ASUS ROG Rampage Formula: Why we were wrong about the Intel X48
by Kris Boughton on January 25, 2008 4:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Conclusions and Final Thoughts
Our experience with the ASUS Rampage Formula has been tremendously enlightening thus far. Although we can confidently claim a long-standing familiarity with MCH Read Delay (tRD) and its affect on overall system performance, this motherboard provided us exactly the foundation we needed to develop our current understanding of just how some of these previously elusive settings really work. There is no reason why any enthusiast should not be able to arm themselves with this information in their quest for the perfect overclock based on overall system performance. We sincerely hope that the Rampage Formula is the first of many boards from ASUS to incorporate this kind of great innovation. We have grown accustomed to using it now, and we don't want to go back to the old methods of manipulating tRD.
The Rampage Formula's layout is as close to perfect to possible - water-cooling enthusiasts will have no problems fitting two ATI graphics cards in Crossfire, even when installing full-coverage water blocks. Through-hole mounting for the Northbridge and the ability to remove the stock cooling solution without disturbing the portion covering the MOSFETs in the power delivery circuit is especially nice. Fitting an after-market heatsink on the MCH will be simple and straightforward. Then again, this may not be necessary; we actually found the X48 to be cooler than the X38 in the production level boards.
The ability to use DDR2 is another great benefit to consider when selecting an X48 board. Again, ASUS has made the right choice in this arena and has decided to provide separate solutions based on each memory type. For the ultimate in performance, though, we suggest you check out DDR3 based configurations if you can afford it.
We anxiously await the impending availability of this board; we know that its release - and that of its DDR3-based "Extreme" brethren - has the potential to usher in a new round of 3D performance records from today's top overclockers. The early maturity of ASUS' BIOS coupled with the capabilities of the Intel X48 chipset make a fantastic combination for achieving absolute top speeds. For those of us more firmly grounded in reality, rest assured that we have a hard time finding reason not to recommend the use of this board in even the most demanding new systems.
It would be ignorant of us not to expect other companies such as MSI, abit, DFI, and Foxconn to follow suit with the introduction of their top-end X48 boards. In fact, just last week we took an in-depth look at the Gigabyte GA-X48T-DQ6 and what it had to offer. Although it's not quite as strong out of the gate, given time we expect BIOS improvements to close the gap. The Gigabyte board also uses newer DDR3 technology, so whether or not ASUS' comparable board will experience the same types of problems remains to be seen.
One thing is for certain, Intel and ASUS have teamed up to bring us another great overclocking choice that sets a new standard in the market. Early reports of limited performance improvements may have tempted you sit out the X48 release. Based on our results from the ASUS Rampage Formula, we will go on record now and reject our previous position. We will be running X48 boards in our personal systems; what about you?
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kjboughton - Sunday, January 27, 2008 - link
The rules as defined may not apply exactly as provided for P35. The equations have been tested to be true for X38/X48 but additional testing is still needed on P35 in order to validate the results.Super Nade - Saturday, January 26, 2008 - link
Hi,I love the technical depth of the article. Outstanding writeup! I hope you will NOT dumb down future articles as this is how, IMO a review should be written.
S-N
Eric Rekut - Saturday, January 26, 2008 - link
Great article! I have a question, is x48 faster in super-pi than p35/x38?Rajinder Gill - Saturday, January 26, 2008 - link
Hi,In general the X38/X48 chipset outscores the P35 in Super Pi. The x48 can/will pull ahead of the X38 very marginally IF it can handle a lower overall tRD with a higher FSB combination and tighter memory sub-timing ranges - within an available level of Northbridge voltage.
regards
Raja
Rob94hawk - Saturday, January 26, 2008 - link
I would love to see you guys do benchmarking and overclocking with the QX9770+DDR3 1800 with this mobo.Rajinder Gill - Saturday, January 26, 2008 - link
Hi Rob,Kris will be testing the Rampage Extreme soon (with DDR3). The 9770's only show a little more prowess than QX9650's under LN2 cooling (in some instances - not always). With cascade/water/air cooling there's little to separate the QX9650 from the QX9770 (at least in my experience with both processors thus far).
regards
Raja
enigma1997 - Saturday, January 26, 2008 - link
Another excellent article after the QX9650 O/C one. Congratulations!!I have a few questions: What ram did you use to achieve the amazingly high bandwidth result (the one that goes with the 450FSB and tRD 5)? I understand you are using a divider of 3:2 and CAS5, so I expect the DDR2 speed should be at 10800!!
Also, I am not sure how you can get a memory read of >9000MB/s with tRD 5. I have a pair of G.Skill F2-8000PHU2-2GBHZ 4-4-4-5 and a DFI X38-T2R motherboard. I set it up with a QX9650 with tRD/FSB/ram timing identical to yours, but I only get around 8800MB/s. Note that the CPU runs at 3000Mhz.
Thanks for the article and your answers to my questions :)
kjboughton - Sunday, January 27, 2008 - link
Memory used for the incredible 450FSB/tRD 5 result was OCZ DDR2 PC-9200 Reaper (2GB kit).Regarding the testing you did at equivalent speeds, contrary to popular belief, CPU speed does influence both system memory read latency and bandwidth (add 16 clocks of whatever the CPU's Tcycle is to total system latency - about an extra 1.33ns going from 4GHz, where I tested, down to 3GHz uses in your system). This is certainly enough to reduce your BW results down below 9GB/s.
Jodiuh - Saturday, January 26, 2008 - link
"we feel there is nothing that needs modification by the end user as long as overclocking aspirations are within reason."The current Maximus series requires a bit of work (heatgun, fridge) to pull this off and replace with TIM of choice. Also I noticed a 7C drop on the bench when adding a 5CFM 40mm to the NB. Would you mind fleshing out the comment a bit more?
Thanks for the very thorough information in the article!
jedisoulfly - Friday, January 25, 2008 - link
there is a patriot viper ddr3 1600 cl7 kit at newegg for $295 (out of stock at time of this post) that is dramatically higher than good 800 ddr2 or even 1066 but just over a year ago ddr2 800 2gb kits were going for that price. I think once NV and AMD start making chip sets that support ddr3 the prices will start to come down...hopefully