Brand new used GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard RAM questions

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Brand new used GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard RAM questions

Once I order that RAM, then I need to find a good case and a nice modular power supply. I'm pulling my octopus of a power supply out of my old case to use in my other case with this new board and guess what? I found a freaking bad cap on my old HP! I can't believe that thing was even running!!! It's near the SATA ports. I'm probably not gonna replace it. It was just a simple machine I built out of parts laying around so I had something to use when my Asus died. I got better proprietary systems now, like some Dell's, that are socket 775 with faster FSB and faster CPUs.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Brand new used GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard RAM questions

I put in my OCZ and my old Intel Quad Core Extreme Q9770 3.2GHz CPU and the machine posted!!! For some reason, the CPU is listed as 3.4GHz. It's a cheaper CPU but it's been pretty good to me. Heck of alot cheaper than those i7's. Also, I'm having trouble finding info on the CPU. I find stuff about the QX9770 but not the Q9770. Do you think they're the same?

[dmill89]

Re: Brand new used GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard RAM questions

I put in my OCZ and my old Intel Quad Core Extreme Q9770 3.2GHz CPU and the machine posted!!! For some reason, the CPU is listed as 3.4GHz. It's a cheaper CPU but it's been pretty good to me. Heck of alot cheaper than those i7's. Also, I'm having trouble finding info on the CPU. I find stuff about the QX9770 but not the Q9770. Do you think they're the same?

As far as I know there was only a qx9770 (with the core2extreme name), never heard of just a q9770 but I couldn't imagine there would be much of a difference. I've got a Q9450 an it is just now starting to get to the point that I will likely build a new I7 Based system (Likely on Haswell architecture since Win 7 won't fully support Skylake and I have no desire to downgrade to Windows 10) in the next year or so. These Yorkfield core2quads are still about on-par with a Haswell i3 (though much less efficient), not blazingly fast but still enough for most tasks.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: Brand new used GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard RAM questions

So, if both buses have an effective bandwidth of 12.8 gigabytes / sec, what would be the point of overclocking the RAM? Would it only make sense to overclock the RAM if I overclock the fsb clock?

lol errr i already addressed this in my previous post...

note what i said above about the fsb and said previously in another post about high speed overclocking ram and overclocking the cpu to take advantage of this. running the memory faster than the fsb results in little to no noticeable performance gain. the only ram benchmark i saw benefit from faster than fsb ram speed is with the winrar/7zip file compression/decompression workload. in that workload, overclocking the ram noticeably increased the file compression/decompression speed. so unless u like playing with file compression programs or maybe even ramdrives all the time, the optimal fsb to ram speed ratio is 1:1.

from my own memory benchmarks that i ran, i found running the ram faster than the fsb increased only the mem read and copy speed (copy increased only slightly) but not the write speed. it also decreased the mem access latency which *should* mean a more responsive system but its not noticeable. i only got a 1-2% increase in my game benchmark scores which is hardly noticeable in real world programs.

If I had the fsb effective bandwidth of something like 15 gigabytes / sec but the address bus was still 12.8 gigabytes / sec, I wouldn't really notice the 15 gigabytes / sec bandwidth from the fsb, right? Because it'd still have to wait on the address bus which is only 12.8 gigabytes / sec, right?

from my own mem benchmarks once again, overclocking the fsb while keeping mem speed the same only increases the mem write speed. read speed remained unchanged. copy speed only increased a tiny bit; access latency decreased a bit.

anyway, for the ddr2 chipsets, it wont let u run the memory at a slower divider than the fsb. only the ddr1 chipsets let u do that with a 200/800fsb cpu by allowing u to run the memory at ddr266 or 333 if u couldnt afford ddr400 modules.

