DFI LanParty MI P55-T36 Mini ITX Living Review

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Some products generate a massive amount of interest when they are announced, today's review subject is one such product, the DFI LanParty MI P55-T36 Mini ITX Motherboard. Back in early November, we exclusively reported details of DFI's secret board and today, we can finally show you what it can do.

The enthusiast market has seen a steady growth in the MATX sector recently, with practically all manufacturers jumping on the bandwagon with their versions, however, it was DFI that were first to market with their JR P45-T2RS, this was a fantastic board in its own right, never mind the fact that it was tiny and able to fit into a reasonably compact chassis, I mean, who wouldn't want a small, yet powerful gaming rig?

MATX not small enough? Well, how about Mini ITX then? At just 17x17cm, the MI is the worlds first P55 motherboard based on the Mini ITX form factor - There are no built in Atom processors or on board graphics here, its a fully featured P55 board with a 16x PCI-E slot to fit your graphics card of choice into. Mini ITX is no longer just for HTPCs!
So let's get to the important part, how does this little monster perform? Read on to find out...

Index.

1. Intro And Index
2. The Official Specs
3. The Package And Contents
4. A Closer Look
5. Voltage Measuring Points
6. The Genie BIOS And BIOS Template
7. Test Set Up And Testing
8. Availability - Scan - Newegg
9. General Thoughts And Observations
10. Keeping Your MI Safe - DFI's Official Overclocking Guidelines
11. Memory Clocks on the way...

About DFI.

DFI is an international IT expert based in Taiwan locating our Headquarters in Hsi-Chih City. DFI was established in 1981 under Mr. Y.C. Lu's principal. Dedicating to servicing customer with high technology, DFI has been earning a worldwide reputation for quality owing much to the continuing support from our customers, suppliers and affiliates as well as our own efforts over the past twenty years. With more than 20 years of computer product developing and manufacturing, our team of highly skilled engineers helps DFI position ourselves as the standard setter of price-performance solution in the manufacturing and marketing of computer products.

DFI offers a complete line-up of advanced motherboards as well as graphics solutions and Applied Computing Platforms to meet the expanding needs of the IT market. DFI also co-develops with Intel and 3rd party developers for the latest technology on IT solution. These relationships lead customers to adopt DFI products with confidence.

With our Headquarter in Taiwan and Regional Offices in the States, the Europe, China and Japan, DFI has been stably growing from its start 20 years ago into a leader in the IT field today. Close relationships with Intel, AMD, VIA and SiS ensure that DFI products reach the market with leading timing. DFI products are built with Quality as the rock base.

When developing new products, the engineers are instructed with important post to ensure flawless stability and quality as well as the competition ability with our competitors.

By accomplishing these goals, DFI has been fueling our strong growth and reputation in the industry. We are making a global impact because our products offer increasing power, more utility, and value over the competition.

DFI Products.
DFI is one of the world's largest and most trustable motherboard and graphics card manufacturers with seniority. DFI also has been taking all expertise into the field of Applied Computing Platforms including KS Series of interactive PCs that has brought DFI further recognition as a leader in the IT Industry rather than a follower. Solid experience in total Innovative Solution sets DFI's ACP products outstanding from the others.

Commitment in Quality Management.
In order to gear with the fast-moving environments, DFI fully computerizes our production line. From raw material shipment, component storage management, assembling operation, testing, packaging to final shipping, DFI has the most advantages over our competitors. DFI prides ourselves in having the lowest return rate in the industry which stems from the insistence in using only the qualified materials, solid quality controls and state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities.

Major OEMs, ODMs and distributors add value to their product line with DFI's rock-solid reliability. Our OEM/ODM customers work with us in the product concepts. Our Sales and Customer Service Groups consult with our customers to obtain feedback on how DFI products serve their needs. The feedback information will facilitate us to more realize what our customers really need and what else we can enhance the satisfaction for customers. Our worldwide Customer Service Groups not only provide satisfactory service to our customers but also participate the improvement from the very beginning at design concept stage.

Being the first ISO9001 certified IT products developer in Taiwan, our philosophy is Total Quality Management through endless improvement. Our quality control activities begin, even before our receiving door, with the control in our supplier's process. All DFI employees take quality to heart. Using hi-tech facilities in non-pollution process, well-trained workforce manufactures quality products under ISO-9001 certified quality system. In-process and roving audit as well as sampling verification, which add to our Manufacturing labor hour, but the results are worth it. Our name has become synonymous with reliability, a reputation we are committed to maintaining. We will still keep on making improvement.

