technology Inc. for review purposes. That’s right, I am such a big time professional overclocker and benchmarker that I have an agent. With recent talk of an F1 overclocking league and all these losers whining about HWBot becoming too hard to compete in I figured I should go out and get an agent. His name is Drew Rosenshack and he has advised me to simply say “no comment”. If you don’t get, quit being a geek, get some sun, and watch Sports Center once in a while

Despite the big hype and the overcompensatingly large heat sinks that sometimes accompany modules these days, memory has the smallest spec sheet in the industry. Usually the entire spec sheet can fit within the tiny confines of a jail cell sized sticker on the module. Because of the “EnJoY” size spec sheet, this section is pretty small. Also, like EnJoY, I will be using a pair of balled up socks to enhance the appearance of the specifications section. Here first is a list of specifications plucked fresh from the OCZ web site.

Ohhhh, ahhhhh, look at those specs. DDR3-2133 means a ridiculous stock frequency of 1067MHz. Forget overclocking, just getting this memory to run stable at stock clocks is going to be a futile battle for many. I appreciate OCZ for putting this amazing kit out there, but someone clearly didn’t communicate with the technical support division because they wouldn’t touch these sticks with a ten foot pole. Good luck dealing with average Joe who can’t wrap is mullet around the fact that his processor is the reason he can’t run the memory at 1067MHz. I will be keeping my eyes on the OCZ technical support forum and relay any amusing threads that may pop up because of our new best friend here, the OCZ Blade PC3-17000, also known as OCZ Blade PC3-techsupportnightmare.

Oh, and by the way, if you haven’t guessed, there are some highly binned Elpida Hyper IC’s under the hood of these bad boys. These aren’t your grandma’s Hyper either. These have the individual throttle bodies, dual Garrett T3/T4 turbo’s, lumpy cams and a 3″ straight through exhaust. These Elpida Hyper’s were binned for these sticks and these sticks only. This obviously means I now have at my disposal some of the best DDR3 memory that money can buy…and boy will you need to spend a lot of money if you want them too.

With crazy specs, and thorough binning, comes equally thorough prices. Here is what I could find for pricing at the time of posting…

• Sohodiffusion.com – $433.90 CND

• Mindfactory.de – 348,90 €

Obviously availability is limited with nowhere in the US showing stock through Google search. A few European sites are listing this kit at 348€+ and only Sohodiffusion.com listing in North America right now, at not a ‘bad’ price. Say what you want about the prices but if you don’t like it, don’t buy them. Try to walk into a Beamer dealership and walk out with an M3 for the same price of a Volkswagen Rabbit. As the saying goes, you gotta pay if you want to play.

I will do what I can with the photos to bring something new, but there is only so much a lens can capture when taking the same photos. Actually, there is something new that wasn’t in my last OCZ Blade OC Report which you can find at the end of this section. If you read the OCZ Blade PC3-16000 OC Report just scroll to the bottom for the new content, and if you didn’t read it, I suggest you get over there right now and do so…I’ll wait.

If you are reading this then you clearly can’t follow directions. You really are the bottom of the evolutionary barrel sort of speak. Because of this, I will keep my comments simple, so you can understand them. Memory come in box. Box have logo on it. Inside of box is memory. Memory protected by plastic. Plastic is shiny. You like shiny…don’t you? Yeah, shiny fun.

For those seeing the Blade heat sinks for the first time you might be a little under-whelmed, I know I was when I initially saw photos of the modules. The reason being is that the photos don’t do these heat sinks justice. The finish on these modules is almost granite like and the flat black color really gives them a rugged feel. Aesthetics are obviously a personal thing and some people will like them, these are the cool people with a good sense of design. Others will think they aren’t “fancy enough”, these are the un-cool people with LED’s and UV lights in their rigs…you know who you are. You think it’s cool but really it isn’t. You want cool, go to MurderBox.com and see what cool design really is. You stuffing a couple UV lights in your crap Ultra Aluminus with no cable management is a hack job…like Jimmy Fallon is to late night talk shows. Stop posting photos of your “mod”, stop it right now…I don’t want to see that crap posted in a forum ever again.

