Asus Maximus Formula SE X38 - Living Review.

[ginbong]

Originally Posted by Clunk

You **should** be able to hit 2.8Ghz with no problems at all, and looking at other peoples efforts, 3Ghz+ should be easily doable with minimal fuss.

If you get stuck, just make a thread in the overclocking section, and someone will help you out

Welcome to the forums

thanks for the welcome clunk, and you got a great thread going! also good comments from the other posters too!

i should stop worrying..

but i was offered a refund for my money by the retailer if i decide on waiting for the non-SE, so i went and mailed 4 retailers and asked for a time-frame when they will recieve the non-SE vers. if it will be over 2 weeks i wont wait.

i got 2x1gig corsair XMS2 DHX cas4 ram btw.. and my max formula was a 1.02g revision, taiwan board..

so i am not confident with everyone else's problems

[Angearu]

What are your CPU temps Gillie?

[Clunk]

Originally Posted by ginbong

thanks for the welcome clunk, and you got a great thread going! also good comments from the other posters too!

i should stop worrying..

but i was offered a refund for my money by the retailer if i decide on waiting for the non-SE, so i went and mailed 4 retailers and asked for a time-frame when they will recieve the non-SE vers. if it will be over 2 weeks i wont wait.

i got 2x1gig corsair XMS2 DHX cas4 ram btw.. and my max formula was a 1.02g revision, taiwan board..

so i am not confident with everyone else's problems

The thing to remember is that, as well as people mentioning their problems here, there have also been some people reporting excellent overclocks.

I dont think there is much to worry about with the stock cooler...just take the NB/SB part off and replace with a couple of zalman passives (or similar) if you are worried

Whatever happens, you still need a decent amount of airflow accross the board.

[Gillie]

Originally Posted by Angearu

What are your CPU temps Gillie?

CPU core temps are at 52 degrees with all case fans and the Zalman CPU cooler running at their lowest speeds, i.e. silent (I only turn the fans up when running anything that loads the CPU's, i.e. gaming or encoding).

If I turn the fans up to their max settings then CPU core temps at idle drop to around 44 degrees.
At 100% load and fans running at max settings the CPU cores rise to around 72 degrees.

I'm using Core Temp 0.95.4 to monitor the core temps.

[SaintRonin]

First off Clunk,

Awesome forums/reviews. I googled for a comparison between the P5K and the Maximus and you guys are telling me exactly what I need to hear. I'll list my specs/future specs, and then ask for input...

=========================================
Antec Nine Hundred + 2 extra Antec TriCool 120MM
Intel Quad Core Q6600 G0
Cooler Master Gemini II HS w/x2 Antec TriCool 120MM
4x1GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC2-6400 / 800 MHz
WD Raptor 150 GB SATA (when I have the money)
Seagate 320GB 7200.10 SATA Perp Drive
BFG nVidia 8800 GTX OC 768 MB
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 zx Platinum Pro (ext)
=========================================

Question/Concern #1:
Heat on 4x1GB chips as there is little/zero space between chips
The Gemini HS hangs out over the RAM and I am hoping that will help. Additionally the 900 case provides a nice wind tunnel across the vid card thru the front of the case. Hopefully that will catch the end of the RAM some and help there as well. I went 4x1GB since I didn't know of any 2x2GB D9 chips, and if/when I have to RMA because of the high failure rate, I'll hopefully still have a working pair to stay up while waiting on the RMA.

Question/Concern #2:
You probably noticed I don't have a motherboard listed yet, which is what brought me to the forums in the first place. Unfortunately for me, I have money tied up in a Fry's giftcard and the price difference between the P5K Deluxe Wifi is only $40 less than the Maximus Formula. Soooo.... I am torn between the two. The Maximus has PCIe 2.0 and two x16 slots. But the overclocking potential is not equal to the other board. Additionally, other minor features are different (eSATA, onboard/rear panel cmos clear and power/reset, etc...).

All that said, seeing as how I currently will only be air cooling, are the limits that you guys are hitting even going to be a factor for me? Should I go with the Maximus, or the Deluxe? OR what about the P5K-E? Is it equally overclockable?

I am willing to spend money as needed, but am only really eyeing the Maximus for its dual x16 PCIe 2.0 slots. Otherwise, I am perfectly happy with the P35 chipset. The P5K-E is almost half the cost of the Maximus and $100 less than the Deluxe. Saving money just gets me my Raptor sooner rather than later. :-) Everything else is either already here or should be here by next week. :-) I'm just anxious to pull the trigger on the mobo so I can go ahead and put everything together. Thanks for the help and the patience, and most importantly you guys taking the time to research all this!!!

