Intel D975XBX (Bad Axe)

[pointreyes]

Originally Posted by Intel_User

Now like Anand said, if the system is quiet enough it MAY be believable. However, if using a Pentium D system, which is what ViiV systems are, then it will be DAMN loud. Then people will be like: "***?"

My Pentium D system is finally much quieter; however, I'm bummed that I already meet all the specs except for the stupid $200 motherboard I have. That really irks me with the way hardware changes one thing in the bios and viola board is no good unless you get this new improved $200 board. Oh well. C'est la vie.

Oh yeah, how did I quiet down the system even more?
I replaced the connect3D X800GTO with an ATi X1800XT. Tried 3DMark06 to see if the card would get louder and the only thing that did was the CPU fan during the CPU test.

[Sandog]

I can understand people get annoyed with Intel's products having short compatability lives but you just have to be careful ATT. Intel is doing so much so fast that I don't think they know what they will be doing in 3mos time. Heck it sounds like even Conroe may be short lived. 45nm tech is coming out in 2007 with 4-cores. Before two long (say 3yrs) we might all be using solid-state hard drives instead of mechanical ones. I spoke to a rep a week ago and the price is plummeting monthly on the memory chips for such drives. The D955 was one helluva board. Built better than the current 975 if you take away Crossfire and the regulator improvement. It could be the D975 I am using will get canned for a D975E version with a revised chipset to better run Conroe. I'm almost 100% positive the current board won't last until June of 2007. As fast as the processors are changing the boards are changing and I don't see a slow down anytime soon. Seems Intel puts out the new tech. as soon as it is ready. They are trying to run from Netburst right now so maybe after Conroe things will settle down a little bit.

At least the features you do have on your boards work and work well. The D955/975 work great with all current processors except the D955 won't run the 955EE if I am not mistaken. I think most people should expect 100% satisfaction running a current board with a current CPU's but should not be surprised if something new comes along that will not run on current hardware. This may not be a problem with AMD hardware but that is because they are not inventing new and exciting systems and platforms like Intel is ATM.

On another note. Here is a good article that will make you wiser in your buying decision on power supplies. It is related to this thread due to the fact our hero (D975XBX) can run two of the hottest cards on the planet (1900XTX). This article may surprise you.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...1932947,00.asp

[emgarf]

I've always used PC Power & Cooling supplies over the last 10+ years. Rock solid.

Intel's own documentation on the BadAxe (Intel Desktop Board D975XBX Technical Product Specification, Section 2.10 Electrical Considerations) indicates that a fully loaded MB will require 750W (IIRC). That's why I put the Turbo-Cool 850 in the new system. Admittedly, users rarely fully load a MB (all slots/connectors used), but I wanted the headroom anyway.

[emgarf]

Originally Posted by Sandog

Here is the settting.

Thanks - I did go back and find it. When I was first chasing down the "Away Mode" mystery driver, I was looking in the BIOS for something called "Away Mode" enable or similar.

Still odd that the driver didn't get automatically installed with the rest of the chipset drivers. Hopefully they'll catch up with that.

[Sandog]

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...1937997,00.asp

It doesn't look like the graph is correct but you decide. On the previous page there are some SLI/Crosfire setups. You can rest assured with a 850W power supply or you can also try to add up your wattage use from the types of hardware you know you will be running. This is the way I prefer. Power supplies get their best efficiency when they are loaded around 70-80%.

On the previous link I wanted to note how some power supplies that were mentioned have to have a heavy 5V load in order to get more power from the 12V supply. At work I have some power supplies that are opposite. The 5V and 12V share the total load so if one goes up the other goes down. I wanted to point out from the previous article that if you are considering buying an Intel D975XBX for the purpose of Crossfire with 2 ATI 1900XT cards then you better plan well for the power supply. Some of the SLI certified power supplies tested did not work in SLI.

[djt]

Sandog,

I think I remember you, welcome back.

I have found the D975XBX board to be as stable as any Intel board. You would have an awesome system with those video cards that should work fine in Crossfire setup. You would be restricted to using the last PCI slot (only 2 available) for your Audigy card which probably is not a problem for you. The D975 appears to run Conroe but later on it might not be the best choice for Conroe. It runs the Preslers fine if you get a current processor but you will need a big power supply for that Crossfire setup. I wouldn't go with less than 600W with a 950 or 955 Presler.

