ASRock Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi Motherboard Review

[Eldonko]

ASRock Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi Motherboard Review​

Manufacturer Product Page: ASRock Penryn1600SLIX3-WiFi - Overview
Product Number: Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi
Availability: mid-late May 2008
Price: Approx. $170
Warranty Length: 3 year



ASRock’s philosophy in 2008 according to Ted Hsu, CEO of ASRock is to cut into mid-range and high-end motherboard markets as these are seen as growth sectors. That said, as a follow up to the previous ASRock Nvidia 650i board (Penryn1600SLI-110dB), ASRock delivered to us a higher-end 680i board capable of three-way SLI – the Penryn1600SLIX3-WIFI. This board boasts a number of interesting features including support for 1600 and 1333 FSB processors out of the box as well as a higher quality design using all solid capacitors. In the past, ASRock was know mostly for boards which provided a safe upgrade upgrade path for consumers looking to keep some of their old hardware. However, in recent months it has been quite obvious that this company is hell-bent on breaking into the lucrative high-performance market and the boad we are reviewing here today is meant to spearhead that push.

Even considering 680i is a somewhat older chipset, support for Penryn-based quad core Yorkfield and dual core Wolfdale processors is a first. Most other 680i offerings will require a BIOS update if any support is offered at all. In addition, three-way SLI with 16x, 16x, and 8x PCIE slots may get the attention of enthusiasts looking for a tri-SLI board for a reasonable price. In addition to three-way SLI, the Penryn1600SLIX3-WIFI includes a WiFi module and software for those into LAN parties or that want their PC in a location without a LAN cable accessible. For audio enthusiasts, the board supports 7.1 channel HD Audio with Content Protection, as well as DAC with 110dB dynamic range support (ALC890 Audio Codec). The benefit to this is gaming and 2 channel sound can be run through a 7.1 channel sound system. All in all it looks like ASRock is offering a little bit for everyone with this new board.

There is also some great software bundled with the board, such as some trial AntiVirus software, a hardware monitor to keep an eye on temperatures and voltages, and ASRock OC Tuner. ASRock OC Tuner is a user-friendly ASRock overclocking tool which allows you to overclock CPU/PCI frequency and multipliers, and modify CPU, DRAM, VTT, NB and SB voltages from Windows.

ASRock provides a 3 year warranty for motherboards through Authorized Distrubitors which means you won't be RMAing your motherboard to some factory an ocean away. However, this also promotes "passing the buck" policies that some retailers love to promote but according to ASRock if you are having issues with your point of purchase, they will honor your warranty nonetheless. It should also be mentioned that finding this board in North America is next to impossible at the time this article is published. This is a shame since at an MSRP of $170, it seems to provide a pretty solid price point for people who don't want to spend a fortune on an SLI motherboard.

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[Eldonko]

Specifications

Specifications

Platform
- ATX Form Factor: 12.0-in x 9.6-in, 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm
- All Solid Capacitor design

CPU
- LGA 775 for Intel® Core 2 Extreme / Core 2 Quad / Core 2 Duo / Pentium® Dual Core / Celeron®, supporting Penryn Quad Core Yorkfield and Dual Core Wolfdale processors
- Compatible with all FSB1600/1333/1066/800MHz CPUs
- Supports Hyper-Threading Technology
- Supports Untied Overclocking Technology
- Supports EM64T CPU

Chipset
- NVIDIA® nForce 680i SLI

Memory
- Dual Channel DDR2 Memory Technology
- 4 x DDR2 DIMM slots
- Support DDR2 800/667/533 non-ECC, un-buffered memory
- Max. capacity of system memory: 8GB

Expansion Slot
- 3 x PCI Express x16 slots (white @ x16 mode, yellow @ x8 mode)
- 2 x PCI Express x1 slots
- 2 x PCI slots
- Supports NVIDIA® SLI and 3-Way SLI