Forget about the first photo – you have all seen it before – but look at the second one. If you noticed the bottom of the heat sink pulling away from the module slightly…you would be right, congratulations, you win an imaginary cookie. Only one module is like this but it kind of sucks to see. The back side of the heat sink isn’t actually flat and looks as if someone tried pulling the heat sink off. Needless to say, the bottom portion of the IC’s are not contacting the heat sink. As if heat sinks on memory actually did anything, but if they do, then these modules heat sinks wouldn’t be quite as effective as it should be. I just popped the back side off, flattened it out with a bit of force and all is well again. While I had the back off I snapped a quick photo of the modules…mmmm, Elpida Hyper.

Like the last OCZ Blade OC Report, this one will also be done on my trusty EVGA X58 3X SLI Classified. I pulled the DFI X58-T3eH8 out of its box again for the OC Report and Review of this memory but it still hates me. Either I suck or it really is pissed that I ditched it for the Classified. My money is on the fact that I suck. Either way, I can’t give that board away so I thought I would give it another chance, I am up to about chance four or five now, but it is still being a bytch about it so back in the box it goes. It is ugly as sin anyway so it doesn’t deserve to be graced by the presence of these hot OCZ Blade modules. Here are some photos of the setup…

I have switched over to my recently won Intel Xeon W3540 processor for this OC Report as I wanted to see if the 920 was holding back the PC3-16000 sticks.

As you can tell, I am using a single stage on the CPU because the Classified isn’t allowed to run with just air cooling anymore. A couple weeks ago I sat down with the Classified and it said that it didn’t think it was being utilized properly with just air cooling on the CPU. It figured without cold, it just wasn’t worth running. Who the hell am I to argue with a motherboard that is talking to me, right? Needless to say I have scheduled a therapy session for myself because, let’s face it, I am having conversations with a motherboard; something isn’t right. Here is a complete list of hardware used for this OC Report:

With that said, I think it is time to see what these sticks will do. Testing at 6-7-6, 7-7-6, and 7-8-7 is on the menu again with the added bonus of 8-9-8 this time as well. Time to see whether these sticks hold up to their top bin title, or if the PC3-16000 Blades show them up.

I am honest about my testing, I am honest about my results, I am not trying to pull any kind of wool over anyone’s eyes, unless of course she is hot and wearing a wool sweater. My OC Report simply shows one level of stability, single 32M SuperPi. I am not trying to pretend single 32M SPi stable is Prime Blend or LinX stable…it is what it is. This is not a review with actual stability testing, this is a report on overclocking, hence the name OC Report. I choose 32M SPi as my gauge because that is all I honestly care about. Complain, ask, whine, or mumble whatever you want about my testing…I don’t care. Again, unless you are a hot female. Then we can discuss your concerns in private over dinner or something.

For the last time, these modules were provided by OCZ for review purpose. As I said last time…”Please refer to section one, paragraph four, line three, word thirteen for further details on what you can do should you feel this kit is cherry picked“. OCZ has no agenda in sending out cherry picked kits of memory, I get random retail samples, nothing more and hopefully nothing less.

6-7-6-X 1T:
Intel X58 – EVGA Classified:
Click link for full size screenshot…
897MHz :: 1.657v | 922MHz :: 1.701v | 942MHz :: 1.758v | 962MHz :: 1.802v | 987MHz :: 1.856v

Ranging from 897MHz at 1.65v up to 987MHz at 1.85v, this kit is almost a dead ringer for what the PC3-16000 OCZ Blade sticks did. I looked at those almost a month ago and at this point, you could almost accuse me of doing nothing but laying new labels done. This time I didn’t forget about my RTL and worked these sticks a little more. As I said about the PC3-16000 sticks, we are off to a great start.

7-7-6-X 1T:
Intel X58 – EVGA Classified:
Click link for full size screenshot…
1029MHz :: 1.657v | 1047MHz :: 1.701v | 1059MHz :: 1.758v | 1071MHz :: 1.802v

Opening up CAS Latency to 7, we can see the immediate jump in clocks. The quick standard test for Elpida Hyper to know whether they are going to be a solid universal kit is to see what they do at 1.65v and 7-7-6 timings. If you crack 1000MHz, you got a decent kit, if you crack 1020MHz, you got a good kit. These Blade PC3-17000 modules almost hit 1030Mhz at 1.65v so they definitely look like they are going to hold their own as the timings get looser. Unfortunately like the last OCZ Blade modules, these ones also died out at 1.75v~1.80v. No amount of wrangling with sub-timings allowed me to get them to scale up to 1.85v, but with that said, they managed to climb up to 1071MHz which is a solid 10 clocks higher than the PC3-16000 Blades did.

