The Ultimate W90VP-A1 Review

I dont really think its fake, I think its real and the numbers seem to be right where they should be if it was real.

But strange that there is so little info on it, just those screen shots and tons of places with the same information on the guy & score but not details on how it was gotten anywhere.

 

only one reason why i dont knock it fully..because the guy who ran it it known for over clocking. had this been some unknown joe with a brand new computer.. i would have been diss'd it and left it at that.

 

Im sure he had a custom bios that was in the machine meant for R&D purposes that let him use something as simple as Turbo gear to take that thing to 30% OC. Theres an old 0404 bios hidden on the partition that i may give a whirl if im feeling brave enough lol .

 

I think you would just need his turbogear version and that it has nothing to do with the bios, I could be wrong though.

A different bios could feed the cpu more voltage though, but since turbogear also can control it I think it could be done with the same bios we have now as long as you found a way to edit turbo gear.

Infact maybe that will be tonight's project, I'll see if I can hex edit turbogear.

 

I was thinking of the whole turbo gear thing being software driven at first as well, but in the end it has to be bios simply based on the fact that when you install a Qx9300 and reboot the option to go any higher is gone instantly .Now i guess the other side of the coin is through the software its detected you now have a new cpu and it decides from that point how high its going to go, but based on the bios revisions adding turbo gear for newer CPUs i think its on the bios end.

 

why cant the software detect your cpu and assign a value based on that, its not like cpu-z cant tell you what cpu you have. Though I see what your saying with the new bios saying turbo gear. however have we actually proven that yet? Seems the old & new both did the same thing.

 

Ya your right about CPU-Z detecting what CPU you have, but my thinking is that its taking those readings from the bios (speculation) . why im itching to try a different bios all together because say the newer bios supported your Q9000 properly for turbo or the Qx9300 then while it did work before it may not have been fully enabled or properly enabled so to speak and a newer one could open up new options via the software.

 

Okay, this is the best result I can get so far for today:

 

one favor to ask ken while you got the numbers there..can you run vantage mark...thanks in advance!

where are my manors...nice score! now go head and break 18k for us..we got faith in ya!

 

break 18K huh? that'll be a hard assignment but I can try, got enough BSOD today.

I am running the Vantage right now.

 

has to be the bios...they had to of locked it down. remember the whitebooks would do 3.3ghz easy on a qx9300. and a few of them did get them up to close to 4 ghz, but could only get a score of 17.4k with 3dmark06....
waiting to see that vantage run before i take me a power nap...im beat. with lots of laptops still left to work on.

 

Hey ken when all is said and done and you find some stability feel free to post them please . Mainly like if you have turbo gear enabled or not prior or after and another thing i was going to ask is have you even touched the bios yet ? like the enhanced C states or CPU TM function disabled ,speedstep ? these can all effect the stability,potential OCs .

 

also try booting up in power saver or balanced mode...see if this helps

 

Those whitebooks though were all thru the Multiplier ? or both setfsb and bios ?.

 

Just chatting with Justin they got theres to almost 3.3 ghz but had said his 3dmark was almost 17k .

 

We did a combination of the 5% Turbo Gear and SETFSB with the QX9300. Had it to about 3.3GHz and tried to push it over 3.3GHz and wouldn't go any further. Proceeding it would constantly go to a blue screen and wouldn't allow access to safe mode. Will keep trying.

We kept a Zalman NC2000 running under it at all times to keep good air circulation under the machine.

 

Nice man thanks for the info . Ill be curious to see what kind of temps this thing runs at considering it has a seriously beefy cooling system in it .

 

hummm...the whitebooks voltage is 1.3 something, but then dondadah can't seem to get above 3.3 either....

 

its a chip to chip thing im sure like all CPUs its part of the reason i wanted to go OEM or retail vs QS/ES and thats not to say there better or more stable but for the bit of extra dough your odds can be stacked in your favor with a non test version.

 

Either way i have planned to try this far for max OC and stability

Virtualization OFF
CPU TM off
Speedstep OFF
Cstates OFF

Those were things that helped stability with my current desktop as well . So we shall see.

 

if you try to sell the qx...make sure you talk to me first buddy...

 

bahaha k well i told striker he would have first dibs because he took care of me, but i know he is tempted to grab one elsewhere since he feels im going to love it . Only time will tell.

 

ah..not a problem at all. striker is all right with me!

hummm, im wondering if that vantage run killed kenny (south park tv show), i mean ken.

 

Sorry, for got to upload, it was done:

 

i was just being funny ken. no ill will.
thanks for the run.

 

I have a lot on my agenda tonight, but if I have the time I will remove my ram and test my so-dimms one at a time and also turn those bios options off to see if I can Oc higher, though in my experience the bios options never helped any of my overclocks.

here is my theory on the overclock limitations:
3300 / 9.5 = 347
with the 4:5 divider the ram is on

347 x 5 / 4 = 433mhz DDR that means the ram is running DDR2 866 speed.

While that is not a high overclock for ram, you have 6gb there so you only need one to fail, and also I noticed since the ram boots at the lower speed it uses its DDR2 666mzh timings.

It does not change to the DDR2 800mhz timings when you overclock adding a high possibility of instability, meaning a high chance the ram is holding them back at that FSB.

DDR2 666 timing 5-5-5-15
DDR2 800 timing 6-6-6-18

Just that first number changing from a 5 to a 6 is a really big difference in stability and if the ram is rated for that timing and its not getting it, its not out of the question at all that there is a ram limitation here.

 

Hmm, seems that the 48xx cards scale better compared to the 38xx cards. Their 3dmarks are roughly the same with the T9600, but with a QX9300 at 3ghz, Whitebook gets around 16k, this seems to hit 17.1 easily.