Audio
- 7.1 CH Windows® VistaTM Premium Level HD Audio with Content Protection
- DAC with 110dB dynamic range (ALC890 Audio Codec)
- DTS (Digital Theater Systems) support

LAN
- Gigabit LAN 10/100/1000 Mb/s
- Giga PHY Realtek RTL8211B
- Supports Wake-On-LAN

Wireless LAN
- ASRock WiFi-802.11g module
- 54Mbps IEEE 802.11g / 11Mbps IEEE 802.11b
- Supports Software Access Point mode (AP mode) and Station mode (Infrastructure mode and Ad-hoc mode)

Rear Panel I/O
- ASRock WiFi_eSATAII I/O Plus
- 1 x PS/2 Mouse Port
- 1 x PS/2 Keyboard Port
- 1 x Serial Port: COM1
- 1 x Parallel Port (ECP/EPP Support)
- 4 x Ready-to-Use USB 2.0 Ports
- 1 x eSATAII Port
- 1 x RJ-45 LAN Port with LED (ACT/LINK LED and SPEED LED)
- 1 x IEEE 1394 Port
- HD Audio Jack: Side Speaker/Rear Speaker/Central/Bass/Line in/Front Speaker/Microphone

Connectors
- 6 x SATAII 3.0Gb/s connectors, support RAID (RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1, JBOD and RAID 5), NCQ and “Hot Plug” functions
- 1 x eSATAII 3.0Gb/s connector (shared with 1 SATAII connector), supports NCQ and “Hot Plug” functions
- 1 x ATA133 IDE connector (supports 2 x IDE devices)
- 1 x Floppy connector
- 1 x DeskExpress Hot Plug Detection header
- 1 x HDMI_SPDIF header
- 1 x IEEE 1394 header
- CPU/Chassis FAN connector
- 24 pin ATX power connector
- 8 pin 12V power connector
- CD in header
- Front panel audio connector
- 2 x USB 2.0 headers (support 4 USB 2.0 ports)
- 1 x WiFi/E header

BIOS Features
- 8Mb AMI BIOS
- AMI Legal BIOS
- Supports “Plug and Play”
- ACPI 1.1 Compliance Wake Up Events
- Supports jumperfree
- AMBIOS 2.3.1 Support
- CPU, DRAM, NB, SB, VTT Voltage Multi-adjustment

Support CD
- Drivers, Utilities, AntiVirus Software (Trial Version)

Unique Features
- ASRock OC Tuner
- Hybrid Booster: CPU Frequency Stepless Control, ASRock U-COP, Boot Failure Guard (B.F.G.)

Hardware Monitor
- CPU Temperature Sensing
- Chassis Temperature Sensing
- CPU Fan Tachometer
- Chassis Fan Tachometer
- CPU Quiet Fan
- Voltage Monitoring: +12V, +5V, +3.3V, CPU Vcore

Operating System Support
- Microsoft® Windows® 2000 / XP / XP 64-bit / Vista /Vista 64-bit compliant

Certifications
- FCC, CE, WHQL

 

[Eldonko]

Features

Features

Nvidia680i Chipset

One nice benefit of the Nvidia nForce 680i chipset is it allows for asynchronous memory bus clocking. As a result, you can have your DDR2 SDRAM working at frequencies that are not connected with the FSB speed. The performance of the memory controller does become slightly lower when doing asynchronous memory clocking, however the flexibility is a nice touch for those that want the top RAM and CPU clocks in their overclock.
The key benefit of the Nvidia nForce 680i SLI over the 650i, is full support for 16x PCIE lanes. The chipset supports a total of 46 PCI Express lanes, and a board based on this chipset can be equipped with up to three PCI Express x16 slots. Hence the support for 3-way SLI.


