Bigtoe's P4G8X review/guide

bigtoe · 01-23-2003, 09:03 PM

Hi guys.
As you know I have been waiting to get hold of a granite bay board for quite some time now.I finally recieved my P4G8X and over the last 24hrs I have been doing some testing (playing!!)

First off I have the deluxe model...im not going to post pics of what you get but its a very nice package, with a good manual and driver cd with everything you need.

One important point is that I needed a cmos clear to get the board to function, so as soon as you get the board make this your first job.

I built the rig using a brand new IBM 180GX 60 gig hdd, 2 sticks of Twinmos pc3200 256mb, a P4-M 1.7a with stock intel heatsink but 60 to 80 mm fan adapter and a ys-tech 46cfm fan and a saphire 9700 pro with modded heatsink.

I installed xp pro with sp1 and dx9, then the drivers off the cd.

The P4-M is seen as a P4-M by the bios and defaults to 1.575v...I would like to see vcore options below 1.5v as the board supports down to 1.1v...maybe this is something Asus could allow in a later bios build.
Also the board overvolts on the vcore, it is set to 1.575v in bios and reads 1.65v in probe. Another point is that the vdimm doesn't seem to make much difference either..all settings seem to give 2.7v...again this is something asus needs to work on.

Tweaking
First off knowing the board overvolts on the vcore I would try your overclocking on default voltage first and work your way up.I used a P4-M as I am looking for extreme fsb speeds,I would advise you that these boards only come to life at 166fsb+...anything lower and you might as well get a PE chipset board as they are just as fast.
Be sure to try and use good ram, ddr400 is cheap now and will allow for much better timings at lower fsb's.I did notice the timings don't seem to have much effect on unbuffered bandwidth..again I feel this is a bios issue and hope it will be sorted in a later bios release.
The board has a Vagp setting, this also will up the voltage to the chipset and aided me in getting 200fsb 100% stable.I am burning in at the moment and with luck i may be able to lower this down from 1.7v to 1.6v or lower.1.7v though is not overly high and should do no damage.
The chipset does get quite hot..I replaced the pink thermal pad with thermal paste and attached a small chipset fan.

So at 200fsb I have vcore at 1.625v.
Vdimm at 2.7v.
Vagp at 1.7v.
Ram timings at 2,2,2,6 turbo with idle timer at infinite.
PCI latency at 64.
AGPX8 enabled
Video memory cache mode USWC
AGP/PCI at 68.46/34.23

Everthing disabled I don't use..ie, USB,1394, serial ports etc...this is upto you though!!
I also have the onboard sound disabled as I will be using a pci based sound card..for the tests though this was not installed.Im sure the onboard sound is pretty good but I have found my santa cruz to be a lot better!!

PCI lock
For the tests I also installed a PCI Geiger.For those of you unformiliar with this piece of kit it is a nifty little gadget that sits in a spare 5 1/4 bay, using a pci card it can actually measure your pci bus speed.
I found the same bug with the P4PE with this board too!!To get the board to lock properly what I did was to set the lock to 66.66/33.33 and set the fsb to 200 or what ever you are pushing for and save.Then if it fails to boot switch off and back on again and re-enter bios, leave your fsb alone but set the lock to anything other than 66.66/33.33.I found 68.46/34.23 to be pretty sweet.Reboot and all will be fine.If you want to try more fsb's just set the fsb and reboot to bios and then set the lock down a peg and it will lock it...you can then boot to OS or back to bios to put the lock back where it was.I have found 66.66/33.33 to be ok but reports around the web say avoiding this setting can save on agp problems and with finding 68/34 was good I use that.

Benchmarks
Most of you wanted to see overclocking benches from me so here you are!!

Memory Buffered.200fsb

Unbuffered is good but not as good as the Aopen AX4R+

Remember this rig uses a cpu with a 12 multiplier so all benches are at 2.4gig.

Here is a sandra hdd bench..about average for a drive with a 2mb cache.

I did 2X3dmark runs one at stock card speed and one at 380core 340memory.Remember this is a 2.4gig cpu.

As you see not to shabby

Few points to note about the board:
1 It overvolts the vcore
2 The vdimm needs sorting
3 It shows to 400fsb in bios..i can't do 201fsb but 200 is rock stable!!!
4 The memory timings need sorting so they work!!
5 The pci lock bug is here also!! but with a work arround.

