GA-P45-UD3R + 8GB of memory = bad memory latency

[burningforce]

Hello all

I am having difficulty setting up my GA-P45-UD3R rev1.1 motherboard BIOS settings to get decent(hopefully great) memory performances in windows 7 pro x64. I had a bios template that allowed showed me settings I should set the BIOS options too, but it was lost when my old HDD crashed. And anyway those settings were not really optimal due to the slowness of windows 7.

I been reading around the web at various tech related sites, forums, blogs to see if I could find a good "(G)MCH Frequency Latch" and a "system memory multiplier" noob editing guide. I found a couple, but some of the guides were fairly dated (1998-2004) or they used a lot of "tech jargon" that was difficult to understand and/or follow.

I just want to set the BIOS to default settings for my hardware that will give me the best performance in games/applications. I could just take out 4GB of memory, but I play a game called "World of Warcraft" in which I "multibox" (playing 2+ accounts at once) and require the extra memory to handle that.

As of right now, I have most settings on auto in my bios. I have taken the liberty of taking screenshots of various "hardware monitoring/info tools" and put them in a single screenshot. If you need a pic of a certain tool, let me know and I can try to provide it to you. I will also post a bios template of my settings in the BIOS as of right now. These settings are fairly exact and I am looking for assistance in setting the BIOS settings to allow great performance from all of my hardware.


Here is the screenshot, as you can see the latency is fairly high and the DPC latency is troublesome
OCToolsPic


here is my bios template:

MB Intelligent Tweaker(M.I.T.)
Robust Graphics Booster ...............: Auto
CPU Clock Ratio ..........................: 9x
Fine CPU Clock Ratio.....................:.0
CPU Frequency ...........................: 2.40GHz (266x9)


Clock Chip Control 
Standard Clock Control
CPU Host Clock Control..................: [Disabled] 
CPU Host Frequency (Mhz) ............: 266
PCI Express Frequency (Mhz) .........: 100

C.I.A.2 .................................:[Disabled]


Advanced Clock Control [Press Enter]
CPU Clock Drive...........................: <<< 800
PCI Express Clock Drive.................: <<< 900
CPU Clock Skew (ps)....................: <<< 0
MCH Clock Skew (ps)...................: <<<  0


DRAM Performance Control
Performance Enhance...................: [STANDARD]
Extreme Memory Profile (X.M.P.).....: Disabled
(G)MCH Frequency Latch...............: [Auto]
System Memory Multiplier ..............: auto
Memory Frequency (Mhz) ..............: 1066   1066
DRAM Timing Selectable ................: [Manual]

Standard Timing Control
CAS Latency Time........................ 5
tRCD ......................................... 5
tRP'........................................... 5
tRAS.......................................... 15



Advanced Timing Control
tRRD........................................... auto
tWTR.......................................... auto
tWR............................................ auto
tRFC........................................... auto
tRTP........................................... auto
Command Rate (CMD) ....................: auto

Driving Strength Profiles
Driving Strength ............................ auto

Channel A
Static tRead Value.........................: auto
 tRD Phase0 Adjustment...................:Auto 
tRD Phase1 Adjustment...................:Auto
 tRD Phase2 Adjustment .................:Auto
 tRD Phase3 Adjustment..................:Auto
Trd2rd(Different Rank)....................:Auto 
Twr2wr(Different Rank)...................:Auto 
Twr2rd(Different Rank)...................:Auto 
Trd2wr(Same/Diff Rank)..................:Auto 
Dimm1 Clock Skew Control...............:Auto  ps
Dimm2 Clock Skew Control...............:Auto  ps

Channel B
Static tRead Value.........................: auto
 tRD Phase0 Adjustment...................:Auto 
tRD Phase1 Adjustment...................:Auto
 tRD Phase2 Adjustment .................:Auto
 tRD Phase3 Adjustment..................:Auto
Trd2rd(Different Rank)....................:Auto 
Twr2wr(Different Rank)...................:Auto 
Twr2rd(Different Rank)...................:Auto 
Trd2wr(Same/Diff Rank)..................:Auto 
Dimm1 Clock Skew Control...............:Auto  ps
Dimm2 Clock Skew Control...............:Auto  ps

Motherboard Voltage Control

CPU
CPU Vcore….………..............1.32500V...........: 1.33750V

CPU Termination…..... 1.200V.......: 1.200V

CPU PLL…………………....1.500V*.......: 1.500V
CPU Referen.…………....0.755V*.......: ***Did not have in bios***