ASRock Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi Features

A few notable features on the ASRock Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi include the ASRock OC Tuner, 7.1 Channel HD Audio, All Solid Capacitors, Yorkfield and Wolfdale CPU support, 3-way SLI, and WiFI capabilities. A brief summary of each of these features is as follows:

 

[Eldonko]

Packaging and Accessories

Packaging and Accessories

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ASRock always does a good job in designing a colourful, eye-catching box and this one is no exception. For the Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi, the standard blue-green colored box we have seen many times in the past has been replaced with more of a contemporary black design. However the box is not just a boring black, the yellow text and many feature description images provide a nice contrast which has long been present from many ASRock packages. The marketing aspect is focused mainly on the Wifi capabilities with the Wifi module as the main point of focus on the front. The rear side of the box has a similar focus and explains the uses and advantages of the Wifi capabilities and highlights a few other features in a smaller yellow text box.

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Looking inside, the accessories are packed similar to most motherboards, all individually packaged in plastic, resting on a cardboard divider on top on the board. The motherboard is wrapped in the standard anti-static bag to avoid damage to components from static charges. Beneath the board there is a thick foam sheet to prevent shipping damage.

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Here we have all the accessories which come with this board and it seems that ASRock hasn't left much out at all. The colors of the cables run quite nicely with the general color scheme of the board itself while the inclusion of four SATA cables is great even though one will have to be used to run to the SATA connector at the back-end of the board if you want to use the eSATA I/O port.

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The ASRock Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi supports 3 graphics cards in SLI using 16x, 16x, and 8x PCIE lane speeds and to link two or three cards together for SLI operation, ASRock provides dual and tri SLI bridges. Keep in mind that that 3-way SLI is only supported in Windows Vista.

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A wireless LAN module is also included with the accessories. This 802.11g WiFi module is a reasonable size, about 9 centimeters in height, and the cord is about 1 meter long which allows the user to position the module in a convenient location.

Specific package contents and motherboard accessories include:

Package Contents
- ASRock Penryn1600SLIX3-WiFi Motherboard (ATX Form Factor: 12.0-in x 9.6-in, 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm)
- ASRock Penryn1600SLIX3-WiFi Quick Installation Guide
- ASRock Penryn1600SLIX3-WiFi Support CD
- ASRock WiFi-802.11g Module Operation Guide

Motherboard Accessories
- One ASRock SLI Bridge
- One ASRock 3-Way SLI Bridge
- One 80-conductor Ultra ATA 66/100/133 IDE Ribbon Cable
- One Ribbon Cable for a 3.5-in Floppy Drive
- Four Serial ATA (SATA) Data Cables (Optional)
- One Serial ATA (SATA) HDD Power Cable (Optional)
- One HDMI_SPDIF Cable (Optional)
- One “ASRock WiFi_eSATAII I/O Plus” I/O Shield
- WiFi Accessories
- One ASRock WiFi-802.11g Module
- One Antenna

 

[Eldonko]

Included Software

Included Software

The ASRock Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi comes with two useful pieces of software, ASRock OC Tuner and Wifi-802.11g software.

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Overall, the Wifi software was straightforward and user-friendly. The provided Wifi module supports two kinds of wireless network modes: Access Point Mode and Station Mode. Access Point Mode is used if the user wants to share Internet access with wireless stations in the local environment and in this mode the module becomes the wireless access point that provides LAN access to other wireless stations. Station Mode is used to connect directly to an access point or with other stations in wireless range.

Both modes worked well and wireless networks were found almost immediately. One point to note however, is Wifi must be enabled in the BIOS for the Wifi software to load.

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The ASRock OC Tuner comes with four main screens, two containing monitoring features and two for real-time tweaking of voltages and frequency. The system health screen includes CPU and motherboard temperatures as well as fan speeds. The hardware monitor is more detailed and includes all temperatures and voltages monitored on the board as well as FSB, CPU, and memory frequencies.

The great feature on ASRock OC Tuner is the ability to set many overclocking settings in a Windows environment. CPU, RAM, VTT, NB, and SB voltages are all adjustable as well as the CPU ratio (multiplier), FSB frequency and PCIE frequency.

