Hicookie & Hong Kong overclockers have fun with X58A-OC and reach 7146Mhz with 990X

Mad222 posted a thread on XtremeSystems to show a video and some photos of an OC demo in one of Hong Kong’s PC stores with a nice overclock on 990X CPU hitting 7146MHz. You can read more here.

Youngpro from TeamAU smashes the PCMARK05 World Record with the X58A-OC board!

It didn't take long for James, youngpro, to demolish the now former 38K W.R. from Germany with a whopping 41.4K score! Whooooshka, congrats man!

Result can be viewed at HWBOT.ORG

http://hwbot.org/community/submission/2131788_pro_pcmark_2005_core_i7_extreme_990x_41465_marks

Tweaktown has a detailed look at X58A-OC with hicookie and Colin discussing features and more!

Tweaktown just put up a first full video introduction of the new X58A-OC board. Hicookie and Colin explained the main features and also gave a price indication to Cameron as well, check out the full story here!

GIGABYTE G1 KILLER Series Motherboard Features Video!

Bigfoot network guys made a nice video that talks about G1 KILLER motherboard series features including the E2100 network card embedded onboard. Check it out!

Duck-san from Japan shares his thoughts about Sandy Bridge overclocking!

Duck-san is a famous Japanese overclocker and a world record holder on numerous occasions. His shares his wealth of knowledge from time to time on forums and blogs.

We came across a very interesting writeup about Sandy Bridge overclocking and topics related to it recently and wanted to share a link for some interesting reading. The link is translated from Japanese to English so some translations are not perfect but it’s certainly not hard to understand through context.

Duck uses the P67A-UD7 to hit close to 5.6GHz OC and talks about some interesting peculiarities when it comes to overclocking the new generation boards and CPUs.

New GIGABYTE 6 Series SATA Check utility identifies B2 or B3 stepping chipset

As the new B3 stepping GIGABYTE 6 series motherboards start to ship, we have updated the GIGABYTE 6 Series SATA Check utility so that it also identifies the chipset and its stepping as either ‘Revision: B2’ or ‘Revision: B3’ as can be seen in the screenshots below.  

The new 6 Series SATA Check utility is available for download now from the utilities section of the GIGABYTE website.

Youngpro from TeamAU does a quick preview and video on OC Touch with X58A-OC, very cool!

James, youngpro, from TeamAU did a quick preview of the new X58A-OC board on Xtremesystems while he waits for his LN2 to come I hear and did a quick performance comparison between a few different boards as well as a video showing OC-Touch.

One of the images on the forum linked above shows a 32M SuperPi (RAM benchmark) with ram running at 1272Mhz on air cooling in dual channel (Corsair GTX6 1GB modules). He says he would normally use 1GB modules in dual channel rather than a single channel 4GB for LN2 CPU testing to reduce load on IMC. Good thinking 99!

I can’t wait to see what he’ll do with some LN2 and a 990X

GIGABYTE P67 Sandy Bridge boards still the most efficient in 3DMARK01 by a long way!

We’ve recently written about GIGABYTE Sandy Bridge P67 boards absolutely dominating the 3DMARK01 rankings due to much better efficiency than any of its competitors’ boards. It is now evident that is the case with top 10 results using different variations of GIGABYTE P67 boards from UD4, UD5 and UD7 in Nvidia GTX580 category for example.

hicookie hits 6580Mhz in 1024M Wprime with X58A-OC & 990X

X58A-OC Features In Detail!

I want to go into the main features in a bit more detail to give you a better understanding what they do and how they could potentially improve your OC experience. Main features include:

• OC-VRM
• OC-Touch
• OC-PEG
• OC-Cool
• OC-Dual BIOS

OC-VRM

Hiding under the heatsink are the new 50A rated driver MOS chips used to deliver up to 600A(1200W) load via 12 phases. Dual power design is still in place providing redundant phase power and great phase control.

Dual 8pin power input support up to 720A (1500W).

PWM switch allows “on the fly” PWM frequency adjustment from 600, 800 & 1000KHz (default is 400KHz). This can be handy during initial CPU testing to see what frequencies get the most out of the chips at different loads. It can be done in windows so while doing your CPU testing flick to different frequency and see what works best.

Surface mount POSCAP tantalum capacitors used on the whole board for quality and low clearance.

OC-TOUCH

Highlighted here from left to right are LED BIOS POST codes for troubleshooting, measurement points for most important voltage read points named in photo, 4G button allowing a one touch 4GHz OC and a row of buttons allowing real time “on the fly”, hardware level ratio and bclock adjustment.