Even with these moans the board is extremely stable, and does feel VERY fast!! Even at 2.4gig!! I am planning on trying the board and cpu in the Prometeia and will also run off more tests running a standard P4.I will say that these boards do need to be overclocked to get any speed out of them and as such do suit a lower multiplier cpu. I do have the Gigabyte 8INXP to test also and I will be comparing results, but for now i do hope you have enjoyed my mini review of the Asus P4G8X deluxe.

eva2000 · 01-23-2003, 09:07 PM

awesome me wants to get my grubby hands on one

Mikki · 01-23-2003, 09:16 PM

bigtoe, you made the long wait worth it...nice oc, darn fine results and an excellent review...my hat is off to ya!!! (can I put it back on now? hehe).

Your review left me with no questions save one...what do you think about the 200fsb limit? A bios-curable fault? Actually, make that two--what are your air-cooled temps?

Nice work!

pastorjay · 01-23-2003, 09:17 PM

Bravo BT!! Nice read. Thanks for all your hard work!

PJ

Phalanx28 · 01-24-2003, 07:41 AM

Very nice scores.

You're 200MHz FSB Sandra Memory scores look much higher than the 3xxx/3xxx scores that I've seen from other people at 200MHz with the Pentium 4-M.

210MHz FSB: http://www.vr-zone.com/guides/Intel/P4M/

220MHz FSB: http://www.asusboards.com/forums/sho...&highlight=P4M

Any idea what the difference could be? Settings in Sandra, perhaps?

Phalanx28

pastorjay · 01-24-2003, 07:43 AM

Bravo BT! THis is great stuff! Thanks for all your hard work!

PJ

SimonB · 01-24-2003, 08:21 AM

Hi,

Just been checking up on the latest news re the board, thanks for the info you posted here,
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...483#post408483

I have tweaked the chipset registers with Wcpredit to a true 2/5/2/2 and come up with these unbufferd numbers,

Not too bad for a 175fsb, let me know if you want the data sheet info I would be very interested to see what figures your 200fsb would produce.

Cheers, Simon.

HappyCow_abx · 01-24-2003, 12:38 PM

Nice! :eek: Where do all you guys get your P4-M?

vbhard · 01-26-2003, 05:08 PM

big

As you mentioned that this board is for FSB166+ ...can you tell the difference between this board and PE chipset board with the naked eye or is it tooo fast

Peppers · 02-11-2003, 10:50 PM

Hi,

After clearing the CMOS, is it recommended to load the default settings to start with? Isn't that usually how boards ship, with the BIOS defaults?

Thanks,
Valerie

HoTsAuCe_abx · 02-22-2003, 07:23 PM

in the spec page for that board is says 400/533 fsb. but you are talking about 200 fsb for that board. are you saying that board dosent run at a steady 533 fsb? sorry ima n0ob.

HoTsAuCe_abx · 02-22-2003, 07:25 PM

in the spec page for that board is says 400/533 fsb. but you are talking about 200 fsb for that board. are you saying that board dosent run at a steady 533 fsb? sorry ima n0ob. i just bought a combo with that board and a p4 2.0 northwood with 512 cache for 437.00$

SSJ4 SON GOKU · 02-23-2003, 02:09 PM

I have that same board on its way in a combo w/P4 2.0. On the site it states the board has a fsb of 533. But yall are talking about much lower fsb's here. Sorry ima n00b and a little confused now. Mabey someone could enlighten me.

lolo92 · 02-26-2003, 07:46 AM

http://www.x86-secret.com/popups/art...ndow.php?id=72

this tweaked bios is based on the bios 1004-013 and it allows forced adjustment of timing RAM of the bios.

