Biostar TPower I45 with a Q6600

[dadi_oh]

I currently have an ASUS P5KE-wifi motherboard with a Q6600 G0. The Q6600 and P35 NB are both watercooled with a Swiftech Apogee/MWC60 and the Q6600 runs about 57C full load worst core in a 26C room ambient (I have my delta fans at about 60% on the rads to keep the noise down).

So what's this got to do with the title of the thread? Well I was getting bored and wanted to change something. I was surfing eBay and on a whim threw in a bid on an open box Biostar Tpower I45 motherboard. The reviews looked decent and I was a bit surprised since Biostar was not one of the names that springs to mind for anything but budget boards. Well I ended up getting the thing for $79 shipped.

So when it arrives my intent is to pull off the NB/FET cooler setup and install my MWC60 waterblock on the P45 NB. I will probably coole the FETs with some memory heatsinks since they don't need much.

This board has a reputation for some very high FSB so I was wondering if anyone reading this has overclocked a Q6600 and what settings they may recommend. I currently use 450X8 on my ASUS board. Any recommendations?

 

[Kursah]

I run a q6600 on my P45 and it's good stuff. I use 400FSB and 9X for my 3.6Ghz OC using the same 1.41v as I did on my DFI P35. The NB runs quite a bit cooler, it's a smaller fabbed P35 for the most part. My P35 would run around 55C load at 400FSB, I don't recall voltage. My P45 runs around 38C load on 1.26v for NB and MCH on 400FSB. Tuning P45 is pretty easy, expect to hit 400FSB with minimal voltage increases. I don't have experience with that Biostar board, but I've heard pretty good things about it.

Keep us posted!

 

[dadi_oh]

I run a q6600 on my P45 and it's good stuff. I use 400FSB and 9X for my 3.6Ghz OC using the same 1.41v as I did on my DFI P35. The NB runs quite a bit cooler, it's a smaller fabbed P35 for the most part. My P35 would run around 55C load at 400FSB, I don't recall voltage. My P45 runs around 38C load on 1.26v for NB and MCH on 400FSB. Tuning P45 is pretty easy, expect to hit 400FSB with minimal voltage increases. I don't have experience with that Biostar board, but I've heard pretty good things about it.

Keep us posted!

Will keep you posted for sure. With the P45 being on a smaller fab, power is down from the P35. I already have a NB waterblock so I might as well use it. Maybe overkill in this case but if it helps for a little higher FSB that's OK.

I don't think I have ever owned a Biostar board before... I have had just about every brand I can think of over the years... most notable exception is DFI (always thought I would get one some day).

From reading the reviews Biostar is trying to break into the mid-range enthusiast bracket. Only thing I am a little unsure of is that it is only a 4 phase power design so I hope the power finicky Q6600 will be OK. I currently run my Q6600 (VID=1.275) at 1.416V to get 450X8 on my P5KE which has an 8 phase power design. I expect I'll get a lot more drop with this new board.

 

[dadi_oh]

Oh, and forgot to mention I do already have another Q6600 (VID=1.2875V) on a P5Q-PRO board but that is on my video server / folding machine so I don't really care about too high an OC. I ran it at 3600MHz for a bit but didn't like the temps at about 64C (Vendettta 2). Speed isn't too important on that machine so I bumped it down to an easy 400X8=3200 and it runs nice at a cooler 54C while folding 24/7. Since it is my server I didn't really spend much time tweaking the P5Q-Pro so I am looking forward to playing more with this Biostar board since this is my "playing / overclocking" machine.

 

[dadi_oh]

After doing a bit of surfing it seems that the 4 phase power of this Biostar board may not be the best choice for high overclocks on a quad core. So now I am thinking I will install this Biostar board in my video server since I only OC that q6600 to 3.2GHz (assuming teh Biostar board can at least achieve 3.2GHz without breaking a sweat).

I will then move the P5Q-Pro board out of the video server and put that in my main overclocking rig and see how far I can push my Q6600 G0 VID=1.275 CPU on a good P45 motherboard (currently on a P5KE P35 board). I may not actually see much improvement if any but it will be fun trying.

On the P5KE motherboard I am able to get the following out of my Q6600 using OCZ PC2-8800 (1100MHz) RAM.