All features of the OC Tuner worked flawlessly and it really saves a lot of time when overclocking since the user does not have to reboot after tweaking every BIOS setting. Use extreme caution when playing with these settings as hardware damage and operating system corruption is possible if the user goes too far with an instable overclock.

 

[Eldonko]

A Closer Look at the Penryn1600SLIX3-WiFi

A Closer Look at the Penryn1600SLIX3-WiFi

Looking at the board layout, ASRock keeps consistent with past designs in terms of both layout and color scheme. The PCB is the trademark blue with orange and yellow RAM slots and orange SATAII connectors. The layout is quite intuitive, over than an oddly placed 20/24 pin ATX connector situated up near the I/O panel instead of typical location of the bottom of the board near the RAM slots. This strange placement is found in other ASRock boards and remains on the Penryn1600SLIX3-WiFi likely because it would be quite expensive to move from a manufacturing standpoint. The issue one may face is with a bottom mounted power supply where the ATX power cable would have to stretch past and above the GPU, making hiding wires very difficult. It could also interfere with larger aftermarket CPU coolers.

Another interesting feature is the lone SATA header right next to the rear I/O ports which is used for the eSATA connector on the back of the motherboard. Running one of your SATA cables all the way up there is necessary if you want the eSATA port to work.

Finally, mention has to be made about the layout of the expansion card slots. Fortunately, it looks like the ages-old PCI interface may finally be drawing its last breath but nonetheless, manufacturers tend to give it priority over the newer PCI-E 1x slots and ASRock has done just that with this board. Basically, if you use a pair of dual-slot graphics cards you can forget about using either of the PCI-E 1x slots sice the will be covered by the GPU coolers. We would have much rather seen one of the PCI-E slots being located below the yellow PCI-E 8x slot.

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The 12V connector is in a typical spot, next to the CPU socket and there is enough distance between this connector and the CPU socket there should be no clearance issues even with a large aftermarket heatsink.

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The Northbridge and Southbridge coolers use a heatpipe design and are a nice touch for both aesthetics and cooling. These are a far cry from what we have seen on past ASRock motherboards but we will nontheless look at temperatures and cooling performance a little further on since the 680i tends to be a hoot-running chipset.

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For fan headers, there are only two; the 4-pin for the CPU fan and the 3-pin chassis fan header at the bottom of the board near the SATAII ports. This means if you run extra fans they will have to be wired direct to the power supply which is definately a bit of a pain. If ASRock wants to market this products to enthusiasts, they will need to do better than this when it comes to fan headers.

In this picture you may also have noticed that there is one orange SATA port amidst a sea of red connectors. This is the port which ASRock recommends you hook up via an SATA cable to the (also orange) SATA connector near the back panel which provides a link to the eSATA port. Having these color coded is a huge bonus since it leaves alot of guesswork out of this part of the installation process.

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The VIA Fire IIM VT6308S 1394 Host Controller is a IEEE 1394 high-speed serial bus used for PCI peer-to-peer interconnections. More popularly known as "Firewire", it is commonly used for transferring large audio and video files from various devices.

Meanwhile, the BIOS chip is removable on this board which makes it nice if you corrupt a BIOS during a flash. If this happens, the BIOS chip can be easily removed and a new one put in without having to RMA the entire board. To avoid this issue it is a good idea to always flash from a floppy or a USB drive and not in Windows.

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The Wifi card found on the Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi is the Realtek RTL8187L. According to Realtek, this is a budget IEEE 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Network Interface Controller with USB 2.0 Interface. Also included with the Wifi card is the wireless LAN module. ASRock provides an 802.11g Wifi module supporting 54Mbps IEEE 802.11g / 11Mbps IEEE 802.11b. This module also supports Software Access Point mode (AP mode) and Station mode (Infrastructure mode and Ad-hoc mode). The benefit users will find with this feature is avoiding stringing LAN cables if the PC is in an area with no accessible connections.