Next, the official specs...

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The Official Specs.

LANPARTY MI P55-T36.

CPU

LGA 1156 socket for:

• Intel® Core i5/i7 Lynnfield processors
• Supports Intel® Turbo Boost Technology

Chipset

• Intel® P55 Express chipset

System Memory

• Two 240-pin DDR3 DIMM sockets
• Supports DDR3 1600(O.C.)/1333/1066 MHz
• Supports up to 8GB system memory
• Delivers up to 21Gb/s bandwidth at 1333MHz
• Supports dual channel (128-bit wide) memory interface
• Supports non-ECC unbuffered DIMMs

Expansion Slots

• 1 PCI Express (Gen 2) x16 slot

BIOS

• AMI BIOS
• 32Mbit SPI flash BIOS
• CMOS Reloaded

Audio

• Realtek ALC885 High Definition audio CODEC
• 8-channel audio output
• DAC SNR/ADC SNR of 106dB/101dB
• Full-rate lossless content protection technology
• Optical S/PDIF-out and coaxial RCA S/PDIF-out interfaces

LAN

• Intel 82578DC Gigabit Ethernet PHY
• Fully compliant to IEEE 802.3 (10BASE-T), 802.3u (100BASE-TX) and 802.3ab (1000BASE-T) standards

Serial ATA

• Supports up to 3 SATA devices
• Intel Matrix Storage technology
• SATA speed up to 3Gb/s
• RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1 and RAID 5
• Supports 1 Power eSATA device

Rear Panel I/O Ports

• 1 mini-DIN-6 PS/2 mouse port
• 1 mini-DIN-6 PS/2 keyboard port
• 1 Clear CMOS switch
• 1 coaxial RCA S/PDIF-out port
• 1 optical S/PDIF-out port
• 1 Power eSATA port
• 6 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (one shared with Power eSATA)
• 1 RJ45 LAN port
• Center/subwoofer, rear R/L and side R/L jacks
• Line-in, line-out (front R/L) and mic-in jacks

Internal I/O

• 2 connectors for 4 additional external USB 2.0 ports
• 1 front audio connector
• 1 CD-in connector
• 1 S/PDIF connector
• 1 IrDA connector
• 3 Serial ATA connectors
• 1 24-pin ATX power connector
• 1 8-pin 12V power connector
• 1 front panel connector
• 2 fan connectors
• 1 download flash BIOS connector
• 1 diagnostic LED

Power Management

• ACPI and OS Directed Power Management
• ACPI STR (Suspend to RAM) function
• Wake-On-PS/2 KB/Mouse
• Wake-On-USB KB
• Wake-On-LAN
• RTC timer to power-on the system
• AC power failure recovery

Hardware Monitor

• Monitors CPU/chipset/PWM temperature and overheat alarm
• Monitors CPU/DRAM/VTT/CPU_PLL/+3.3/+5/+12/+5VSB/Vbat voltages
• Monitors the speed of the cooling fans
• CPU Overheat Protection function monitors CPU temperature and fan during system boot-up - automatic shutdown upon system overheat

PCB

• 6 layers, Mini-ITX form factor
• 17cm (6.7”) x 17cm (6.7”)

Next, the package and contents...

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The Package And Contents.


The MI comes in a small, black and blue retail box, the whole package relatively lightweight, at first I thought I had an empty box!

Inside the box are a few sparse accessories, just the very basics here:

• I/O Shield
• SATA Power Splitter
• 2x UV Orange SATA Cables
• 1x Bag of quick connectors
• LGA 1156 Socket protector

You may be wondering why the socket protector is in a bag with the accessories and not fitted to the board as usual, all will become clear shortly.

Also included are a user manual and a couple of DVDs, one is the usual LanParty disc with drivers and utilities, the other is X-Fi drivers.

Hidden under a cardboard partition is the MI in its anti-static bag.

Next, a closer look...

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A Closer Look.

The MI P55-T36 looks like half of its cooling is missing at first glance, however, this is how it's meant to be, with just the chipset having a small, black, anodised, aluminium heat sink on it.

