Ultimate Sandy Bridge OC Guide + P67A-UD7 Performance Review

[sin0822]

Here it is in PDF format if you want to print it or read it on the go.
OCGUIDEREVIEW.pdfP67A-UD7 in Depth Look at The Board

The performance review includes: Voltage read points, SLI performance, Overclocking and CPU performance, SATA6G performance, power consumption, and a look at some board features.Continue to Overclocking Made Simple if you just want to learn to OC, if you want to only see performance review click here:

Overclocking Made Simple:REQUIRED: CPU-Z will give you processor frequency info as well as Vcore
REQUIRED: Stability program, Intel burn Test is popular as is LinX (they are basically identical), Prime 95 is also very good.
Required: Pick one or more or your own monitoring software:
HWMonitor will give you voltages and temperatures
Motherboard Software (such as EasyTune 6(GIGABYTE), TurboV(ASUS)): will give you voltages and temperatures as well as in windows voltage and multiplier change options.
Core Temp for Temperatures
Real Temp for Temperatures
Speed Fan: system monitoring
Step #1:C1E-DISABLE
EIST-DISABLE
C3, C6 States-DISABLE
CPU Thermal Monitor-DISABLE

Do not touch BLCK right now as it always needs to be lowered as you overclock higher, at stock or low OC (under 4.3 GHz you can increase BLCK no problem). Make sure you make note of Stock VID/Vcore/VCC (found under voltage options). Upon reboot if the system boots into BIOS check the new VID under voltages settings or CPU Vcore (VCC) under health monitoring, take this value and compare it to this:

Stock-4GHz on Stock VID
4.0-4.3GHz 1.300v-1.325v
4.3-4.5GHz 1.325v-1.375v
4.5-4.8GHz 1.375v-1.450v



Above you can see the VID change from 1.23 to 1.370 for 3.4 to 4.5 GHz automatically, if this occurs SVID is working properly.

If that fails to boot into BIOS, then set it to 4 GHz (40x), and SVID should work upon reboot. You should end up with a stable 4 GHz overclock with automatically increased Vcore/vcc. Those values listed above are optimal voltage for optimal overclocks up to 4.8 GHz. You want to stay within the low spectrum of those voltages for temperature and processor integrity sake.
Both my 2600Ks will boot into BIOS at 4.5 GHz without anything else changed, only multiplier to 45x, VID changes from 1.18 to 1.365 on one and 1.23-1.370 on the other. While both boot at 4.5 GHz into BIOS, one only can do 4.8 GHz while the other can do 5.2 GHz (the one with higher VID), both D1 stepping chips. Retail D2 stepping chips should be better overclockers.

[sin0822]

Re: Ultimate Sandy Bridge OC Guide + P67A-UD7 Performance Review

Step #2Voltages:VCC:Load Line Calibration or Vdroop control is a setting that eliminates/reduces processor voltage droop under load and in many extreme cases many reverse voltage droop. Voltage droop is there so that under load conditions where current (amperage) is increased the processor stays within TDP (Thermal Design Power). There is also vdrop which is implemented by the motherboard manufacturer, vdrop is there and it drops every voltage on the board from what is set in BIOS, no matter the load. LLC can reverse Vdroop and Vdrop in many cases.

Let me explain.
Voltage x Amperage = Wattage.Important Learning Lesson about high VCC and high LLC(Processor Degradation):VDDQ:VAXG: internal graphics processor voltage, not applicable to this processor.

VCCPLL: Commonly known as CPUPLL, this voltage is for the internal clock generator for the CPU. Intel states maximum at 1.89v, and stock at 1.8v.

What does the PLL do, you ask? Instead of messing with this, use the Unlock CPUPLL Overvoltage Option under frequency control; this should help you get past 5.2 GHz on D2 stepping chips and beyond, if you need more oomph after that, increase it. (This setting if enabled on a D1 chip will actually cause it not to boot, like mine)


VCCSA:Overclocking Continued:Step #3Step #4:Step #5: If you are still unstable upon boot, and be stable, then try these options:

A. Select CPU PLL Overvoltage to enabled, this allows most people to go beyond 4.8 or 5.2 GHz whatever your barrier is. If you have a D1 stepping processor, enabling this option will cause you to fail to boot.