Real time multiplier or bclock changes used to be done via EasyTune and still can be but for the most part all overclockers will change primarily are ratios and bclock once they know which settings work best. There are a lot of applications for ratio and bclock adjustment buttons such as booting at multi your CPU likes and clocking up bclock. This is one of the best ways to max out most chips and also improve efficiency related to system setting tweaking.

OC-PEG

Aside from independent power input to each PCIe slot on the board, additional two SATA power connectors are provided to boost power to PCIe slots in 3/4WAY GPU configurations during benching. There won’t be a need to route Molex cables in between pots underneath the last GPU pot any more. This location is much easier to reach and it won’t even need insulating most likely as it sits a long way away from GPU pots.

OC-COOL

New heatsink design is used on the board. There are also 7x 4-pin fan headers which will all be independently controlled through bios for the first time! LED lights on northbridge cooler breaking through LN2 clouds during benching looks OC-Cool (pun intended hehe).

OC-Dual BIOS

Dual bios files are used on the board as it’s been a standard on all GIGABYTE boards however there is a little twist with the OC board. This board allows users to switch between bios files so you can select which bios to boot from. You might want to have a superpi bios and a 3D bios let’s say allowing to easily boot from the preferred bios. Switch is located at the far end of the board making it easily accessible in multi GPU configurations.

OC-PEG and OC-Touch on the X58A-OC

This is a nice shot of the OC PEG (PCI Express Graphics) and OC-Touch features on the X58A-OC. The two SATA power in connectors on either side of the SATA ports can be fed power from a 2nd and 3rd PSU if need be - just found a use for that old 400W PSU that's been lying around.

We’ve created a facebook photo album for the X58A-OC and will upload more pictures as our design team prepares them.

I was just commenting to a friend this morning that we’re in a pretty happy place at GIGABYTE at the moment; I don’t remember a time when we’ve had so many unique products all at once (referring to the G1-Killer, X58A-OC and P67A-UD7 boards).

Meet the ultimate overclocking motherboard, X58A-OC!

Sin0822 has an in-depth look at G1 Assassin, check it out!

Sin0822 is at it again! This time he has a look at G1 Assassin motherboard and as you’d expect from his previous writeups he gets down and dirty with the finer details and components used to make the board. It’s a very nice read for people that want to find out more about these awesome new gaming boards.

You can read more on Overclock.net forum HERE.

Video guide how to update your backup bios on GIGABYTE P67 boards

I did a quick video to show users how to copy the main bios to backup bios.

Updating the backup bios to something newer is not a bad idea as it helps calm down the dual bios trigger from overreacting a bit early and it also allows users to once again use Qflash bios update utility rather than windows based flash such as @BIOS.

X58A-OC “OC Touch” feature used to push 990X to 7.1Ghz

Hey guys, here’s a quick shout out to everyone about another new feature we have with the X58A-OC board called OC Touch. It’s essentially a hardware level overclocking feature capable of adjusting the multiplier and bclock on the fly in or out of the operating system.

I’ve got a video here that hicookie made today to give you an idea how it works. He’s got the new Core i7 990X installed, LN2 pot running at -170C+, CPU boots at 6.4Ghz (178*36) and then gets clocked up using OC Touch bclock buttons to 7.1GHz (197*36). Easy!

A keen eye can spot some other interesting things we’ll get to in the future updates so stay tuned!

OC3D GIGABYTE G1 Assassin Gaming Board First Look

Overclock3D guys got their hands on the new GIGABYTE G1 Assassin gaming board this morning and already did a really nice video. The bloke seems pretty excited I’d say heh. Check it out!

Mad222 from Hong Kong showing off his 5.83Ghz i5 2500K on P67A-UD7!

Mad222 is probably better known for his AMD results but it seems he’s getting some decent overclocks with Intel Sandy Bridge platform with this monster overclock using a Core i5 2500K CPU at a ridiculous 5827Mhz frequency! Easily the fastest 2500K so far. He said he used the P67A-UD7 with F7e bios at –80C.

http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1653519

GIGABYTE & LAB501 P67 Overclocking Party on New Year’s Eve!

Lab501 and GIGABYTE had a cool overclocking party recently. Lab501 is the home of current world champion overclocker Matose crowned the winner of GOOC2010 at the end of last year.

Did I mention they were benching on Xmas and New Year’s Eve too, LOL! Actually I should be more precise, they stopped benching 16 minutes before New Year’s Eve hahahaha! That’s dedication right there. Check out the little Xmas tree at the back of the first photo.

HWBOT Country Cup in action!

 

3DMARK01 in action!

Matose and Monstru in the drivers seat!

Man these Romanian blokes know how to have fun don’t they!