Looking at the photo below - at the centre top is the LGA 1156 socket, to the right are two DDR3 DIMM slots, a full sized twenty four pin ATX socket, LED postcode display, the LED/Power/Reset jumpers and a couple of fan headers. To the left of the CPU socket are the six phase Digital PWMs, DFI say that despite their conventional appearance, they are in fact hybrid PWMs, based on a traditional mosfet array design which can be calibrated by the SMBus tool, whereas pure digital PWMs require profiles to fine tune their performance. What does this mean for the end user? Not a great deal really, in theory, the PWMs should be more efficient and can be controlled more effectively.

To the left of the PWM section (more on that later), but oddly, the eight pin EPS socket is positioned between the PS/2 mouse/keyboard sockets and the Optical/coaxial digital outs. I suspect this could cause problems in some cases, just getting the eight pin plug in, time will tell.

Moving to the lower left-hand quarter of the board, we have the X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity logo stuck on top of the analog audio sockets, directly to the right of the analog sockets are three more sockets:

• S/PDIF
• CD In
• Front Audio

To the right again, we have a red jumper and a blue jumper, the red is the CMOS clear and the blue is secondary RTC reset.

Moving further to the right is the lone chipset heat sink that we mentioned earlier and directly below that is the battery, that is mounted vertically and nxt to that are two, dual USB 2 headers and three SATA II sockets. To the right of the SATA II sockets is the tiny SPI BIOS chip, this is of the fixed variety and directly underneath the BIOS chip is the "download BIOS flash" and IrDA connectors.

Finally, at the bottom of the board, we have a single PCI express II 16x socket.


Click image for full size.

The I/O panel is well stocked for a board of this size:

• PS2 Keyboard
• PS2 Mouse
• Clear CMOS Switch
• Coaxial Digital Output
• Optical Digital Output
• 6x USB 2 (or five and one E-SATA)
• 1x E-SATA (See above)
• 1x LAN
• 7.1 Channel Analog Outputs

Remember earlier, I mentioned that the CPU socket cover came in a bag?, well here's why. The LGA 1156 sockets are now "security tagged", with a notice telling you to check the socket for damaged pins before removing the label and clear plastic cover.

When you remove the security label, this happens to it!

Back to the LGA 1156 socket, DFI have gone for the LOTES branded version and this makes sense after the spate of burnt Foxconn sockets and CPUs earlier this year.

Upright battery, CMOS clear jumpers and chipset heat sink.

X-Fi logo.

Finally, a shot of the back of the MI. Again, from this angle, you can see how DFI have put the limited space to good use.

Click image for full size.

That's all the photos - Next, voltage measuring points...

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Voltage Measuring Points.

There will undoubtedly be people that want to measure the most common voltages, so here's a quick diagram showing the three most common points.

Disclaimer: If you don't know what you are doing, please do not go poking around with a multimeter, you can and most likely will kill your board and void your warranty, I take no responsibility for any loss or damage incurred as a result of using this diagram.

Click image for full size.

Next, the Genie BIOS...

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The Genie BIOS.

DFI recently moved from Award BIOS after years of development, Award simply decided to stop supplying, so they have changed over to AMI. The MI is the second DFI board to feature an AMI BIOS, the first being the DK P55 which we reviewed earlier this year, in many respects, the two boards have very similar Genie BIOSes, one thing we have noticed is that since the change over, there seems to be slightly better overclock recovery than on previous boards, but a few less settings - Some may find the simpler BIOS a bit easier to deal with, but on the whole, some previous DFI users may be left wanting. I've no doubt that as DFI's BIOS developers get to grips with AMI, things will become a little more comprehensive again. That said, there's plenty to keep us occupied and the majority of it you don't need to touch to get excellent overclocks, as you'll see later.

Genie BIOS.

Main page.

CPU Configuration.

Voltage Control - Top.

Voltage Control - Bottom.

DRAM Timing.

Notice the odd placement of the tRAS timings, I'll be willing to bet that this catches many people out and they are unable to start their board, so be warned!

BIOS Template.

>Genie BIOS Main Page.