althes · 03-01-2003, 10:59 AM

Nice board, but waiting on springdale

01-23-2003, 09:03 PM	#1
bigtoe here to help Join Date: Feb 2002 Posts: 4,448	Bigtoe's P4G8X review/guide Hi guys. As you know I have been waiting to get hold of a granite bay board for quite some time now.I finally recieved my P4G8X and over the last 24hrs I have been doing some testing (playing!!) First off I have the deluxe model...im not going to post pics of what you get but its a very nice package, with a good manual and driver cd with everything you need. One important point is that I needed a cmos clear to get the board to function, so as soon as you get the board make this your first job. I built the rig using a brand new IBM 180GX 60 gig hdd, 2 sticks of Twinmos pc3200 256mb, a P4-M 1.7a with stock intel heatsink but 60 to 80 mm fan adapter and a ys-tech 46cfm fan and a saphire 9700 pro with modded heatsink. I installed xp pro with sp1 and dx9, then the drivers off the cd. The P4-M is seen as a P4-M by the bios and defaults to 1.575v...I would like to see vcore options below 1.5v as the board supports down to 1.1v...maybe this is something Asus could allow in a later bios build. Also the board overvolts on the vcore, it is set to 1.575v in bios and reads 1.65v in probe. Another point is that the vdimm doesn't seem to make much difference either..all settings seem to give 2.7v...again this is something asus needs to work on. Tweaking First off knowing the board overvolts on the vcore I would try your overclocking on default voltage first and work your way up.I used a P4-M as I am looking for extreme fsb speeds,I would advise you that these boards only come to life at 166fsb+...anything lower and you might as well get a PE chipset board as they are just as fast. Be sure to try and use good ram, ddr400 is cheap now and will allow for much better timings at lower fsb's.I did notice the timings don't seem to have much effect on unbuffered bandwidth..again I feel this is a bios issue and hope it will be sorted in a later bios release. The board has a Vagp setting, this also will up the voltage to the chipset and aided me in getting 200fsb 100% stable.I am burning in at the moment and with luck i may be able to lower this down from 1.7v to 1.6v or lower.1.7v though is not overly high and should do no damage. The chipset does get quite hot..I replaced the pink thermal pad with thermal paste and attached a small chipset fan. So at 200fsb I have vcore at 1.625v. Vdimm at 2.7v. Vagp at 1.7v. Ram timings at 2,2,2,6 turbo with idle timer at infinite. PCI latency at 64. AGPX8 enabled Video memory cache mode USWC AGP/PCI at 68.46/34.23 Everthing disabled I don't use..ie, USB,1394, serial ports etc...this is upto you though!! I also have the onboard sound disabled as I will be using a pci based sound card..for the tests though this was not installed.Im sure the onboard sound is pretty good but I have found my santa cruz to be a lot better!! PCI lock For the tests I also installed a PCI Geiger.For those of you unformiliar with this piece of kit it is a nifty little gadget that sits in a spare 5 1/4 bay, using a pci card it can actually measure your pci bus speed. I found the same bug with the P4PE with this board too!!To get the board to lock properly what I did was to set the lock to 66.66/33.33 and set the fsb to 200 or what ever you are pushing for and save.Then if it fails to boot switch off and back on again and re-enter bios, leave your fsb alone but set the lock to anything other than 66.66/33.33.I found 68.46/34.23 to be pretty sweet.Reboot and all will be fine.If you want to try more fsb's just set the fsb and reboot to bios and then set the lock down a peg and it will lock it...you can then boot to OS or back to bios to put the lock back where it was.I have found 66.66/33.33 to be ok but reports around the web say avoiding this setting can save on agp problems and with finding 68/34 was good I use that. Benchmarks Most of you wanted to see overclocking benches from me so here you are!! Memory Buffered.200fsb Unbuffered is good but not as good as the Aopen AX4R+ Remember this rig uses a cpu with a 12 multiplier so all benches are at 2.4gig. Here is a sandra hdd bench..about average for a drive with a 2mb cache. I did 2X3dmark runs one at stock card speed and one at 380core 340memory.Remember this is a 2.4gig cpu. As you see not to shabby Few points to note about the board: 1 It overvolts the vcore 2 The vdimm needs sorting 3 It shows to 400fsb in bios..i can't do 201fsb but 200 is rock stable!!! 4 The memory timings need sorting so they work!! 5 The pci lock bug is here also!! but with a work arround. Even with these moans the board is extremely stable, and does feel VERY fast!! Even at 2.4gig!! I am planning on trying the board and cpu in the Prometeia and will also run off more tests running a standard P4.I will say that these boards do need to be overclocked to get any speed out of them and as such do suit a lower multiplier cpu. I do have the Gigabyte 8INXP to test also and I will be comparing results, but for now i do hope you have enjoyed my mini review of the Asus P4G8X deluxe. __________________ Got a question??? LOOK HERE FIRST It may have already been answered!!! Last edited by bigtoe : 01-23-2003 at 10:11 PM.
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01-23-2003, 09:07 PM	#2
eva2000 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Brisbane, Australia Posts: 1,673	awesome me wants to get my grubby hands on one __________________ * DFI LP UT X48-T3RS DDR3 + 2x512MB HIS IceQ3 Turbo HD3850 CF