I put in my OCZ and my old Intel Quad Core Extreme Q9770 3.2GHz CPU and the machine posted!!! For some reason, the CPU is listed as 3.4GHz. Also, I'm having trouble finding info on the CPU. I find stuff about the QX9770 but not the Q9770. Do you think they're the same?

did u put that in your old hp board or the gigabyte ep45-ud3p? the qx9770 is a 400/1600fsb cpu (there is no q9770) and is only supported on x38/x48, p45 and a few p35 boards with a bios update. if u put it in your hp board, i dont think the hp board bios microcode will recognise the cpu correctly, so it displays the cpu string incorrectly and also runs it at the wrong speed. u lucky it didnt fry the board and/or the cpu!!! that qx9770 was a 1200 dollar cpu, please be more careful next time what u put it into! just because it fits into the socket doesnt necessarily mean it will work!

btw, i use this thermal pad from performance pcs for northbridges to protect the smd caps on the substrate: Phobya Special Thermal Pad for Chipset Cooling 35x35x1mm.

I will likely build a new I7 Based system (Likely on Haswell architecture since Win 7 won't fully support Skylake and I have no desire to downgrade to Windows 10) in the next year or so. These Yorkfield core2quads are still about on-par with a Haswell i3 (though much less efficient), not blazingly fast but still enough for most tasks.

aye, haswell is still kicking it. the devil's canyon i7 4790k is a real nice cpu that will last u a long time due to its speed. its a 4ghz hyper threading quad core cpu with turbo boost to 4.4ghz! that is gonna last u a long time before it becomes too slow and u need an upgrade.

if u are feeling courageous, u can even try delidding the cpu and getting rid of the sheety stock intel tim under the heatspreader. it will make it run much cooler (more than 10°C) and last longer!

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Brand new used GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard RAM questions

As far as I know there was only a qx9770 (with the core2extreme name), never heard of just a q9770 but I couldn't imagine there would be much of a difference. I've got a Q9450 an it is just now starting to get to the point that I will likely build a new I7 Based system (Likely on Haswell architecture since Win 7 won't fully support Skylake and I have no desire to downgrade to Windows 10) in the next year or so. These Yorkfield core2quads are still about on-par with a Haswell i3 (though much less efficient), not blazingly fast but still enough for most tasks.

I bet mine is the QX9770 then. It's definitely an extreme and I bet the BIOS just lists it as Intel Core 2 Duo Extreme Q9770 instead of QX9770. Maybe the X means Extreme? I know when I bought this, it was much cheaper than an i7 Extreme. Those things were going for at least a grand, if not a couple. This one was only like 400$. I mean, that's a lot for a used CPU, but it's a heck of a lot cheaper than the i7 and is probably more than good enough for anything I do.

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Brand new used GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard RAM questions

...note what i said above about the fsb and said previously in another post about high speed overclocking ram and overclocking the cpu to take advantage of this. running the memory faster than the fsb results in little to no noticeable performance gain. the only ram benchmark i saw benefit from faster than fsb ram speed is with the winrar/7zip file compression/decompression workload. in that workload, overclocking the ram noticeably increased the file compression/decompression speed. so unless u like playing with file compression programs or maybe even ramdrives all the time, the optimal fsb to ram speed ratio is 1:1.
...

Okay, I just wanted to make sure I fully understood everything. I'm glad I'm on track now.

...
did u put that in your old hp board or the gigabyte ep45-ud3p? the qx9770 is a 400/1600fsb cpu (there is no q9770) and is only supported on x38/x48, p45 and a few p35 boards with a bios update. if u put it in your hp board, i dont think the hp board bios microcode will recognise the cpu correctly, so it displays the cpu string incorrectly and also runs it at the wrong speed. u lucky it didnt fry the board and/or the cpu!!! that qx9770 was a 1200 dollar cpu, please be more careful next time what u put it into! just because it fits into the socket doesnt necessarily mean it will work!