CPU Reference2………,,0.800V*.......:  ***Did not have in bios***

MCH/ICH
MCH Core…………….....1.100V...........: 1.260V
MCH Reference….…….0.760V...........; 0.760V
MCH/DRAM Ref.…......0.900V........... : 1.000V
ICH I/O……………….....1.500V............: 1.500V
ICH Core…………...……1.100V............:  1.500V

DRAM
DRAM Voltage ……....1.800V............: 2.100V
DRAM Termination .…0.900V............: 0.900V
Channel A Reference 0.900V............: 0.900V
Channel B Reference 0.900V............: 0.900V

Advanced Settings
Limit CPUID Max. to 3.....................: [Disabled]
No-Execute Memory Protect............: [Enabled]
CPU Enhanced Halt (C1E)................: [Disabled]
C2/C2E State Support....................: ***Not in bios***
x C4/C4E State Support..................: ***Not in bios***
CPU Thermal Monitor 2(TM2) ...........: [Enabled]
CPU EIST Function.........................: [Disabled]
Virtualization Technology................: enabled

Integrated Peripherals
Legacy USB Storage Detect .............. disabled

hopefully I can get this sorted out easily. Also if performance would be better, I do not mind dropping the speed of the memory frequency to 800MHz and or bumping up voltages and FSB.

Sorry for the long post, just wanted to get all the info I could get and put it in 1 post. Thanks

[yuu]

Re: GA-P45-UD3R + 8GB of memory = bad memory latency

FSB is a major bottleneck, lower multiplier CPU ratio to 7
set 400 Host clock
Memory Multiplier 2.50A, 2.0D or 2.66D, there will be no much difference. 63.5, 69.6 or 63.0ns in each case. 0.5ns difference between 1066 and 1000.
If you set Extreme Performance Enhance with 2.0D - 66.3ns, in this case the difference between 1066 and 800 would be 3ns.

Additionally set Performance level(=Static tread value on each Channel) as low as you can without upping MCH voltage too much.

[kick]

Re: GA-P45-UD3R + 8GB of memory = bad memory latency

mch frequency latch left on auto will enable u to set any of the available memory multipliers.

Since you arent overclocking the cpu,one of the simplest things to try is using the xmp enabled in the bios and use your epp 1
that will require 2.1 + v dram but since your already using that,shouldnt be a problem.
If youre solely concerned with memory performance , the enhanced performance profile should work for you at that very low fsb and will take the best timings from the memory and apply them for u.

You can also play around with standard ,performance and turbo for the memory.

For real system performance tho you probably need a high cpu speed,then a high fsb speed (cpu ref x4) and the memory running as fast as it can after that to give you the chipsets maximum bandwith,lowest latency
around 8-10gb/s bandwidth and 60ns latency.

I was never a big fan of just maxing the memory performance ,but with a low fsb you should be able to enter the epp profile settings yourself manually .

See the image in my thread here from like a year ago(you will have to magnify the page)

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/anyone-over-510fsb-quad-air-45-ud3-33649/

you can also check this thread(first post is the settings i use 24/7) for max memory /chipset/cpu/bandwidth and min latency.
The later posts there are more ,trying to push the envelope.

http://forums.tweaktown.com/f69/q8400-q8200-overclock-ep-45-ud3-high-fsb-37179/

On WOW. it is mainly a 2 thread game but you can instruct it to run other threads off the spare 2 cores u have.

[burningforce]

Re: GA-P45-UD3R + 8GB of memory = bad memory latency

hello
thank you both for you're helpful comments. But I think I found out the problem regarding bad performance in windows. It is not related to my memory configuration or a bad hard drive, but rather a bad bios or the ich10r controller.

I decided to format partition and install win 7 pro again with a intel achi driver, loaded the driver from usb pendrive during win 7 pro installation, and proceeded to install win 7. this is when I noticed that the "unpacking" part of the installation was still at 0% after 15 minutes. I restarted and tried again and again but still was not working. Then after i gave up and went to bed, woke up and found out I can not boot dvd-drive or hard drive from any of the intel sata ports. I am using a old ubuntu live cd to post this message with the just the dvd drive in the gigabyte sata port (purple).

So I am not sure what is going on now, also with just 1 memory slot populated and low voltage selected for mch and memory, the memory is fairly hot to the touch and the northbridge heatsink is also hot to the touch.

I been having problems with this board since I got it last year, just not sure if it is a easy fix or if I have to see if i can RMA it or buy another one.