Kingston demos new HyperX Black memory with G1.Assassin motherboard and Core i7 990x CPU

Talk about perfect timing! Intel’s long awaited new flagship desktop CPU, the Core i7 990x, just went on sale at newegg in the USA. Remarkably the first G1.Assassin motherboards ship from Taiwan this very week, while Kingston just provided a sneak peak at their new HyperX Black memory in a short youtube video. Needless to say, the system being used includes the G1.Assassin together with the Core i7 990x CPU.

Find out more about the G1-Killer series of gaming motherboards from the official GIGABYTE G1-Killer microsite.

GIGABYTE 6 Series mobo SATA port chart

The numbering of SATA ports on a motherboard can be confusing, but once it has been explained to you it makes perfect sense. The 1st SATA port on a P67 chipset mobo is called SATA3_0 where SATA3 refers to Serial ATA 3.0 that runs at 6Gbps. If it were to read SATA2 then it refers to Serial ATA 2.0 that runs at 3Gbps. The number following the underscore (_) refers the SATA port number. Here is a typical SATA port layout as seen on the GIGABYTE P67A-UD3P:

In the picture above the white ports are the two SATA3 ports (SATA3_0 and SATA3_1) that are not affected by Intel’s recent announcement. The black ports (SATA2_2 through SATA2_5) carry the risk of performance degradation over time.

The following chart shows which 6 series mobo SATA ports are risk free. There is a key below the chart that explains some of the abbreviations.

Key:

ESATA: External SATA port

GSATA: Additional SATA3 ports (GIGABYTE SATA ports)

09 Feb Update: The chart has been updated to include the GA-P67A-UD3R, as well as adding an additional SATA2 port to the GA_P65A-UD3 row.

First sub-10minute 32M SuperPi on AMD done by Mad222 using GIGABYTE 890FXA-UD7!

SuperPi is one of those old school benchmarks which will just never go away because no matter what new generation of CPUs and boards come out, it provides a very good indication of platform efficiency when it comes to system and memory tuning. This benchmarks takes up a huge amount of time and effort which is what Mad222 has put in, first from his tireless benching and tweaking and also from his search for the golden CPU.

Today marks the day of one of those amazing achievements which are rarely seen and can’t come often enough. First sub-10minute AMD 32M SuperPi went down overnight in Hong Kong at an astonishing 6991.7Mhz frequency using GIGABYTE’s flagship 890FXA-UD7 motherboard and an AMD Phenom II X4 965 CPU.

This truly belongs in SuperPi Hall of Fame. Congratulations and keep pushing it as the famous Dane would say!

GIGABYTE 6 Series SATA Check Application, tool to help optimise SATA port usage on current P67/H67 boards

The news of the SATA 2.0 issues with Intel 6 series chipsets has sparked a lot of uncertainty about how this will affect those of us who upgraded to the new Sandy Bridge architecture. Essentially, if you’re using 1 or 2 SATA devices then this chipset issue need not affect you at all because you can connect your devices to the 2 white SATA 3.0 ports. However, if you’re using 3 or more SATA devices, you may want to prioritise your more important devices on the white SATA 3.0 ports (e.g. hard drive with your operating system on it) and the less important devices on the Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports (e.g. a DVD ROM).

To help our customers optimise SATA performance on their 6 series mobos, GIGABYTE has created an easy to use utility called the GIGABYTE 6 Series SATA Check that tells you if the SATA ports that you are using are in fact the affected Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports. It also recommends that you change your SATA devices to the white SATA 3.0 ports. The utility is a simple program that will work on any 6 series chipset based mobo, and has 3 possible scenarios that offer advice for users to configure their SATA devices. To operate, simply copy this utility to your P67/H67 system’s Windows desktop and unzip, then double click the “67sfck.exe” file.

The 1st scenario is where there are no devices connected to the affected Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports, and the utility will let you know that your SATA configuration is OK.

The 2nd scenario is where your devices are all connected to the affected Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports, and the utility will advise you to (Please) move 1 or 2 devices from Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports to the free SATA 3.0 ports.

The 3rd scenario is where you have devices connected to the affected Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports and the SATA 3.0 ports are also populated. Here the utility will advice you that the “Use of (the) Intel PCH SATA 2.0 ports is not recommended.”

The GIGABYTE 6 Series SATA Check utility is available for download on the official GIGABYTE website.

08 Feb, 2011 Update - Here's the end user online alert from Intel: “Alert for Intel® 6 Series Express Chipsets and Intel® Xeon® C200 Chipsets users” which release by Intel, Jan 31^st, 2011. http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/CS-032263.htm.