430X9 = 3.87GHz 1.552V Benching (not prime stable)
450X8 = 3.60GHz 1.416V Stable for daily tasks but get the odd reset while folding 24/7
430X8 = 3.44GHz 1.344V Completely stable prime95 and 24/7 folding

It may be interesting to see if the instability at 3.6GHz might be in the P5KE motherboard and could be resolved by the P5Q-Pro motherboard.

 

[FryingWeesel]

the biostar should be fine, check rebelshaven forums for more first hand experiance with biostar boards(they are the official english forums for biostar)

I know afew people with p45 biostar t series boards, they all have had zero problems overclocking their quads in them, so i dont see you having any issues.

 

[dadi_oh]

the biostar should be fine, check rebelshaven forums for more first hand experiance with biostar boards(they are the official english forums for biostar)

I know afew people with p45 biostar t series boards, they all have had zero problems overclocking their quads in them, so i dont see you having any issues.

OK. I'll check them out. Rebel Shaven? A bunch of bald guys in trouble with the law?

Always good to know what to look for before you actually start overclocking.

 

[Kursah]

You run 1.416v for 3.6ghz? Man that's what I run for orthos/occt/prime stability on my 1.30vid q6600...I bet you could run lower, maybe 1.38v. Maybe not though, but vid does seem relative to OC's on these chips.

 

[dadi_oh]

You run 1.416v for 3.6ghz? Man that's what I run for orthos/occt/prime stability on my 1.30vid q6600...I bet you could run lower, maybe 1.38v. Maybe not though, but vid does seem relative to OC's on these chips.

Entirely possible I could run lower. When I was trying to figure out the source of the occasional crash from folding I was trying to bump the votage up to see if it improved stability. I don't think I ever went back to try and get voltage as low as possible. Problem was it could take a couple of days for the crash to happen so it is a reeeeeeaaaaalllyyyy slow process tweaking teh voltage downwards. I am watercooled and temps are fine so I wasn't too motivated

What I do know is my current setting of 3.44GHz is 100% stable. Once I get this setup in the P5Q-Pro board I'll do some more intensive searching for the optimum speed/Vcore.

 

[FryingWeesel]

http://www.rebelshavenforum.com/sis-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

thats the forums, take a look, biostar's a "dark horse" as some refer to hardware thats not well known but really suprises people in quility/perf.

my ta770 is far from new, and yet it can take any am2/am2+ or am3 cpu and push it to the cpu's max without any real effort, I became a biostar t-series fan back in the 754/939 days when i setup alot of matx lanparty rigs for friends/clients using their 6100 based boards, those things clocked like a DREAM had every bios option u could ask for, and where cheap, and biostar support was stunningly good for RMA, or if you where needing an IO shield for an openbox board (free)

biostar's non-cheapo boards are impressive, my tforce550 was a dream( u can ask jc316 and others about that board, they had them as well) I think if you get in and play with that board, you WILL find it to be alot of fun and far more capable then you may expect

 

[dadi_oh]

http://www.rebelshavenforum.com/sis-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

thats the forums, take a look, biostar's a "dark horse" as some refer to hardware thats not well known but really suprises people in quility/perf.

my ta770 is far from new, and yet it can take any am2/am2+ or am3 cpu and push it to the cpu's max without any real effort, I became a biostar t-series fan back in the 754/939 days when i setup alot of matx lanparty rigs for friends/clients using their 6100 based boards, those things clocked like a DREAM had every bios option u could ask for, and where cheap, and biostar support was stunningly good for RMA, or if you where needing an IO shield for an openbox board (free)

biostar's non-cheapo boards are impressive, my tforce550 was a dream( u can ask jc316 and others about that board, they had them as well) I think if you get in and play with that board, you WILL find it to be alot of fun and far more capable then you may expect

Thanks for the link. I have my homework for tonight

I try not to be too prejudiced when it comes to hardware. Like I said I have had about every brand you can think of at one point or another. I do a lot of research and if they are using the right technology and selling at the right price I'll give them a shot. I always seem to root for the underdog... Kind of nice to see the little guy taking a shot at the top dogs for half the price....