Now an awesome "smiley" just for fun. :-)

[Clunk]

Originally Posted by SaintRonin

First off Clunk,

Awesome forums/reviews. I googled for a comparison between the P5K and the Maximus and you guys are telling me exactly what I need to hear. I'll list my specs/future specs, and then ask for input...

=========================================
Antec Nine Hundred + 2 extra Antec TriCool 120MM
Intel Quad Core Q6600 G0
Cooler Master Gemini II HS w/x2 Antec TriCool 120MM
4x1GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer PC2-6400 / 800 MHz
WD Raptor 150 GB SATA (when I have the money)
Seagate 320GB 7200.10 SATA Perp Drive
BFG nVidia 8800 GTX OC 768 MB
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 zx Platinum Pro (ext)
=========================================

Question/Concern #1:
Heat on 4x1GB chips as there is little/zero space between chips
The Gemini HS hangs out over the RAM and I am hoping that will help. Additionally the 900 case provides a nice wind tunnel across the vid card thru the front of the case. Hopefully that will catch the end of the RAM some and help there as well. I went 4x1GB since I didn't know of any 2x2GB D9 chips, and if/when I have to RMA because of the high failure rate, I'll hopefully still have a working pair to stay up while waiting on the RMA. Just hang a low profile 80mm fan off the RAM and it will be fine.

Question/Concern #2:
You probably noticed I don't have a motherboard listed yet, which is what brought me to the forums in the first place. Unfortunately for me, I have money tied up in a Fry's giftcard and the price difference between the P5K Deluxe Wifi is only $40 less than the Maximus Formula. Soooo.... I am torn between the two. The Maximus has PCIe 2.0 and two x16 slots. But the overclocking potential is not equal to the other board. Additionally, other minor features are different (eSATA, onboard/rear panel cmos clear and power/reset, etc...). This is easy really. If you need the extra 16x slot, go for the maximus, otherwise the P5K is a better buy.

All that said, seeing as how I currently will only be air cooling, are the limits that you guys are hitting even going to be a factor for me? Should I go with the Maximus, or the Deluxe? OR what about the P5K-E? Is it equally overclockable? The lower models lack some of the voltage options for more extreme overclocks, but on the whole, you can get a good overclock with even the P5K vanilla.

I am willing to spend money as needed, but am only really eyeing the Maximus for its dual x16 PCIe 2.0 slots. Otherwise, I am perfectly happy with the P35 chipset. The P5K-E is almost half the cost of the Maximus and $100 less than the Deluxe. Saving money just gets me my Raptor sooner rather than later. :-) Everything else is either already here or should be here by next week. :-) I'm just anxious to pull the trigger on the mobo so I can go ahead and put everything together. Thanks for the help and the patience, and most importantly you guys taking the time to research all this!!! Well, do you need crossfire? (looking at the list of stuff, the answer is no ), if not, get the P5K.

Now an awesome "smiley" just for fun. :-)

Answers in bold.

Welcome to the forums

[Angearu]

Sigh, I've ran memtest today (HCI memtest or what ever it is called) and it has found 2 errors, going to run the same test on stock speeds let's see if i'll get error's again .. (memtest86 never gave me errors though)

[Clunk]

You got the correct voltages set for the RAM?

[SaintRonin]

Thanks for the very quick reply, man. :-)

I just was thinking that for $40 having the dual x16 PCIe 2.0 slots would be smart for future proofing (which is an oxymoron, but might help the board stay closer to the edge until DDR3 is really the standard.

If the P5K-E will overclock similarly to the Deluxe, then I will probably pursue that route at this point. I can always spend the $150 I saved on a new mobo next year and sell the one I have if I'm not happy enough. :-)

I don't plan to crossfire at this point, but if it was an option I chose to explore, I'd rather have the dual x16 (not to mention the 2.0 slots - although that is probably a ways off like DDR3 I'm guessing since I haven't researched that any).

Thanks again for the objective views.

Oh yeah, when you say "hang" and low profile in reference the the 80mm fan for the RAM, how are you hanging it, and is that just something I'd pickup at Newegg or Fry's? I had to wait ~3 months for a G0 stepping chip, and now I'm ready for it all to just work. (After I spend all weekend testing and torturing and tweaking and clearing cmos repeatedly of course. LOL)

[Clunk]

Originally Posted by SaintRonin

Oh yeah, when you say "hang" and low profile in reference the the 80mm fan for the RAM, how are you hanging it, and is that just something I'd pickup at Newegg or Fry's? I had to wait ~3 months for a G0 stepping chip, and now I'm ready for it all to just work. (After I spend all weekend testing and torturing and tweaking and clearing cmos repeatedly of course. LOL)

Elastic band through the holes in the fan, or a piece of string or cable tie etc and hook it onto the lugs that clip the RAM in place.

You can buy dedicated RAM coolers, but using a small fan is a cheap and effective way of doing it