O.C. Fail CMOS Reload [Disabled]

CPU BCLK Frequency [180]

Ratio CMOS Setting [21]

Intel (R) SpeedStep (tm) tech [Enabled]

Intel (R) TurboMode tech [Enabled]

Boot Up CPU Base Clock [133]
QPI Frequency [Auto]
DRAM Frequency [1333 MHz]
Configure DRAM Timing by SPD [Manual]

> CPU Configuration

Max CPUID Value Limit [Disabled]

Intel (R) Virtualisation Tech [Disabled]

Intel (R) HT Technology [Enabled]

Active Processor Cores [All]

Intel (R) C-State tech [Disabled]

>Voltage Control

CPU Voltage [1.3875V]

Power Saving [Standard]

Super VID [Off]

CPU VTT Voltage [ +0.252V]

DRAM Voltage [1.66V]

DDR3 Terminal Voltage [+0.000V]

DDR3 CHANNEL A ADDERSS VREF [+0.000V]

DDR3 CHANNEL A DATA VREF [+0.000V]
CPU CHANNEL A VREF [+0.000V]

DDR3 CHANNEL B ADDERSS VREF [+0.000V]

DDR3 CHANNEL B DATA VREF [+0.000V]
CPU CHANNEL B VREF [+0.000V]
PLL Voltage [1.80V]
PCH Core Voltage [1.05V]
CPUCOMP0 [Disabled]
CPUCOMP1 [Disabled]
CPUCOMP2 [Disabled]
CPUCOMP3 [Disabled]
DRAMCOMP0 [Disabled]
DRAMCOMP1 [Disabled]
DRAMCOMP2 [Disabled]

>DRAM Timing

DRAM tCL [ 8]
DRAM tRAS [ 24]
DRAM tRP [ 8]
DRAM tRCD [ 8]
DRAM tWR [Auto]
DRAM tRFC [Auto]
DRAM tWTR [Auto]
DRAM tRRD [Auto]
DRAM tRTP [Auto]
DRAM tRTP [Auto]
DRAM Command Rate [1N]
Round Trip Latency (CH0) [+0]
Round Trip Latency (CH1) [+0]
Back to Back CAS Delay [Auto]

Next, test set up and testing...

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Test Set Up And Testing.

I'm going to test the MI as I do all our review boards - I'll do a set of benchmarks and real world observations at varying settings and then I'll overclock as far as possible and run the test again, with a sprinkle of memory tweaking along the way.

As you can see from the comedy shot above, the MI fits neatly into the corner of a standard ATX or MATX motherboard tray, but looks a little bit lost in our test bench!

The test set up is as follows:

• DFI LanParty MI P55-T36
• Intel i7 860 - Water cooled Thermochill PA120.2/Custom D-Tek Fuzion/DDC
  
• Corsair Dominator GT 2000MHz CAS 8
• Corsair HX620
• Samsung FJ400GB
• OCZ Vertex 250GB
• Powercolor HD4870 PCS+

Over-Heating.

While testing the MI, it became clear that its lack of cooling could be a problem at around 4GHz/1.4V and above. When stress testing with 4070MHz/1.41v the PWMs would overheat and shut down, at first I thought the MI had died, but it was the overheat protection kicking in. This was on an open test bench with 18c ambient room temps.

To try and remedy this, I fitted an overhead fan, and while this helped slightly, it didn't fix the problem. I spoke to DFI and they confirmed that it is the PWM shutting down, their tests indicate that each phase can handle around 25w MAX current, the i7 860 at the voltage I was using pulls more than this, and that's why it was shutting down. There are two key things to remember to avoid these shut downs and the first is cooling - Keep the PWMs as cool as possible, some kind of stick-on RAM sinks may be a good idea if you plan on overclocking above say 3.6GHz inside a mini ITX case, and also you need a good circulation of air in the case, around the PWM area especially, and also the back of the board where there are more mosfets. The second thing is voltage, remember, this is not a full size board, so you can't fully expect it to be able to perform like one - Try and keep the CPU voltage under 1.38v if you are using a Hyperthreaded processor.

So, just to recap, the shut downs don't appear to be a fault, but simply an inevitable limitation of the MI's form factor. I will look into this further and report back.


Overclocking.

With the above in mind, the highest stable CPU overclock with HT on that I could manage on the MI was 3960MHz - This is in line with my Gigabyte P55-UD6 and in my opinion is nothing short of incredible for a mini ITX board. The C-State settings work well too, if you enable it, you'll be greeted with a 26x multi, this will be active for only one of your cores, but this was easily doable and stable under OCCT. I should point out that if you load up all your cores, the multi will drop to 22x.

A relatively easy 3740MHz first, the memory is set to its lowest setting at this stage, I'll get to memory clocking later in the review

3740MHz 1.37v CPU 1360MHz RAM 8-8-8-24-1T 1.65v HT On Turbo & Power Saving Features On.