7-8-7-X 1T:
Intel X58 – EVGA Classified:
Click link for full size screenshot…
1035MHz :: 1.657v | 1065MHz :: 1.701v | 1089MHz :: 1.758v | 1113MHz :: 1.802v | 1131MHz :: 1.856v

I am not trying to sound like a broken record but my whole goal with this kit was to compare them to the results the PC3-16000’s put up in my last OC Report. Soooo, like those PC3-16000 Blade’s, these little bastards start out at almost the same clocks as 7-7-6 but as the voltage increased, they continue to scale at 7-8-7. Topping out at 1131Mhz with 1.85v is pretty damn nice but I was hoping for a little bit more. It just goes to show that the best of the best Elpida Hyper is pretty damn close to the best of the rest of Elpida Hyper. Perhaps I have been spoiled by two killer kits so my excitement seems lacking but that is about to change as I talk about the 8-9-8 results.

8-9-8-X 1T:
Intel X58 – EVGA Classified:
Click link for full size screenshot…
1161MHz :: 1.657v | 1179MHz :: 1.701v | 1197MHz :: 1.758v

Hahaha, what a joke, these modules won’t even do single 32M at 1200MHz with 1.75v . <- that winky face means I am joking, so just relax all of you without a sense of humor. These sticks just love 8-9-8, even more than I love pretty ladies. I started at 1100MHz at 8-9-8 and thought something was wrong when I got to 1150Mhz still at 1.65v. Needless to say everything checked out and these sticks just absolutely destroy the IMC on this Intel Xeon W3540. The W3540 has a better memory controller than my i7 920 used in my previous OC Report and it still couldn't keep up with these sticks. To go any further I am going to have to push VTT up to 1.60v+ and I won't be doing that for a bit yet as I want to make sure I get something out of this chip before I kill it.

Don’t worry, there won’t be any boring review like benchmark results showing how little of impact memory actually has on performance and what a waste of money high performance memory really is. All I will be posting here are the benching results that this kit is a part of as time goes by. Consider this the personal hall of fame for this particular kit of OCZ Blade 3×2GB PC3-17000 8-9-8-24 memory.

Another day, another killer kit of Elpida Hyper from OCZ. As mentioned a couple times, this is my second kit in a row of OCZ Blade memory sporting Elpida Hyper IC’s. The PC3-16000 Blade’s got me smiling a month ago and these sticks have lengthened that smile to an all out ear to ear shyt eating grin. The results are on par or a little better than the PC3-16000 sticks were and really show that either of these kits are ready for the big time.

Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be only light at the end of the tunnel. As everyone is probably well aware of by now, a number of manufacturers have renounced the church of Elpida Hyper and ceased production of modules bearing these IC’s due to premature failure in the field. Some manufacturers seem to be affected more than others, perhaps in part due to their screening, but even those that aren’t seeing above average failures are cautiously moving forward without Elpida Hyper going to market. OCZ is one of those companies that doesn’t seem to be affected, but in their official statement here, they do say they will cease Elpida Hyper modules for the time being. This puts the shelf life of these OCZ Blade PC3-17000 modules in jeopardy. So if you want them, get them now…or forever hold your piece.

I arrived mid afternoon Friday and luckily I had no hardware casualties from the trip there, I met everyone when I arrived and it was really cool to meet those that I looked up at for so long. Vince was benching a killer rig (pics being kept under my hat ) and said after they were done they would get me set up with a rig to learn LN2. When I was being taught the ins and outs from everyone I was thinking that I had the opportunity to learn using LN2 from some of the best in the business and got a kick out of that. Shamino, K|ngp|n, Gomeler, Gautam, Vapor, 3oh6, Andre Yang, and Philly Boy were on hand with a few others to bench and hang out as well. I was set up to bench LN2 at a desk and was lucky enough to learn benching the Classified under LN2 by none other than Shamino, and that was a real treat to me. I was surprised how many Classified motherboards were on hand and then had to remind myself were I was and then it seemed normal. Over the weekend I saw a lot of records set and had a lot of fun -

I took some pics and think typing at 4:42am isn’t the best for blogging and will let the pics do the rest of the talking for me – notice how nonchalant Vince is as he fills his dewars LOL

The good photos of me were taken by 3oh6 (an awesome photographer)!