Wait, so you're suggesting that a lower latency rating would mean better stability?

 

im still tripping off the fact that he changed the first timing on a laptop. i have never seen that done. only on a desktop. put up a cpuz pick of that please. because that first timing is 99 percent of the time locked on a laptop. if you got that unlocked...you should be in heaven right now

 

must have overlooked what your trippin on

 

5-5-5-15
6-6-6-18
so say if i wanted to advance them
examples:
4-4-4-13
4-5-5-15
5-6-6-15

unless of course he didn't mean any of this...then disregard my earlier post. i might have jumped the gun in excitement.

 

was his theory I think don't think he actually done it yet:

 

you all misread it, the timings are booting at DDR 666 SPD settings the 5-5-5-15 and when you overclock it well into over DDR 800 speeds the SPD timings do not change for the more lax 6-6-6-18 causing a high chance of ram fsb limitations & instability.

I am not able to change the latency, those are the default ram spd settings and why I think people are currently getting stuck near 3.3ghz on the qx9300

 

ill be disabling turbo gear as well (from the bios) to see if i has any influence on the OC as it could be playing a part in the timings . Ill just try one thing at a time till something either happens or does not .

 

man, i think asus pulled a fast one. (not downing them!)
(SPECULATING HERE)
they locked the 5% IN bios and cut down the upper limit in performance.
why? they also cut the voltage. im gonna have to go with that because the white book is doing 1.3. i think when we saw that 20k setup the voltage had already dropped on it's own (more speculating)
you guys are welcome to shoot me down on any of this at any given time.

wondering if turbo gear is the lock on the qx9300. maybe better to work around it for the time being... still thinking on that one.(wondering if you guys messed with the old skool bios key combos while in the bios could you unlock the advanced options in turbo gear) or (use a bios editor/menu editor to unlock and show voltage settings. including pcie)...i got allot of ideas running right now.....

 

Tried every key combo for hidden bios options nada. The voltage thing could have easily been changed in a bios revision and could easily be added later if newer CPUs need it . Remember this thing has not been out very long at all so we dont know what they have in store . If they release say an extreme model with a Qx9300 in it then they could easily change all that .

 

gonna try turning off the turbo gear now see if it effects the ram divider.

 

Oh ya i tried the Bios editor, atleast everyone i could find to open an AMI bios, but no go on that as none of them would even open it.

 

wow, not good for the home team!.

 

All the bios editors i could find for it were very dated circa 2005-2006 i think.

 

http://www.rebelshavenforum.com/sis-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=52;t=000004

Give it a look..maybe you'll find something new.

anyone try downgrading the BIOS to an older version to see if it's even compatible with Quad core? Or... download a different version(earlier) of Turbo Gear? It may be a software restriction for the 5% QX9300 limit. And seeing as this is an Intel Mobo, maybe someone can emails ASUS asking for the Intel XTU. Or, maybe a reseller with R&D reasons(ken) can email ASUS/Intel and request the Mobile XTU. Anyhow..I'm off to ladies' night, for beer, pool, and women.

 

I found a first release bios on the HD hidden i may give a whirl down once i get my Qx . As for the XTU ya if someone like ken or justin could get that info it would be awesome. I cant find much info on older versions of turbo gear as i already looked and i already tried to install the ASus AI which was for the maximus formula basically the desktop version of this motherboard but it would not install. I tried those bios editors already from your link they were the first thing i tried .

 

I did talked to Asus and yes, they did restrict 5% limite on all Quad Cores with TurboGear, however, it's just temporary since they haven't fully test the overclock capability on Quad Core CPUs, they just need more time to test.


Also I was told by Asus some dual cores can only overclock to 5% and some gets 17%, they explain there is nothing wrong and they don't consider it as DOA or defective, it's just some CPU perform better than others.

 

Well.. Maybe someone should put a bug in their ear and inform them that the QX has an unlocked multiplier. It's not a CPU that needs fsb pumping. They just need to unlock the multipliers via bios. As of rite now it's retarded to have a qx9300. Asus needs to step up and deliver or else they'll be another OCZ(lame duck). It's great that they allow and promote ocing but the lack of Extreme CPU support will definately stop me from ever owning one.

 

Let's just say Asus R&D do things more carefully.

 

Oh? Well.. Not gonna question your insight, but careful is rarely progressive in this field. From what I see they are being slow. It's much easier to allow fsb overclocking, I think they are being lazy. It's not easy to Enable quadcore in am bios and also remain efficient. Anyhow, il keep my fingers crossed

 

You maybe right about this one, C90P for example, it support E8500 CPU sStep SLAPK and doesn't support new SLB9K, asked them to update uCode 3 months already still nothing.

 

They may just not care because the market for a Qx9300 is so small and they see no profit in it , after all there out to make $$ first and foremost. Dont get me wrong either because id love see multiplier OCing but im just thinking from a buisness standpoint . Heck alienware doesnt even allow overclocking in there top tier notebooks and there supposed to be gaming brand lol.

 

Any large OEM corporation wants to warrant the exact thing that they sold in the configuration they sold it and nothing else. Once you get big enough to have bean counters and attorneys on staff things like letting the boys overclock their computers goes right out the window.

 

The Q9000 is not restricted to 5% it goes up to 15%

 

Ok.. But they include overclocking utilities with it. Also they support the QX via BIOS and the Turno Gear utility. They support, encourage, and market overclocking. All I ask is that they do it right.

Side note, it would be nice to find someone who can break down the Turbo Gear code, decompile it and change the OC limits on the QX.