Asus Maximus Formula

[ckoons1]

appreciate it.

 

[Cold Storm]

No problem. There is no reason to get a person to buy the board that won't work out good for them. I've have had numerous boards in the past.. The Max (Rampage), and my, now sneeky's lady, Blood Iron, have been the boards that have done it all for me..
The only thing that I do dislike about the Rampage, is that it's a board that likes only certain makes of ram..

 

[Wile E]

I'd say the Rampage myself also. The reason behind it, is the simple fact of how The Max, and Rampage are.. They made the one board, a complete SAME as the other. The only reason for the whole Extreme is that it has an All ready built Water block on the NB, and a better sounding card.. That's no reason, IMHO, to even go with teh whole "Extreme"... If you go water, do it right, and invest in proper NB, and Mosfet cooling.. The stock stuff, IMHO, isn't worth doing if you are really into it...

Now, if you don't care for ocing, and just want to WATER, cool everything to keep a straight oc, then it's cool... But, you don't need to get your NB cooled for that sort of thing. I've been sticking at 3.6 for the longest time, Thanks to TRT, and My NB is a little toasty if I didn't have a extra fan on it... The sound isn't a problem because of the fan's on my rad being a little louder..

You're a little off Cold. The Extremes are DDR3, Formulas are DDR2. In fact, the Maximus Formula SE is a factory water cooled Maximus.

 

[ckoons1]

Is DDR3 worth it yet?
also what about the 790i ultra chipset?
thx.

 

[Cold Storm]

You're a little off Cold. The Extremes are DDR3, Formulas are DDR2. In fact, the Maximus Formula SE is a factory water cooled Maximus.

Yeah, I say I was a little off there! Well I'm all ways off... Off the wall.. lol Hmmm I guess that's where the "Extreme" comes from! lol.

Is DDR3 worth it yet?
also what about he 790i ultra chipset?
thx.

To me, DDr3 is worth it going at now. But, only worth if you go 1600 or more. The reason I say that is, You have 120o-1250mhz DDR2 out there, so why would you grab a DDR3 kit that only goes up a little bit like 1333mhz? Get a kit that makes DDR3 worth wild. DDR3 is cheap now... Before this year, you spent $200 on a kit that is 1333mhz, and if you wanted a good kit it was almost $300... Now, you can get a Kit of Transcends 1800mhz for $122.99 ! For the price that one kit of ram was last year, you can get 4gbs!
It's worth it if you want to start with future proofing.. Don't have to go i7 yet, but your able to get the ram to go when it's needed..

Now, for the 790i. If you think about going SLI, and want a bios that can handle it, go for it. There will be a learning curve that you have to do deal with on the boards, but it's a easy thing to learn if you know bios.

If you want to go DDR3, and SLI, then it's worth it. But, if your not thinking of SLI in the future, then I suggest not going with a Nvidia chipset.. Can be a pain....
IMHO

 

[ckoons1]

so INTEL with DDR3 1600+.
excellent
thx

 

[Cold Storm]

To me it's the best way to go. I wouldn't, myself, grab DDR3 unless I'm going above what I can almost get with a great set of DDR2.. Not worth it when you look into the pricing of getting the board and ram itself... But, like I say, that's me on the matter..

 

[t_ski]

OK, I'm back with the new and improved settings. I want to get this up and running at 1066 for the ram (should be 5-5-5-15 according to SPD @2.1v), but every time I set it that way (only changing the divider and the timings above) I get a DET RAM hang. Suggestions??? Right now I am testing the NB strap @ 333 and the ram @ 962, 5-5-5-15. Boots OK, and bandwidth was about 7777 MB/s.

Extreme Tweaker 
Ai Overclock Tuner : Manual 
OC From CPU Level Up : AUTO 
CPU Ratio Control : Manual 
- Ratio CMOS Setting : 10
FSB Frequency : 400
FSB Strap to North Bridge : 400
PCI-E Frequency: 100
DRAM Frequency: DDR2- 800
DRAM Command Rate : 2t
DRAM Timing Control: Manual 
CAS# Latency : 4
RAS# to CAS# Delay : 4
RAS# Precharge : 4
RAS# ActivateTime : 12
RAS# to RAS# Delay : Auto
Row Refresh Cycle Time : Auto
Write Recovery Time : Auto
Read to Precharge Time : Auto

Read to Write Delay (S/D) : Auto
Write to Read Delay (S) : Auto
Write to Read Delay (D) : Auto
Read to Read Delay (S) : Auto
Read to Read Delay (D) : Auto
Write to Write Delay (S) : Auto
Write to Write Delay (D) : Auto
DRAM Static Read Control: Auto
Ai Clock Twister : Auto
Transaction Booster : Auto

CPU Voltage : 1.41875 (1.4 actual)
CPU PLL Voltage : Auto (1.616 actual)
North Bridge Voltage : 1.63 (1.648 actual)
DRAM Voltage : 2.04 (2.112 actual)
FSB Termination Voltage : 1.52 (1.44 actual)
South Bridge Voltage : 1.10 (1.12 actual)
Loadline Calibration : disabled
CPU GTL Reference : Auto
North Bridge GTL Reference : Auto
DDR2 Channel A REF Voltage : Auto
DDR2 Channel B REF Voltage : Auto
DDR2 Controller REF Voltage : Auto (1.056 actual)
SB 1.5V Voltage : 1.55 (1.584 actual)

Also, I am still looking for suggestions on a new PSU to power this board. Thermaltake 1200W is out, as I know the two I tried didn't work well with this board. Any other ideas?