-TGE

TheGoat Eater Pouring LN2 - by 3oh6

TheGoat Eater - No Look Pour | by 3oh6

gomeler working the twkr

gautam working

Vince using the torch

Vince filling dewar

Vince

Gautam and Vapor's test rig

LN2 dewar

Partial Group Pic

A recent forum post out there in the middle of the Australian portion of the internet – AKA i4memory.com – led me to investigate the performance impact of a BIOS option on the EVGA X58 3X SLI Classified. The option labeled ‘MCH Strap’ would indicate that it changes the latencies of the MCH, like on previous Intel chipsets such as the P965, P35, X48 and so on. The only catch is that the Intel X58 chipset, does not have an MCH (Memory Controller Hub). The Intel X58 chipset is no longer responsible for the memory controller as Intel Core i7 processors now have a integrated memory controller – or IMC – on the CPU die.

This inherent difference in design of the chipset got me thinking, if there is no MCH, what is this setting actually changing? Apparently others were thinking the same thing as the question popped up in the i4memory.com forums. Needless to say, I took it upon myself to have a quick look, which you are reading right now…this very second, here at TechReaction.net.

Before we have a look at the testing, let’s go over the complete setup used for the testing, and discuss a little bit more about exactly what I am testing today, and why. First a couple photos of the setup followed by the list of hardware used.

This is primarily for Classified owners so I am just going to assume you are all familiar with the BIOS. On the main overclocking settings page is the option for the ‘MCH Strap’. There are a number of settings which are 2133, 1867, 1600, 1333, 1067, 800, AUTO, DRAM Ratio. On previous Intel chipsets, the MCH strap was responsible for various hidden chipset latency timings and a lower MCH strap would increase performance of the chipset, and subsequent memory subsystem. When adjusting the ‘MCH Strap’ setting on the Classified, the only visible changes are those to the memory sub-timings. A lower strap would result in tighter memory sub-timings. A higher strap setting and the sub-timings on the memory would loosen. Pretty straight forward…right?

One would assume so, but no one was sure in the i4memory.com forum discussion so I did this basic testing to see if there was anything being changed behind the scenes that we couldn’t see. The basic methodology is pretty straight forward. Set a high ‘MCH Strap’, then measure the systems performance and note the sub-timings. Set a low ‘MCH Strap’, then measure its performance the same way and also note the memory sub-timings that strap sets. Then simply set the higher ‘MCH Strap’ again, but this time manually adjust the memory sub-timings to that which the lower ‘MCH Strap’ set. If the performance is the same as the performance of the lower ‘MCH Strap’ setting, then we know there is nothing else going on that we can’t see.

I set the system up as outlined above. I decided on stock settings with the 2:12 memory ratio for no apparent reason really, I simply wanted to ensure I would have the ability to select a couple different ‘MCH Strap’ options. As it turns out, at these settings, the 1600 through to the 1067 ‘MCH Strap’ selection were the only ones available. That is why I only have results from those three straps. I also ran the AUTO option just to see what it would select. I used the Everest Ultimate and ScienceMark bandwidth test as well as a run of SPi 32M as that is the best way to see if any memory sub-system gains are had. I think that about covers the necessary details, so I’ll stop yapping and you can look at the results.

The results may appear almost identical but if we look close at the SPi times, there is a definite pattern there. From the higher ‘MCH Strap’ setting down to the lowest, we see the SPi time drop. This means we definitely have SPi gains from the lower ‘MCH Strap’ selections but that is primarily from the tighter memory sub-timings. Looking at the last result we can see that with the 1600 ‘MCH Strap’ selected and the sub-timings tightened manually to reflect the 1067 ‘MCH Strap’ selection, the result is the same time as the 1333 ‘MCH Strap’ selection. Considering there is only a 12 one-hundredths of a second difference between the 1067 and the 1333 ‘MCH Strap’ selection, I am going to conclude that the ‘MCH Strap’ option in the EVGA X58 3X SLI Classified BIOS is definitely just adjusting sub-timings and nothing more.

Obviously this wasn’t an exercise in exhaustive testing and I didn’t include any 3D testing but all indications of this setting were that it simply tightened and loosened the memory sub-timings. There is no reason to test 3D performance in my mind. Here is a full chart of all three runs of each setting, there was a reboot between each run.

To finish up I have included a sample from each ‘MCH Setting’ that was tested so you can see the memory sub-timings differences. If there are any further questions about this quick test, don’t hesitate to post a comment and I will do my best to answer. Thanks for reading.