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01-23-2003, 09:16 PM	#3
Mikki Registered User Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 4,299	bigtoe, you made the long wait worth it...nice oc, darn fine results and an excellent review...my hat is off to ya!!! (can I put it back on now? hehe). Your review left me with no questions save one...what do you think about the 200fsb limit? A bios-curable fault? Actually, make that two--what are your air-cooled temps? Nice work!
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01-23-2003, 09:17 PM	#4
pastorjay ABXZone Chaplain Join Date: May 2002 Location: Springfield, Mo Posts: 302	Bravo BT!! Nice read. Thanks for all your hard work! PJ
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01-24-2003, 07:41 AM	#5
Phalanx28 I don't know a damn thing Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Rochester, NY Posts: 2,228	Very nice scores. You're 200MHz FSB Sandra Memory scores look much higher than the 3xxx/3xxx scores that I've seen from other people at 200MHz with the Pentium 4-M. 210MHz FSB: http://www.vr-zone.com/guides/Intel/P4M/ 220MHz FSB: http://www.asusboards.com/forums/sho...&highlight=P4M Any idea what the difference could be? Settings in Sandra, perhaps? Phalanx28
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01-24-2003, 07:43 AM	#6
pastorjay ABXZone Chaplain Join Date: May 2002 Location: Springfield, Mo Posts: 302	Bravo BT! THis is great stuff! Thanks for all your hard work! PJ
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01-24-2003, 08:21 AM	#7
SimonB Registered User Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 11	Hi, Just been checking up on the latest news re the board, thanks for the info you posted here, http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...483#post408483 I have tweaked the chipset registers with Wcpredit to a true 2/5/2/2 and come up with these unbufferd numbers, Not too bad for a 175fsb, let me know if you want the data sheet info I would be very interested to see what figures your 200fsb would produce. Cheers, Simon. __________________ Mail Home
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01-24-2003, 12:38 PM	#8
HappyCow_abx Registered User Join Date: Oct 2002 Posts: 102	Nice! :eek: Where do all you guys get your P4-M? __________________ ASUS P4B533-E 1.8A@2.52, 140 FSB, dipswitch trick Corsair XMS3500C2@2-2-2-6
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01-26-2003, 05:08 PM	#9
vbhard Is it sTaBLE? Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Sydney, Australia Posts: 375	big As you mentioned that this board is for FSB166+ ...can you tell the difference between this board and PE chipset board with the naked eye or is it tooo fast
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02-11-2003, 10:50 PM	#10
Peppers Registered User Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 14	CMOS clear, then defaults? Hi, After clearing the CMOS, is it recommended to load the default settings to start with? Isn't that usually how boards ship, with the BIOS defaults? Thanks, Valerie __________________ Creative Cow Forum Leader - AVID - Adobe Premiere - Bay Area Video & Motion Graphics UGs ________________________________ http://www.creativecow.net
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02-22-2003, 07:23 PM	#11
HoTsAuCe_abx Registered User Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: NJ Posts: 8	not a steady 533 fsb? in the spec page for that board is says 400/533 fsb. but you are talking about 200 fsb for that board. are you saying that board dosent run at a steady 533 fsb? sorry ima n0ob. __________________ Asus Cusl2-C 1009 Tweaked!!! P3 933@1056.9MHz FSB 151 2,2,2 5/7
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02-22-2003, 07:25 PM	#12
HoTsAuCe_abx Registered User Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: NJ Posts: 8	not a steady 533 fsb? in the spec page for that board is says 400/533 fsb. but you are talking about 200 fsb for that board. are you saying that board dosent run at a steady 533 fsb? sorry ima n0ob. i just bought a combo with that board and a p4 2.0 northwood with 512 cache for 437.00$ __________________ Asus Cusl2-C 1009 Tweaked!!! P3 933@1056.9MHz FSB 151 2,2,2 5/7
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02-23-2003, 02:09 PM	#13
SSJ4 SON GOKU Registered User Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Atco NJ Posts: 19	I have that same board on its way in a combo w/P4 2.0. On the site it states the board has a fsb of 533. But yall are talking about much lower fsb's here. Sorry ima n00b and a little confused now. Mabey someone could enlighten me. __________________ Life is hard, but its even harder when your stupid! P4G8X Deluxe P4 2.4 w/512 L2cache ATI Radeon 9700 Pr0 Audigy Gamer 5.1 Sound card 40gig 7200rpm maxtor PCMARK 2002 cpu score 5988/ mem score 6298/hd score 864
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02-26-2003, 07:46 AM	#14
lolo92 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 11	tweaked bios for P4G8X http://www.x86-secret.com/popups/art...ndow.php?id=72 this tweaked bios is based on the bios 1004-013 and it allows forced adjustment of timing RAM of the bios.
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03-01-2003, 10:59 AM	#15
althes I am at work. Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Massachusetts Posts: 464	Nice board, but waiting on springdale __________________ Althes ebay:althes heatware:althes
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