Asrock surprise

Liqourice · Oct 26, 2008, 11:20 PM

I'm almost in shock here.

I sent my Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DS5 back for RMA on friday since I just can't get it to work properly.

While I'm waiting I had to throw my old Asrock AM2NF3-VSTA motherboard in so I have something to work with. I checked the support site and I could see that all Phenoms are supported with a BIOS update, even the 140W one.

So, I flashed BIOS, changed and put the 9850BE in, mounted the Corsair 1066 sticks, the X-Fi Xtreme Music and my old X850XT.

And here's the surprise. After installing XP and all the drivers I started my quest to see how far I could overclock.

It took me about 15 minutes to test a little and this is the first trial result.

On the Gigabyte board I couldn't run Prime95 for 2 seconds with the Phenom before the computer just plainly reset itself, at stock 2.5 GHz!!

I'm really really surprised that I could do this with an old motherboard that was built even before the Phenoms were close to hitting the market and only cost 1/3 of the newer motherboard that was built with Phenoms in mind! This only proves to me what kind of overpriced crap that GB motherboard is.

Downside is of course that this motherboard doesn't fully support the Phenoms full potential and that it only has an AGP slot but still...

I can probably OC even more than this but I think I need a new cooler to achieve this. The cores were running at between 60 and 64 degrees more or less the entire stress test. I ran prime95 for half an hour with no errors.

OldBuzzard · Oct 27, 2008, 01:18 AM

Doesn't suprise me a bit. I had this 4800+ to within an eyelash of 3Ghz on my Asrock board, and all I changed was the FSB. I'm sure that if I played around a bit with some other settings I could get 3Ghz stable with no problem.

The new AOD790GX/128M from Asrock is supposed to be a damned nice board. I'm seriously considering that and a Phenom 9950 to put in it.

I think the Asrock boards have been under-rated mostly because they are inexpensive.

RobertBruce · Oct 27, 2008, 04:10 AM

I'm very surprised. The asrock board I had was good hardware but the worst BIOS ever.

Liqourice · Oct 27, 2008, 11:45 AM

My surprise is mostly from the fact that it's an old board, Phenoms was just not in mind when it was built.

I'm pretty sure I can push it even higher if I get a better cpu cooler since it was so fast and easy to get it running stable at 3.0. I couldn't even get it running stable at stock 2.5 GHz on the Gigabyte board that cost over 3 times as much.

I have to say that BIOS is not the best but I could work around it. I couldn't get the memory to run in 1066 (533) mode even though it was selectable in BIOS, if I did it reverted back to 533 (266). So I had to set it at 800 and raise the FSB a bit instead of just the multiplier. If I'm gonna try to make it go even faster I'll probably continue to raise FSB to get a bit more speed on the memory as well.

Of course I can never get the Phenom to run at full throttle. Maximum setting for HT is 800MHz, compared to the other motherboard where I could set it all the way up to 2600. I don't know how much the difference between running at 800 instead of the default 2000 for the CPU does, a little bit at least.

But it's fun. My old X850 got some new life as well. I miss the blazing speed of my 3870X2 though, so I hope I'll get my money back for the GB board soon. I'll probably get the ASUS M3A79-T instead...

Oct 26, 2008, 11:20 PM	#1
Liqourice HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Stockholm Posts: 1,699 Rep Power: 98 System Specs	Asrock surprise I'm almost in shock here. I sent my Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DS5 back for RMA on friday since I just can't get it to work properly. While I'm waiting I had to throw my old Asrock AM2NF3-VSTA motherboard in so I have something to work with. I checked the support site and I could see that all Phenoms are supported with a BIOS update, even the 140W one. So, I flashed BIOS, changed and put the 9850BE in, mounted the Corsair 1066 sticks, the X-Fi Xtreme Music and my old X850XT. And here's the surprise. After installing XP and all the drivers I started my quest to see how far I could overclock. It took me about 15 minutes to test a little and this is the first trial result. On the Gigabyte board I couldn't run Prime95 for 2 seconds with the Phenom before the computer just plainly reset itself, at stock 2.5 GHz!! I'm really really surprised that I could do this with an old motherboard that was built even before the Phenoms were close to hitting the market and only cost 1/3 of the newer motherboard that was built with Phenoms in mind! This only proves to me what kind of overpriced crap that GB motherboard is. Downside is of course that this motherboard doesn't fully support the Phenoms full potential and that it only has an AGP slot but still... I can probably OC even more than this but I think I need a new cooler to achieve this. The cores were running at between 60 and 64 degrees more or less the entire stress test. I ran prime95 for half an hour with no errors.

Oct 27, 2008, 01:18 AM	#2
OldBuzzard DH's oldest Geek Join Date: May 2003 Location: Oberlin, OH Posts: 2,782 Rep Power: 145 System Specs	Re: Asrock surprise Doesn't suprise me a bit. I had this 4800+ to within an eyelash of 3Ghz on my Asrock board, and all I changed was the FSB. I'm sure that if I played around a bit with some other settings I could get 3Ghz stable with no problem. The new AOD790GX/128M from Asrock is supposed to be a damned nice board. I'm seriously considering that and a Phenom 9950 to put in it. I think the Asrock boards have been under-rated mostly because they are inexpensive. __________________ When looking for a reason as to why things go wrong, never rule out sheer STUPIDITY

Oct 27, 2008, 04:10 AM	#3
RobertBruce HardwareHeaven Addict Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 259 Rep Power: 46 System Specs	Re: Asrock surprise I'm very surprised. The asrock board I had was good hardware but the worst BIOS ever.

Oct 27, 2008, 11:45 AM	Thread Starter #4
Liqourice HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Stockholm Posts: 1,699 Rep Power: 98 System Specs	Re: Asrock surprise My surprise is mostly from the fact that it's an old board, Phenoms was just not in mind when it was built. I'm pretty sure I can push it even higher if I get a better cpu cooler since it was so fast and easy to get it running stable at 3.0. I couldn't even get it running stable at stock 2.5 GHz on the Gigabyte board that cost over 3 times as much. I have to say that BIOS is not the best but I could work around it. I couldn't get the memory to run in 1066 (533) mode even though it was selectable in BIOS, if I did it reverted back to 533 (266). So I had to set it at 800 and raise the FSB a bit instead of just the multiplier. If I'm gonna try to make it go even faster I'll probably continue to raise FSB to get a bit more speed on the memory as well. Of course I can never get the Phenom to run at full throttle. Maximum setting for HT is 800MHz, compared to the other motherboard where I could set it all the way up to 2600. I don't know how much the difference between running at 800 instead of the default 2000 for the CPU does, a little bit at least. But it's fun. My old X850 got some new life as well. I miss the blazing speed of my 3870X2 though, so I hope I'll get my money back for the GB board soon. I'll probably get the ASUS M3A79-T instead...