It feels like a lifetime ago that I did my last OC Report and in this industry, it pretty much has been. Well unfortunately for you, my almost 100% completely healed white ass is back, and I have brought some toys. OCZ has always been a name most of us here recognize but one that seems to have fallen off the radar at the upper end of the benching circles as of late. Maybe it is just me but I don’t hear OCZ anymore in the uber benching threads. With high performance i7 triple channel kits in full swing, OCZ has also joined the party at the top. Today I am in the OCZ spot of the 3×2GB PC3-16000 7-8-7 world, also known as Elpida Hyper country.

OCZ has reserved the absolute best of the best to their new Blade series of memory. The Flex EX series doesn’t have this kit, the Reaper series doesn’t have this kit, only the Blade series offers the 3×2GB PC3-16000 7-8-7 modules that are guaranteed to be Elpida J1108BASE, more recognizable by the single word…Hyper.

For those new to my OC Report’s, the first rule of an OC Report is to not call an OC Report a review. The second rule of an OC Report is that it isn’t a bloody review. Review’s have proper 24/7 stability testing – or at least they should – and stuffy benchmarks that no one here cares about. An OC Report is just that, a report on the overclockability of the product in question. In this case, it will be memory and my overclock of choice will be slightly different from memory OC Reports of past. I will simply be running a single instance of 32M SPi. Reason being, 8×32M SPi is so bloody close to 24/7 in some cases I might as well use Prime Blend or HCI Memtest. So in keeping with the heritage of the OC Report, single 32M SPi stability is all I am asking for from each timing set and voltage.

Directory:

• Specifications & Pricing

• Photos :: But I Read It For The Articles
• Test Bed :: It’s Classified
• It’s Go Time :: 32M SPi OC Report
• Nothing Stuffy Here :: Benchmarking Results
• Conclusion :: Deep Thoughts…By 3oh6

I want to mention this now, these modules were sent to me directly from OCZ in beautiful Californ-I-A for review. I know nothing other than that. If you want to complain about these being a cherry picked kit, search for an OCZ rep and fill their inbox, not mine. OCZ has never given me a reason to believe I receive anything but random retail samples in the past, and no reason to start now. I believe in full disclosure so there you have it…and you didn’t even have to twist my arm. The mainstream review without my foul language, offensive demeanor, or blatant insults can be found at HardwareCanucks.com in due time.

Memory is no big mystery. It is spec’d to run at a certain frequency, at certain timings, on certain chipsets, with a specified amount of voltage. There isn’t a whole lot to it as far as manufacturer specifications. What IC’s are powering a set of modules, however, is a different story entirely. Here is a list of the specifications you will find at the OCZ web site.

As mentioned in the opening, this is a top rated kit from the Blade series; or any OCZ series for that matter. Specified to run at DDR3-2000 (1000MHz) at timings of 7-8-7-20 on the i7 X58 platform with 1.65v, the OCZ Blade OCZ3B2000LV6GK are right up there with everyone else sporting top binned Elpida Hyper J1108BASE -MNH-E. OCZ recently announced a PC3-17000 8-9-8 kit so this one isn’t the top dog anymore, but I think they will put up quite the argument here today.

In August of 08, Elpida announced this fantastically spec’d DDR3 IC that had us all drooling at the possibilities. We were also so very skeptical with the announcement of these too good to be true 1250MHz modules. The 20-20-19 timings jokes were cracked and to be honest, there wasn’t much fan fare at the time Elpida announced. Well, the jokes are not being cracked anymore. These IC’s are capable of ultra low voltage operation at 1.2v as well as JEDEC standard 1.5v. The biggest difference between these IC’s and others to date is the fact that they use copper interconnects as opposed to aluminum. It was an obvious progression of DRAM, but not one that anyone had done before.

Needless to say, factory spec’d parts at 1000MHz with timings of 7-8-7-20 and only 1.65v is not something any other IC can claim right now, so OCZ can’t even change the IC’s on these and not tell anyone. Elpida is the performance king at the moment, unfortunately they are also the king of cost. Here are some prices I could find for this kit at the time of posting…

• Newegg.ca – $510.99 CND

• Infonec.com – $519.00 CND
• Sohodiffusion.com – $429.90 CND
• Newegg.com – $420.99 USD
• Amazon.com – $440.22 USD

Obviously we aren’t dealing with a mainstream product here. These prices are as high as the top DDR2 back in its time when it was king of the sand hill and Elpida Hyper shows no sign of falling. Equally spec’d kits from Corsair and others are priced similar…except the Kingston kits, but we won’t open that can of worms, perhaps I just did? Either way, these are a premium product at a premium price. Hopefully prices will come down at some point but I don’t have my hopes up for that to happen any time soon.