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ASRock moved to all solid capacitors on this board which seems to be the trend even on budget boards these days even if this does represent a somewhat grondbreaking change away from ASRock's past boards. These caps are said to be of higher quality and more durable than the older electrolytic style capacitors which we see failing on older electronics.

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The rear panel inputs and outputs are quite standard on this board other than one interesting addition: an eSATA port. Other I/O ports include: PS/2 Mouse Port, PS/2 Keyboard Port, COM1 Serial Port, Parallel Port (ECP/EPP Support), 4 x USB 2.0 Ports, RJ-45 LAN Port with LED, IEEE 1394 Port, and an HD Audio Jack. 4 USB ports doesnt seem like much nowadays; however, it is nice to see ASRock include the standard PS2 mouse port which is lacking on some recent ASUS boards.

 

[Eldonko]

BIOS Rundown

BIOS Rundown

The true test of a motherboard for an overclocker or computer enthusiast is not usually board accessories or features, it is the BIOS and the ability for the board to handle a decent overclock. We will take a closer look at the overclockability of the board in the overclocking section.

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The ASRock Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi features an AMI 8mb BIOS and supports ACPI 1.1 Compliance Wake Up Events. The splash screen upon POST was pleasing to the eye, but you really need to be paying attention to notice to press F2 instead of the typical delete key to enter the BIOS upon first boot.

One big issue with the stock BIOS was many features were disabled by default. These features include: USB support, LAN, 1394, and HD audio. Using a wireless keyboard and mouse, it was necessary to plug in a PS2 keyboard to enter the BIOS to enable these features. If a user was a novice and was not comfortable navigating a motherboard BIOS, he/she may think the board is defective when the audio, LAN, mouse and other USB devices were not working in Windows.

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The PC Health page was consistent with many other boards, showing CPU and motherboard temperatures, fan speeds for the two fan headers, and voltages (vcore, 3.3v, 5.0v, and 12.0v). It would have been nice to see Vdimm and a chipset monitoring setting as the chipset on the board runs very hot, even at stock NB voltage as you will see later.

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Overall, the BIOS is quite basic compared to advanced BIOS boards made by DFI and many others, but there are still a few useful overclocking features. First off, overclocking mode must be set to manual and there is an option to choose between CPU, PCI-E Sync or Async. This means the PCI-E bus will increase as FSB increases if the Sync option is selected. Also notable on this screen are CPU Thermal Throttling and Intel Speedstep Technology, both of which are recommended to disable if you want the multi to remain static. The USB configure screen is quite basic but the options must be enabled if using the stock BIOS.

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Available RAM timings are simple with the common four CAS,TRCD,TRP,TRAS plus CMD, TRRD, TRC, TWR, and TWTR. CMD rate is a BIOS feature found mainly in 680i chipset boards and allows RAM to run 2T or 1T. One useful setting that is missing here is TRCD, which is important for newer kits of RAM made by MIRA/Powerchip which require higher TRCD to work properly. Another nice feature of the 680i chipset is the ability to run memory Sync or Async to FSB.

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The maximum CPU voltage on the board is 1.60v, and unlike most other settings that have a drop-down menu and allow easy voltage selections, the only way to adjust CPU voltage is by pressing + and – on the keyboard. This method is not as convenient and it takes extra time to adjust CPU voltage. DRAM voltage is selectable to 2.66v and should be more than enough voltage for any DDR2.

Northbridge, Southbridge, VTT and GTL Reference voltages are not in fact numeric selectable voltages but rather settings of low, medium, high, and very high. It is a little concerning to not be aware of how much voltage is actually being used in each of the settings and it is recommended to avoid the highest setting altogether to be safe and not risk damaging an expensive CPU.

