Intel D975XBX2 vs. the ASUS P5B deluxe….P965 vs. 975X

[philmar]

Well- I wouldn't expect you to suddenly start listening to me now....

HA HA - maybe it is your circa 1950's computer avatar that scared me!! Do you get an extra large avatar for being a moderator?
The suggestion you gave me sounds so nice and easy...and simple. I've read many a Badaxe2 forum letter and/or user product review to expect it to be a little harder than that. The Badaxe2 is not like made-for-oc'ing ASUS boards. Since every Mainboard is different I thought I should wait for comments about the Badaxe2 written by Badaxe2 users. A few of the Badaxe2 articles I've read mention specific voltage settings and RAM timings, FSB changes in an 'Advanced' tab. And before this is done one has to find and disable C1E, Speedstep and Thermal Control. Also anything throttle or spectrum related.
I suspect the Badaxe2 has certain pecuiarities that only Badaxe2 users know about - but I could be wrong.
But don't get me wrong - your attention to my posts are GREATLY appreciated.

 

[Misoprostol]

It seems like you've got a fairly good grasp of what needs to be done already. C1E, speedstep and the like must be disabled before overclocking on all Intel boards. Same goes for spread spectrums (except this is for ALL boards, Intel or AMD). The difference is that many enthusiast boards already come with these features disabled because the manufacturer assumes that overclocking will be done. Intel assumes their boards are going to be used in HTPCs or something... Not sure what they're thinking, haha.

The one thing to watch is memory dividers. For the most stable system, just keep your memory at or under rated speeds, and see how much you can squeeze out of that chip.

As I said before, based on your post, you've done a fair amount of reading up on what needs to be done to overclock the Bad Axe 2. The only thing that's a pain about it is that it doesn't have an automatic recovery feature from overclocking failure like many high end overclocking boards these days, so you'll need to actually reset CMOS *gasp*. It's not that big of a deal actually.