Before we get to the clocking, here are just a couple photos of the package and the modules in question.

As we can see, the package for memory has evolved a bit with the triple channel packs. Manufacturers can no longer just stuff three of these sticks in a molded plastic shell with a cardboard insert and call it a day. OCZ has gone with two modules in one shell and a single module in another shell, then both jammed into a box. The box is of decent quality and does add another small layer of protection during transport.

The heat sinks that identify the modules as part of the Blade series are quite nice, and normally I don’t find much of anything that simply serves an aesthetic purpose nice. Obviously the heat sinks do help dissipate heat but let’s be honest…do they really need to be there? Have heat sinks ever really needed to be there? And no, I am not asking those questions, so don’t answer and turn this blog post into an “internet engineers” thermal dynamics discussion that holds as much water as a plastic jug that Brian uses to pour LN2 with. If you don’t get the joke, it is because you are not cool enough to…deal with it.

These are mostly just glamour shots showing off the fact that I have a macro lens, but they do a good job showing the heat sink construction and thermal pads OCZ uses. And before you ask, no, I am not potentially killing these bloody sticks to take the heat sinks off to show you they are Elpida Hyper. You want to see the IC’s? Look at the press release photo from Elpida in the specifications section. To be honest, the heat sinks look like they would come off quite easily but still, I don’t want to give you the satisfaction.

Here is the work horse. My ace. My right-hand man. My…you get the idea. The EVGA X58 3X SLI Classified is not only the best motherboard for high BCLK, or the best at running i7 at high clocks under LN2, or an absolute rock solid platform for air testing; the Classified also happens to clock memory pretty damn well. Here are some photos of the setup with my tired and aging Chilly 1 single stage. Yeah, I’m doing this with the processor cold…what, you thought this was going to be on air? Crack head.

There is the jewel of my collection, the little 920 that could. It has been buried in that kneaded rubber eraser for dozens of sessions now without leaving. I am starting to wonder how much corrosion is going on inside that socket, oh well. The Blade modules are nice sized but definitely not too fat for 6 DIMM use and certainly not too tall to interfere with many – if any – heat sinks.

These two photos depict the setup as it will run for the entire testing of this memory. Now you may be wondering why the PCI-E and PCI card are mounted in the motherboard…and why the PCI-E card has a pot strapped to its face. You see, I prepped the board for a quick shake down of the GPU under LN2 because I wasn’t expecting the memory to show up for another day. When the sticks knocked on the door, I wasn’t about to tear down the GPU setup for LN2…and these modules were not going to sit idle overnight. Needless to say, I disabled the PCI-E port, popped in the PCI card at it was go time.

There we go, you have now seen the modules, you know the setup, I have insulted a few people…yup, sounds like we are ready to roll

Blah blah blah…this blurb is just here to keep those people’s mouth shut who insist on trying to force their stability testing of memory on everyone else. I won’t name names, you know who you are cstkl1.

This is a single 32M SPi OC Report. That is it, that is all. Nothing more, nothing less. Single 32M SPi is fast, it is a level of stability that most know, and it shows what these sticks can do with the best benchmark money doesn’t have to buy. If you don’t like it…get lost. If you want more stability testing, or are going to say “but his CPU is cooled by phase change”, or something else that is going to make me want to smack you in the back of the head Rafer Alston style…leave. Do us both a favor and just go whine to the nearest bum on the street because he is going to care as much as I do.

And one last time…these modules were sent to me directly from OCZ as a review sample. Please refer to section one, paragraph four, line three, word thirteen for further details on what you can do should you feel this kit is cherry picked. Disclaimers aside…here are the results:

6-7-6-X 1T:
Intel X58 – EVGA Classified:
Click link for full size screenshot…
892MHz :: 1.657v | 917MHz :: 1.701v | 942MHz :: 1.758v | 967MHz :: 1.802v | 987MHz :: 1.856v

Off to a great start with 6-7-6. I was hoping for 1000MHz once I saw how scaling was going but it just didn’t work out. At least all signs point toward 6-7-6 1000MHz being do-able for 32M at 1.90v. Might need a sprinkle more voltage. As it stands, I managed to keep tRAS at 18 the entire test range but did have to open RTL up to get the last 987MHz stable. I don’t think it quite needed to be 57-59-61, but that is where I started and just didn’t feel like working down from there.