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A setting of interest at the bottom of the overclocking page is Turbo Mode. The BIOS states this setting increases PEG performance. PEG performance refers to the PCI-E Graphics slot performance. In theory this should only speed up the clock crossing process of the PCI-E bus via the MCH to the front side bus of the CPU and memory bus. However, the PCI-E registers in the chipset can be slowed down rather than sped up. Thus, the turbo function is likely the default speed on most boards and using anything else just reduces performance. Upon testing, 3D performance did slightly increase using the Turbo mode; however, in later BIOS versions this setting was removed completely which suggests the above theory was correct.

All in all, the BIOS on this board should appeal to novice overclockers since all of the basic adjustments for minor to mid-range overclocks are there but to be honest, there is isn't much for the enthusiast here. What we do like to see is that ASRock is taking steps for their boards to appeal to a wider market since just a few short months ago we saw ASRock motherboards which offered next to no overclocking options at all. Hopefully this board will be used as a stepping stone for ASRock's foray into more enthusiast-level products in the future.

 

[Eldonko]

Test Setup & Methodologies

Test Setup & Methodologies

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Test Setup

Processor(s): Intel C2D Xeon E3110 (45nm dual core) / Intel C2Q Q6600 (65nm quad core)
Video Card(s): BFG 8600GT 256MB / eVGA 8600GT 256MB
Memory: Mushkin 4GB HP2-6400
Motherboard: ASRock Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 80GB SATA
Power Supply: Tagan BZ 900W
Case: None
Fans: 1 x 120mm, 1 x 92mm

Overclocking Methodology

The following section shows the maximum overclock achieved on both a dual core Xeon E3110 45nm 1333FSB CPU as well as a quad core Q6600 65nm 1066FSB CPU. For testing methodology two main tests will be used and several benchmarks will be run at the overclocked speeds. The first of the two main stability tests will be a 5 hour custom test of OCCT which tests CPU, memory, and FSB stability. OCCT is a great test for reviews because it tests multiple core CPUs, creates user friendly graphs of temperatures and voltages, and is very efficient at picking up errors.

The second stability test will be 3 runs of 3DMark 2006. This tests the 3D stability of the overclock as well as CPU and FSB. Once an overclock passes these tests but fails anything further, this is the point deemed as “stable” for the purposes of this review.

Upon commencement of testing, BIOS 1.10 dated 4/23/2008 was flashed as it is the most recent release by ASRock. The BIOS seemed quite stable and LAN, Wifi, USB and HD Audio are all enabled by default this time. The ASRock BIOS is said to support 45nm CPUs and 1600 FSB CPUs right out of the box. Well, the 45nm claim is true since Xeon E3110 booted up first try with the stock bios as did a 65nm quad, Q6600. I don’t have a quad core 1600 FSB CPU unfortunately but from the performance from the stock BIOS and the 45nm I’m guessing it will be compatible.


General Benchmark Methodology

Since the Q6600 maxed out at a slightly higher overclock percentage than the Xeon E3110, and a 65nm quad will add extra stress to the voltage regulation portion of the board, the Q6600 will be used for the benchmarking section. All benchmarks will be a comparison of the Q6600 at stock speed and at maximum overclock to give an idea of how much performance a user can gain when overclocking the Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi.

The overclocked speed on the Q6600 will be 3240Mhz on the overclocked tests and RAM speed will be set to 450Mhz and 5-4-4-14 for both stock and overclocked tests. SLI will be enabled, Nvidia Forceware 169.21 drivers will be used for 3D along with Windows XP 32 bit.

 

[Eldonko]

Overclocking Results

Overclocking Results

Ok, now lets get to the interesting stuff since now we find out what this nice looking board full of features can actually do in terms of an overclock, Well it turns out this 680i chipset is very limited by the FSB it can run. For both CPUs only a meager overclock was achievable, no matter what the CPU volts. NB, VTT, GTL and SB voltages. After tweaking these voltages and trying different combinations for several days, trying to exceed a particular FSB point, it was noted that the only setting that did much as all was the NB voltage. VTT, GTL, and SB could remain at medium or low settings but if NB was lowered to a level below high the overclock would fail. The 680i chipset is known for having FSB holes, which means at a point FSB will fail, but if you jump as much as 20-30 FSB stability will return. This unfortunately was not the case on this board and one can conclude there are compatibility issues with newer quads and 45nm CPUs for high FSB.