Warning: These settings can potentially damage your board, I have left them in for reference only.

>Genie BIOS Main Page.  

O.C. Fail CMOS Reload              [Disabled]
  
CPU BCLK Frequency                 [170]
  
Ratio CMOS Setting                     [21]
  
Intel (R) SpeedStep (tm) tech       [Enabled]
  Intel (R) TurboMode tech             [Enabled]

      Boot Up CPU Base Clock              [133]
   QPI Frequency                                [Auto]
   DRAM Frequency                          [1333 MHz]
   Configure DRAM Timing by SPD [Manual]
  

> CPU Configuration
  

Max CPUID Value Limit                       [Disabled]
  
Intel (R) Virtualisation Tech                  [Disabled]
  
Intel (R) HT Technology                        [Enabled]
  
Active Processor Cores                          [All]
  
Intel (R) C-State tech                             [Disabled]
  

>Voltage Control
  

CPU Voltage[1.37V]
  
Power Saving                                           [Standard]
  
Super VID                                                 [Off]
  
CPU VTT Voltage                                     [   +0.15V]
  
DRAM Voltage                                         [1.66V]
  
DDR3 Terminal Voltage                           [+0.000V]
  
DDR3 CHANNEL  A ADDERSS VREF [+0.000V]
  DDR3 CHANNEL  A DATA VREF        [+0.000V]
   CPU CHANNEL A VREF                         [+0.000V]
   
DDR3 CHANNEL  B ADDERSS VREF [+0.000V]
  DDR3 CHANNEL  B DATA VREF         [+0.000V]
   CPU CHANNEL B VREF                         [+0.000V]
   PLL Voltage                                               [1.80V]
   PCH Core Voltage                                     [1.05V]
   CPUCOMP0                                               [Disabled]
   CPUCOMP1                                               [Disabled]
   CPUCOMP2                                               [Disabled]
   CPUCOMP3                                               [Disabled]
   DRAMCOMP0                                          [Disabled]
   DRAMCOMP1                                          [Disabled]
   DRAMCOMP2                                          [Disabled]
  
>DRAM Timing 

DRAM tCL                       [    8]
 DRAM tRAS                    [   24]
DRAM tRP                       [    8]
DRAM tRCD                    [    8]
DRAM tWR                      [Auto]
DRAM tRFC                     [Auto]
   DRAM tWTR                    [Auto]
   DRAM tRRD                     [Auto]
   DRAM tRTP                      [Auto]
   DRAM tRTP                      [Auto]
   DRAM Command Rate     [1N]
   Round Trip Latency (CH0) [+0]
   Round Trip Latency (CH1) [+0]
   Back to Back CAS Delay   [Auto]

3960MHz 1.38v CPU 1800MHz RAM 8-8-8-24-1T 1.65v HT On Turbo & Power Saving Features On.





Warning: These settings can potentially damage your board, I have left them in for reference only.

>Genie BIOS Main Page.  
O.C. Fail CMOS Reload              [Disabled]
  
CPU BCLK Frequency                 [180]
  
Ratio CMOS Setting                     [21]
  
Intel (R) SpeedStep (tm) tech       [Enabled]
  Intel (R) TurboMode tech             [Enabled]

      Boot Up CPU Base Clock              [133]
   QPI Frequency                                [Auto]
   DRAM Frequency                          [1333 MHz]
   Configure DRAM Timing by SPD [Manual]
  
> CPU Configuration
  
Max CPUID Value Limit                       [Disabled]
  
Intel (R) Virtualisation Tech                  [Disabled]
  
Intel (R) HT Technology                        [Enabled]
  
Active Processor Cores                          [All]
  
Intel (R) C-State tech                             [Disabled]
  
>Voltage Control
  
CPU Voltage[1.3875V]
  
Power Saving                                           [Standard]
  
Super VID                                                 [Off]
  
CPU VTT Voltage                                     [   +0.252V]
  
DRAM Voltage                                         [1.66V]
  
DDR3 Terminal Voltage                           [+0.000V]
  
DDR3 CHANNEL  A ADDERSS VREF [+0.000V]
  DDR3 CHANNEL  A DATA VREF        [+0.000V]
   CPU CHANNEL A VREF                         [+0.000V]
   