7-7-6-X 1T:
Intel X58 – EVGA Classified:
Click link for full size screenshot…
1022MHz :: 1.657v | 1052MHz :: 1.701v | 1062MHz :: 1.758v

Like 6-7-6, 7-7-6 started off great with perfect scaling through 1.65v to 1.70v, not to mention the very nice jump up from 6-7-6 at the starting voltage. Unfortunately I hit a snag at 1.75v. The memory just stopped scaling at that point and I managed only 10MHz from the 1.70v clock. I played with tRAS, vTT, sub timings, all to no avail. Thinking back, the one thing I did not change – as silly as it sounds – was tRP. I should have opened that up to 7-7-7 to see if it made a difference. This was my last timing set I actually ran and it was the next morning already so forgive my brain fart as I was up all night clocking this memory…literally all night.

The clocking for the OC Report was done within 24 hours of getting the memory…and within 18 hours of actually starting. That is right, 18 hours of straight 32M SPi, I am a loser, deal with it. Eat your heart out Gautam…my sticks aren’t even close to dead. This was after getting right drunk at dinner just before I started clocking, that definitely helped. So I aplogize for not trying tRP of 7…sue me. My address can be found on some bathroom stall somewhere, go find it and serve the papers.

7-8-7-X 1T:
Intel X58 – EVGA Classified:
Click link for full size screenshot…
1027MHz :: 1.657v | 1052MHz :: 1.701v | 1077MHz :: 1.758v | 1102MHz :: 1.802v | 1122MHz :: 1.856v

As much as the 7-7-6 was a bit of a letdown – riiiiight – 7-8-7 definitely wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination. This kit just kept taking voltage and jumping 20MHz+ at a time with every 0.05v I fed it. I am completely shocked that this 920 – even on phase – was able to take this memory this high. And just for those about to ask, no, this likely isn’t possible or even close to possible with the CPU on air. Don’t complain when your kit doesn’t do these numbers with your 920 and its ass IMC at 80C. But please prove me wrong if you can…seriously, cough up the screen shots, I really want to know if a CPU on air can clock memory this high. Don’t be shy, no one will bite. Well…maybe someone here will but I won’t disclose how I know.

Seriously though, another great kit of top binned Elpida Hyper, and from someone other than Corsair. It goes without saying, but I am saying it to keep those without common sense to miss it, these are results from a SINGLE KIT. This may, or may not be a good representation of what every kit will do.

This will be my “results” page if you will, for benchmarks with this memory. Only the good stuff, nothing weak is going to the rim here. Check back often, something tells me this kit is going to be busy.

There are no deep thoughts, I am not Jack Handy. But after having this memory for the last month, I am thoroughly impressed. This is my first kit of top binned Elpida Hyper and you know what they say…you never forget your first. I have been working with a PC3-15000 kit of Corsair Dominator-GTs which are also Elpida Hyper, but not their top bin…it shows. The difference between these two are not going to be seen by everyday use, but in SPi 32M, it is a night and day difference.

The most amazing thing is the ability of this dog meat 920 IMC to clock this memory this high. On air, this 920 cannot run 8×32M SPi with memory at 1000MHz 7-8-7…it just can’t do it. Drop in my 965 and it plows through blind folded. Single 32M SPi is obviously quite a bit less load, and the CPU was under a single stage, but I was sure the 920 would gas out early anyway. If the i7 920 did run out of steam, then this kit is even further beyond all my expectations of it. You see everyone else running around with 1100MHz 7-8-7 sticks, but you never believe it will be you until it happens.

The trip started innocently enough with a locally purchased i7 920 sporting the date code 3845B026. Soon after some quick air testing, however, things took a turn towards the crazy track with the idea to test a theory on whether a colder north bridge would assist with BCLK clocking. It turns out it didn’t, but that won’t prevent me from showing the vacation photos.

I had simply planned on multiple layers of Armaflex insulation tape for the NB pot but ran into a problem when I realized my roll of Armaflex tape was still making it’s way back from the GOOC 09 event in California this past weekend…so I had to improvise.