EDIT:

Doing some more testing. I have set the strap to 266 and lowered the multi. I have manually set the PL @ 6. I have slowly increased the FSB up to 420 MHz, and then to 425 MHz 1 MHz at a time. I can boot at 424 MHz, which puts the ram at 1061. However, if I go up just 1 more MHz to 425, the ram goes to 1066, and the mobo does a "soft" power-off before rebooting. When it comes back up, I have the DET DRAM hang.

So I looked at the OCZ site for my ram, and it says 2.1v - 2.3v, but not to exceed 2.1v if it says so on the lable. Mine seemed perfectly stable at 2.1v, so I didn't think anything of it before. I looked at the stickers and it says 1066, 5-5-15 at 2.2v. So I bumped up the juice to 2.21v and it posted, but locked up on the post screen. I reset it and upped the voltage again to 2.3v, and it posted again, at least occasionally. Sometimes I would get a weird error saying "New CPU installed. Update the BIOS to take full advantage of the features for this CPU." Other times I got a Bootmgr error and Windows wouldn't load The CMOS wouldn't reset right away for that one either - it took a little trying

I was up to almost 2:00 am last night working on the FSB issue. I got tired of trying to figure out why it wouldn't hit 425 FSB and ran Prime at 9 x 424 (3.8 GHz). It went for over 9 hours error free.

Included for your viewing pleasure is a MemSet ss. Any suggestions for getting over the 1063 MHz wall would be appreciated.

 

[DMF]

You bumped the vDRAM but left the timings at 4-4-4-12 and PL at 6?

What happens if you let the RAM timings go to Auto?

 

[t_ski]

I set the timings at 5-5-5-15. I tried PL 6, 7 and Auto. I haven't tried setting all the ram timings at Auto. I suppose I could later if I get the chance to fool around with it some more tonight.

 

[X800]

There is a betabios for rampage and according to the thread on extremesystems it makes possible to boot over 500mhz bus =) http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/525714/RAMPAGE-ASUS-Formula-0802.zip

 

[Wetbehindtheears]

There is a betabios for rampage and according to the thread on extremesystems it makes possible to boot over 500mhz bus =) http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/525714/RAMPAGE-ASUS-Formula-0802.zip

Good find but I'm a bit reluctant to use until tried/tested a bit longer having had bad experiences with Asus beta's before!!

 

[X800]

Ok the old profiles does not work in the new bios so i had redo all but i think i was worth it.This is what i could accive by setting everything again.If i had better memory i could go furhter.With the new bios i could clock the memory more.

 

[X800]

Here we go again ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/Rampage_Formula/RAMPAGE-ASUS-Formula-0803.zip

 

[Cold Storm]

I don't have my board... Hopefully it will be back and I can play with it!

 

[X800]

I don't have my board... Hopefully it will be back and I can play with it!

Sorry to hear that did push it too faar I hope get you a new one soon Becuse this board is awsome.

 

[Cold Storm]

Sorry to hear that did push it too faar I hope get you a new one soon Becuse this board is awsome.

Well, I don't think when it comes back from RMA, I'll be keeping it. I'm loving the whole sli set up! But, the Max/Rampage board is one of the best out there!

 

[Wetbehindtheears]

Can't get link to work!

Edit :
Used FF and link works ?? (Opera didn't!) Thank you x800!!

 

[erocker]

Rampage Formula 0803 Bios:
Improve compatibility with some Raid card

Some raid card? They could of been a little more specific.

 

[X800]

Yes they could be more specific what raid that they mean.But it has too some other fixes that not told.The bios 802 fixed the memory speed so i push them more before they couldnt do 1066 but now

 

[erocker]

Yes they could be more specific what raid that they mean.But it has too some other fixes that not told.The bios 802 fixed the memory speed so i push them more before they couldnt do 1066 but now

In that case, I will have to give it a try. My DDR2-1200 hasn't wanted to run at 1200mhz since I've put the last recent bios on it.

 

[X800]

You can see it my screenshot on this page cpu is 3713 and menory 556,9 (Bios 802) There are new settings too.

 

[X800]

Here we go again ftp://ftp.asus.com.tw/pub/ASUS/mb/socket775/Rampage_Formula/RAMPAGE-ASUS-Formula-0902.zip
Fixes:
This BIOS fixes the DRAM CLK on Channel B problem. It doesn't have to be delayed anymore with DDR +1200MHz
Support new CPUs. Please refer to our website at: http://support.asus.com/cpusupport/cpusupport.aspx?SLanguage=en-us
Enjoy