The Xeon E3110 maxed out at 400FSB, using the 9x multiplier that comes out to 3600Mhz, an overclock of 600Mhz. The Q6600 maxed out at 360FSB, again using the 9x multiplier that comes to 3240Mhz, an overclock of 840Mhz. Those overclocks may sound reasonable, however it is important to note that the same two chips were stable well over 500FSB on P35 chipset boards.

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For testing the maximum memory clocks, async mode was quite useful for testing as it allows custom memory clocks that are not linked to the FSB bus. There is a drawback to this however since there is a slight performance hit when using async mode as opposed to sync. As a result it is recommended to find the max RAM freq in async mode and test the performance difference between this and the nearest option using sync mode.

Most overclockers know that when running an overclock, it is always better to use the max CPU clock and choose a memory divider that will allow the max RAM clock at this speed. That said, the sweet spot to run the Mushkin 4GB HP2-6400 kit (within manufacturer voltage specifications) and remain at max CPU speed is 450Mhz (DDR900) at 5-4-4-14. This was achieved using sync mode and the 333 RAM frequency (4:5 divider) available in the BIOS. This RAM frequency will be used for both stock and overclocked tests for consistency purposes.

 

[Eldonko]

System Benchmarks

System Benchmarks

SuperPI Benchmark

SuperPi calculates the number of digits of PI in a pure 2D benchmark. For the purposes of this review, calculation to 32 million places will be used. RAM speed, RAM timings, CPU speed, L2 cache, and Operating System tweaks all effect the speed of the calculation, and this has been one of the most popular benchmarks among enthusiasts for several years.

Results: A 22% increase in SuperPI 32M is noted going from 2400Mhz to 3240Mhz on the Q6600 and ASRock Penryn1600SLIX3-Wifi.


Cinebench R10

CINEBENCH R10 is a testing suite that assesses your computer's performance capabilities, both 2D and 3D. CINEBENCH runs several tests on your computer to measure the performance of the main processor and the graphics card under real world circumstances.

The test procedure consists of two main components: The first test sequence is dedicated to the computer's main processor. Next, a 3D scene file is used to render an image file. The scene makes use of various CPU-intensive features such as reflection, ambient occlusion, area lights and procedural shaders. In the first run, the benchmark only uses one CPU (or CPU core), to ascertain a reference value. On computers that have multiple CPUs or CPU cores, CINEBENCH will run a second test using all available CPU power.

In this review, single-CPU and multi-CPU rendering speeds will be measured for both stock speed and an overclocked system.

Results:The CINEBENCH R10 results show an impressive increase in performance in rendering moving from a stock system to an overclocked system. 26% and 24% improvements in rendering time are noted for single-CPU and multi-CPU respectively. Not bad at all.


Sandra Memory Bandwidth & Processor Arithmetic

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. The software suite provides most of the information (including undocumented) users like to know about hardware, software, and other devices whether hardware or software. The name “Sandra” is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means "defender", "helper of mankind".

The version used for these tests is SiSoftware Sandra Professional Home XII.SP2c and the two benchmarks used are the Memory Bandwidth and Processor Arithmetic benchmarks. These two were chosen as one is targeted towards memory and the other the CPU, providing contrasting tests and a wide scope of results.

Results: Sandra processor arithmetic and memory bandwidth improvements were quite impressive when moving to an overclocked system. Processor arithmetic improved by between 34% and 36%, and although memory speed and all timings remained the same, a 31% improvement in bandwidth was achieved.