After some cutting of 1/2″ Armacell sheets, I had a nice little north bridge pot insulation sandwich. Paired with the mounted MMouse Rev 3 CU pot, I had my twin towers ready to rock. After looking at the north bridge insulation sandwich for a while, it gave me the craving for a clubhouse, so it was a couple hours and a few pints later that the benching began.

Complete Hardware Setup:
• EVGA X58 3X SLI Classified
• Stock PWM cooling / DetroitAC NB Pot / Swiftech MC14 / Enzotech SLF-1
• Intel i7-920 3845B026
• MM Rev3 CU Pot w/LN2
• Arctic Silver Ceramique
• Corsair Dominator-GT 1866 7-8-7 (TR3X6G1866C7GTF)
• ATI PCI Mach64
• Scythe Ultra Kaze 120MM 2000RPM 87.6CFM (DFS123812L-2000)
• Seagate 7200.9 80GB SATA II 8MB cache
• Custom N’lightnd Windows XP Pro SP3
• Corsair HX1000W

As mentioned, the cold north bridge didn’t assist with BCLK at all, as I got the same clocks as previously with the north bridge running at a steady 70C during a previous session. This wasn’t much of a surprise to be honest. At the 250BCLK point, the Classified simply needs fine voltage adjustments to eek the most out of a processor. It was still fun running the NB at -40C, and it seemed to handle those temps no problem at all.

Enough fooling around though, time to look at the results. First up is the highest BCLK I have reached with this combination so far. As mentioned, more is definitely possible with proper time put in fine tuning secondary voltages…but 250+ for validation is still plenty impressive

After fooling around with voltages for a few minutes to maximize the BCLK without too much effort, I turned my attentions to Super Pi, both 1M and 32M. I only ran 1M a couple of times and did get 250BCLK to run a couple of times but had freezes opening CPU-Z. This has happened to me before with this motherboard and requires the CPU pot to warm up a bit. I didn’t have patience because I wanted to move on to 32M and didn’t have much time to spend benching. Here are the two best results I have pulled with this combo thus far.

The first i7 920 under 7 minutes in 32M and if I am not mistaken, under 8 seconds in 1M. At the time of posting, the 32M is actually 6th globally ranked amongst all CPU’s on HWBot.org and this 920 absolutely crushes the 965 C0/C1’s I have tested. With a little more work on voltages and better memory, there are sure to be quicker times from this combo.

The EVGA X58 3X SLI Classified has been much heralded in the enthusiast and overclocking forums and for very good reason. This particular 965 was only able to clock to around 5040MHz on both the EVGA X58 3X SLI and DFI X58-T3eH8 for 32M SPi. On the Classified, however, I was able to push this processor almost 100MHz more at the same pot temperature of around -75C. This extra 100MHz mated with a solid set of Corsair Dominator-GT 3×2GB DDR3-1866 7-8-7 memory, got me below the 7 minute mark for the first time.

Complete Hardware Setup:
• EVGA X58 3X SLI Classified
• Stock NB, SB, PWM cooling
• Intel i7-965 Extreme Edition
• MM Rev3 CU Pot w/LN2
• Arctic Silver Ceramique
• Corsair Dominator-GT 1866 7-8-7 (TR3X6G1866C7GTF)
• ATI PCI Mach64
• Scythe Ultra Kaze 120MM 2000RPM 87.6CFM (DFS123812L-2000)
• Seagate 7200.9 80GB SATA II 8MB cache
• Custom N’lightnd Windows XP Pro SP3
• Corsair HX1000W

Using a fairly typical SPi setup, getting into the 6’s was a bit of a battle. At 5GHz it was evident that the setup had the chance to go sub 7 minutes but I had no idea how the CPU was going to clock on the Classified as this was my first session under LN2 working on 32M.

The only issue I had was getting a screen shot. After getting sub 7 a couple of times, the system insisted on freezing when trying to open CPU-Z for the screen shot. Even after an extensive copy wazza process and running 32M, the system didn’t like CPU-Z…which obviously wasn’t making sense. As it turns out, letting the pot temperature warm up to near -50C was what it took to get the screen shot. It only took about three Newcastle’s and a half dozen runs under 7 minutes for me to figure it out.

It isn’t the most efficient run out there and my copy wazza/32M OS needs some work but the goal was sub 7 minutes and that was accomplished. Thanks to EVGA for another fantastic motherboard and Corsair for a solid kit of memory. Next up is trying to get that time down by a couple seconds and break into the top 5 overall 32M on HWBot.org with this setup.