Thanks for the response. After think this over and taking into consideration that I already have Corsair TwinX2048Mb-3500LL Pro memory and the FX-57 I’m going to give the A8R32-MVP Deluxe with new BIOS another try.

I am not very happy with AMD’s decision to go with the new socket design/DDR2 in the upcoming months. This combined with the release of Conroe will probably have me going back with Intel sometime before the end of the year.

As far as power requirements go I have a PC Power and Cooling 1000Watt on the way for my Cross Fire setup. I’m currently also running a 1000Watt PC P&C in my Athlon64 X2 4800+, Asus A8N32 Deluxe , 2x 7900GTX/SLI setup without any problems.

[djt]

On the previous link I wanted to note how some power supplies that were mentioned have to have a heavy 5V load in order to get more power from the 12V supply. At work I have some power supplies that are opposite. The 5V and 12V share the total load so if one goes up the other goes down. I wanted to point out from the previous article that if you are considering buying an Intel D975XBX for the purpose of Crossfire with 2 ATI 1900XT cards then you better plan well for the power supply. Some of the SLI certified power supplies tested did not work in SLI.

You would not believe the problems I have had in the last year because of power requirements of Cross Fire and SLI. My first problems were with an Enermax 600Watt Noisetaker/SLI. Ever time I tried to set my two 7800GTX’s to “Alternate Frame Rendering” I would get lockups in almost all my games. Oddly enough this would go away by selecting “Alternate Frame Rendering 2”. Blaming the split rails of the Enermax PSU for the problem I went with a PC Power and Cooling 510/SLI. What do you know I ended up with the same problem with the 510/SLI. Eventually I gave up, blaming the problem on compatibility between my games and Nvidia’s “Alternate Frame Rendering” setting.

Then a similar problem reared its ugly head when I decided to try my two ATI 1900’s in Cross Fire. Certain games in Cross fire mode would lock up or just not start at all. When I switched Cross Fire off my problems went away. At the time I was blaming the Asus A8R-MVP motherboard.

This led me to try the new A8R32-MVP Deluxe. This time I tried dual 510/SLI’s with one 510 powering the video cards alone. This did not work either. I got the same lock ups when Cross Fire was enabled. After talking to PC Power and Cooling they told me that I was not loading the one power supply up enough.

This week I received my 2 new 7900GTX’s (Evga e-GeForce 7900 GTX Superclocked). With my 1000Watt PSU I have been testing games in SLI for the last two nights and have not been able to get this machine to lock up once. I should have my Cross Fire setup back up and running in couple of weeks. If anyone is interested I’ll give a report of my results.

Here is a good article on the issues mentioned above-

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...1932957,00.asp

[pointreyes]

Originally Posted by emgarf

I've always used PC Power & Cooling supplies over the last 10+ years. Rock solid.

Intel's own documentation on the BadAxe (Intel Desktop Board D975XBX Technical Product Specification, Section 2.10 Electrical Considerations) indicates that a fully loaded MB will require 750W (IIRC). That's why I put the Turbo-Cool 850 in the new system. Admittedly, users rarely fully load a MB (all slots/connectors used), but I wanted the headroom anyway.

My D955 is fully loaded. Only the PCIe x8 (or is that x4 ) is not being used. Using 2 SCSI drives as well as 4 SATA drives and 4 sticks of RAM. And now I have the power ravenous X1800XT in it. I'm using a Fortron (er, OCZ) 600w PSU. All the rails are stable and the PSU does not get hot. Glad I don't need crossfire or SLI.

BTW: I thought I read somewhere that you might be better off using a single 12v rail instead of a split 12v rail for many of the SLI video card configurations being used today.

[GFORCE100]

Originally Posted by pointreyes

My D955 is fully loaded. Only the PCIe x8 (or is that x4 ) is not being used. Using 2 SCSI drives as well as 4 SATA drives and 4 sticks of RAM. And now I have the power ravenous X1800XT in it. I'm using a Fortron (er, OCZ) 600w PSU. All the rails are stable and the PSU does not get hot. Glad I don't need crossfire or SLI.