DDR3 CHANNEL  B ADDERSS VREF [+0.000V]
  DDR3 CHANNEL  B DATA VREF         [+0.000V]
   CPU CHANNEL B VREF                         [+0.000V]
   PLL Voltage                                               [1.80V]
   PCH Core Voltage                                     [1.05V]
   CPUCOMP0                                               [Disabled]
   CPUCOMP1                                               [Disabled]
   CPUCOMP2                                               [Disabled]
   CPUCOMP3                                               [Disabled]
   DRAMCOMP0                                          [Disabled]
   DRAMCOMP1                                          [Disabled]
   DRAMCOMP2                                          [Disabled]
  
>DRAM Timing 

DRAM tCL                       [    8]
 DRAM tRAS                    [   24]
DRAM tRP                       [    8]
DRAM tRCD                    [    8]
DRAM tWR                      [Auto]
DRAM tRFC                     [Auto]
   DRAM tWTR                    [Auto]
   DRAM tRRD                     [Auto]
   DRAM tRTP                      [Auto]
   DRAM tRTP                      [Auto]
   DRAM Command Rate     [1N]
   Round Trip Latency (CH0) [+0]
   Round Trip Latency (CH1) [+0]
   Back to Back CAS Delay   [Auto]

More to follow...

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Update On Availability.

Scan.co.uk will apparently have the MI in stock, at the end of this week, roughly the 18th December.

Newegg are showing the MI in stock and ready to go.

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General Thoughts And Observations.

I'd had a few problems with stability after completing the above overclocks, I found that I could no longer get to windows with C-State enabled, but then as I was running OCCT (around 24 minutes into a 30 minute session), the board shut down again and wouldn't start back up, I was getting what looked like a backward C on the right hand side of the LED post code display briefly flashing up as the board tried to power up. I left it for a few more minutes and it fired up again and I resumed my OCCT testing. After about 10 minutes, there was a pop and the board shut down again, this time it would not restart.

I left the board over night and tried again in the morning, it fired up, but as it was getting to windows, it went pop again and there was a smell of burnt electrics - My suspicions were confirmed when I stripped the board down. Some components on the back of the board had melted. This was quite disappointing as I had a fan pointing right at them.



After speaking with DFI, they confirmed that I had pushed the board too hard and ultimately killed it. The problem that I have here, is that the board would have let me do this overclock and much higher without any warning whatsoever. In my opinion, the BIOS needs to be restricted in some way, for argument's sake, to something like 1.3v Vcore - That's just a rough figure I've guessed that should be safe - Then there's also the BCLK, does that need restricting too?

There is a new board on the way to me, and hopefully, the problems I've had will have been limited to the first board. Time will tell.

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Keeping Your MI Safe - DFI's Official Overclocking Guidelines.

Since I posted the photo of the burnt components, it has been worrying me that the second boad would turn out the same way. I had decided to limit my overclocking, however, this came with mixed reactions from our readers. On one hand, we have the "Let's see what it can do" brigade, and on the other hand, we have the "It's a mini ITX board, what did you expect?" camp. This is all well and good, but the problem we have is that the board allows the user to reach the dizzying heights of 4GHz+ before going pop.

DFI intend to release a BIOS in the next week or so that restricts the BCLK and the Vcore - This may seem like sacrilege to some, but you have to put this into context and yes, it's bad analogy time - think Scrappy Doo - "Let me at em!", that's the MI. In its current form, it is undoubtedly a lot of fun, however, its fighting spirit outweighs its physical potential.

In the meantime, DFI have given me some guidelines* that users of the MI + shipping BIOS need to adhere to if they want their board to survive.

Safe = below 110W CPU TDP.

CPU	Safe Setting
i5 750 CPU	up to 180 BCLK
i7 860/870 CPU With HT On	Up to 150 BCLK
i7 860/870 CPU With HT Off	up to 180 BCLK

The above values should keep the board under 110W and should not cause the PWM to overheat.

With regards to Vcore, the new BIOS will limit the voltage to 1.4v for the i5 750 and there will be no Vcore adjustment for i7 8xx series CPUs, so this is probably a good rule of thumb if you are using the shipping BIOS. Most clocks under 150/180 BCLK won't need anywhere near 1.4V anyway.

The new BIOS will also reduce the OCP limit to 90A (1.2v x90A = 180W) where it was previously 120A.

*Disclaimer: Use these settings at your own risk - I take no responsibility for any loss or damage as a result of using these settings.

Next, some memory clocks...