The QX9770, I tried in the HP, but only after upgrading the microcode in the BIOS. It's a bit odd, because it did already have microcode for the QX9770. I just updated it to a newer revision. However, when I fired the HP up, it would just display a message saying, "CPU not supported". I figured because the BIOS had the microcode, the CPU was physically supported. I had been reading about some white list stuff certain companies were doing where they'd only support certain hardware, preventing users from upgrading. I had come to the conclusion that perhaps HP was purposefully blocking the Extreme? I had a Dell that was socket 775 but never tried the CPU in there because from my research, the board did not support the 45nm lithography. This Extreme has a 45nm lithography so I thought if I had tried it, it could very well of damaged the CPU. Something that I didn't want to take the risk with. Good thing I didn't give it a shot!

btw, i use this thermal pad from performance pcs for northbridges to protect the smd caps on the substrate: Phobya Special Thermal Pad for Chipset Cooling 35x35x1mm.

I'm going to order some now. Thank you!

aye, haswell is still kicking it. the devil's canyon i7 4790k is a real nice cpu that will last u a long time due to its speed. its a 4ghz hyper threading quad core cpu with turbo boost to 4.4ghz! that is gonna last u a long time before it becomes too slow and u need an upgrade.

I wish I had an i7 4790K.

if u are feeling courageous, u can even try delidding the cpu and getting rid of the sheety stock intel tim under the heatspreader. it will make it run much cooler (more than 10°C) and last longer!

Was this meant for me? Are you suggesting I take the heat spreader off the Extreme and replace it? This chip does seem to run a bit hot. Hotter than I feel it should run. I have a feeling the reason the print on the CPU's heat spreader is missing because it ran so hot and just faded away. I'd imagine these Extreme's are supposed to run a little warm, but I'd love to drop the temp by 10°C if I could! I've never tried something like that before though and I do have some older CPUs I could mess with. Is it fairly hard / dangerous of a task?

[Spork Schivago]

Re: Brand new used GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard RAM questions

I just verified my QX9770 has the Intel Heat Spreader soldered to the die so I don't think the delidding part was meant for me.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: Brand new used GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard RAM questions

well, sry for the thread necro dig but i scored some gskill 2x2gb 1066 5-5-5-15 ram cheap (cost me US$27 including shipping) off ebay some months back and forgot to post about it.

So, do you think the G.Skill would be better than the Kingston? Or should I just stick with the Kingston?

I'd like to use the board for a while.

i cant really give u reliable advice as i have never used gskill ram before.

well, now that i have, i found the powerchip ics that gskill uses to be better at overclocking than the elpida ics used on the kingston hyperx 1066. the kingston ones needed a minimum of 50 for the trfc and 2.2v to run at their rated speed. the gskill ones only needed 2.0v to run trfc 45 at their rated speed.

also, the kingston ram runs very hot in stress testing at prime95 blend and memtest. cant touch the ram modules for more than 5 secs without being forced to pull my hand away. the gskill also runs hot in p95 blend and memtest but not as hot as the kingston which is scorching hot.

so i guess that justifies the higher price of the powerchip ics. the ram is excellent for 24/7 overclocking due to the lower voltage and cooler temperatures.

if the gskill is too expensive or hard to find, another manufacturer that also uses powerchip ics in their 2gb 1066 modules is mushkin. these modules have a black heatspreader. how do i know its powerchip? well, the specs for it are the same as the gskill. a sticker on it says 5-5-5-15 2.0-2.1v just like the gskill. hope this helps ppl in finding the best ddr2 2gb overclocking ram for their system.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Brand new used GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard RAM questions

Anyway, this motherboard supports DDR2 up to 1333MHz (o.c.). The maximum amount of RAM it can handle is 16GB. I wanted to know if anyone had this board and if they knew of any _good_ sticks that would work with this. I've checked the qualified vendors list and they only list 1 stick for 1333MHz and it's only a 1GB stick. I'm looking for at least 8GB (if not 16GB) that will run in dual channel mode.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what type of RAM I should pop in this bad boy? Thanks!

For 8 GB, you're probably gonna be required to use mixed sticks and for precaution, raise the VDIMM to 1.9V... Raise the VDIMM to 1.9V before installing the remaining 2 sticks!
You will be lucky to run them stable at 400 Mhz (800). I'm afraid that you can't do higher than roughly 450 Mhz (900) and that's with a real good overclock.

You can forget about 666 Mhz (1333) on DDR2! Even 533 Mhz (1066) is rare!