BTW: I thought I read somewhere that you might be better off using a single 12v rail instead of a split 12v rail for many of the SLI video card configurations being used today.

Are you sure Fortran makes OCZ PSU's? Not perhaps Top Power?

[pointreyes]

Originally Posted by GFORCE100

Are you sure Fortran makes OCZ PSU's? Not perhaps Top Power?

I think they switch back and forth between the two but I will see if I can get more info on this.

Here's the article about using single rail for crossfire:
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=29940

I found it while looking to see who makes the 600w OCZ which happens to be one of the PSUs with split 12v rails that will work with Crossfire.

[djt]

pointreyes,

BTW: I thought I read somewhere that you might be better off using a single 12v rail instead of a split 12v rail for many of the SLI video card configurations being used today.

That’s what I thought also. The PC Power and Cooling 510/SLI does not use split rails, but I still had issues with this power supply and SLI/Cross Fire. I think that it was just the fact that 510 Watts (650 peak) was not enough. It would be nice if Nvidia and ATI would get together with power supply manufacturers before a new video card is released. The power requirements for these new cards are getting ridiculous.

[Sandog]

Here's another review done recenlty on the Bad Axe.

http://www.digital-daily.com/motherb...5xbx/index.htm

Nice pictures and some graphs. ASUS board does noticeably better across all benchies. No clue the reason for this but I doubt it was the BIOS holding the Intel board back like he said. He's right though that there is no good reason to replace the D955XBK with the D975XBX unless you want Crossfire or your like me and want the latest from Intel no matter what. We already know the D975XBX will probably run Conroe later because we saw it running at Spring IDF. I do not see a reason why the D955XBK would not run Conroe either.

[emgarf]

Originally Posted by Sandog

Here's another review done recenlty on the Bad Axe.

http://www.digital-daily.com/motherb...5xbx/index.htm

Nice pictures and some graphs. ASUS board does noticeably better across all benchies. No clue the reason for this but I doubt it was the BIOS holding the Intel board back like he said. He's right though that there is no good reason to replace the D955XBK with the D975XBX unless you want Crossfire or your like me and want the latest from Intel no matter what. We already know the D975XBX will probably run Conroe later because we saw it running at Spring IDF. I do not see a reason why the D955XBK would not run Conroe either.

Nice review; I especially liked "...we tested the Intel D975XBX-based system in the extreme mode for as long as two weeks. During that time, not a single failure came up."

That's why I keep buying Intel motherboards - no stability issues whatsoever.

[pointreyes]

I remember reading on this thread about possible problems with booting Windows on an EFI system. Wellllll......
From: http://onmac.net/

Load Windows XP on the Intel Mac Now!

Thanks to Blanka and Narf for coming up with this solution. The total prize of 13,854 has been given to the winners. Any further donations will go towards sustaining this opensource project

That sure didn't long to find the solution.

[Sandog]

Well I finally did some hardware updates. It took me 4 tries to sell the 840EE on Ebay. The first auction the seller did a buy now on the 840 plus D955XBK but ended up not paying. First negative feedback I ever had to give. I ended up selling the mobo separately for 187.50$ and tonight I sold the 840EE for $600. I plan on getting the 955EE in April when the revised core is available. Until then I will be using a 630. I picked one up for around $180. I am very impressed with this chip. I recall GForce100 or Intel_User telling me I might be better off with a 960 cost/performance wise over a 955EE which looks to be very true. I think so because I have OC this 630(3.0GHz) right out of the box at +30% EBIM. It is running at 14x260FSB (3.640GHz) with CE halt state enabled and 15x260FSB (3.9GHz) under load. The thing that impresses me is the feeling of speed I get in Windows. Very fast indeed so I went to run 3DMark05 and scored over 7900. This is amazing considering I only got 8200 with the 840EE clocked at 4.0GHz. This is amazing folks. A $180 CPU vs. a $1045 CPU. I can not check the temps right now since IDCC will not open so I might have to go check in BIOS but the Koolance shows 34C.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=1894437

Bottom line. The 6XX and newer 9XX with EIST are probably very good chips. I hope more people get to try out these mature chips. Don’t forget Conroe will be very green when it comes out. Even when it arrives with what appears to be good characteristics compared to current CPU’s it will have to be updated and improved.