B. If not already using turbo options, please do so. Now set upper limit on TDP and TDC at 200-300 to removed TDP and TDC limitations. If your board has OCP (over current protection) you can disable this if you want a very high overclock.

C. You can try to enable Load Line Calibration to its full extent.

D. Try disabling Fan control under health monitor

E.HEAT:Crazy Cold Bug:


Above you can see Gflops performance increase drastically at 5.2 GHz, I used subzero air from Mother Nature to cool down the Heat Sink. The problem is that at 5.2 GHz my D1 stepping 2600K has a cold bug below 20C; the system has to be above 20C to boot, as well as bench. This cold bug is being circumvented with each new stepping Intel is releasing, so hopefully this will improve, because 20C cold bug is terribly high. My problem would be I could bench the processor, but as soon as the CPU load stopped my system would hang because temperatures drop below 20c. BUT the cold bug is not the same at every multiplier, at 51x there was no cold bug, I could go as cold as I want. This is very weird indeed, so watch out for it.

Overclocking RAM: BDOS CODES:

[sin0822]

Re: Ultimate Sandy Bridge OC Guide + P67A-UD7 Performance Review

P67A-UD7 Performance Review

I am now going to move on to the board performance review, first let me start by saying that the current BIOS is not the same as the UEFI BIOS that will be out shortly, and because of that, I feel there is no need to show off the BIOS, I provided screen shots of the BIOS for the most important Overclocking Areas above in the OC guide.

Board Spacing:This board's VRM is VRD12 CERTIFIED, it is very important certification that is hard to meet. It depends on VRM response time as well as other factors. This is something to look for when buying a board, because VRM response time indicates how fast the turbo multipliers can change. This board has no lag when using turbo mode. It is an Intel Certification.


Let move on to the other side of the heatsink, the side where the RAM modules are. There is much concern with the spacing between the CPU socket and the RAM. While this might be a cause of concern, it is due to two reasons. The increase in the distance of the traces would decrease electrical performance and this design is by Intel specifications. Most RAM modules like my Dominator set have detachable heatsinks, here are a few shots.





As you can see with the heatsinks off the RAM modules, clearance is a little bit less of an issue; a taller cooler would make a good fit if you want to add a second 120mm fan.
Now here is a shot of the problem with a large 120mm fan, the fan sits on the Ram modules:




Of course you can make it work, but it is still an issue. You can always move the modules into different slots to accommodate the fan.

Now let me move onto PCI-E slot spacing. As you can see you have a plethora of PCI-E slots, the first 16x slot is the topmost normal size PCI-E slot, underneath it is a 8x slot, and below that is another 16x slot, and below that a PCI slot and another 8x and another PCI slot.



Here is a look at spacing with two large GTX570 GPUs and a 3rd GT220 for 3-way SLI. Notice that you can fit another dual slotted card in there very easily.



Here is a shot of the cards moved around, notice there is one PCI-E slot available with the setup above, and when moving the second GTX570 to the bottom 8X slot it is possible to still have a PCI device and a 3rd single slotted card:



Now here is the cool thing about the PCH heatsink and angled SATA connectors. There is just enough clearance for these huge GPUs.



Here is SATA clearance:


There are no issues for clearance with long XL GPUs.

[sin0822]

Re: Ultimate Sandy Bridge OC Guide + P67A-UD7 Performance Review

Voltage Read Points:
I found these points to be the voltage read points for the board. Now I do not have the Data sheet for the ISL 6366 PWM for the CPU so I just indicated voltage read point off of one of the Core Chokes.
CPU Vcore:


CPU PLL:


QPI/VTT + System Agent:


DDR3 Voltage:



Voltage Read Points VS Software and BIOS and Load Line Calibration:
I took manual Digital Multi Meter readings of CPU Vcore, CPU Vcore LLC 1, CPU VCORE LLC2, QPI/VTT, and DDR3 Voltage. System Agent and CPU PLL voltages were only taken from what is set in BIOS to what I found on the board. Now I did not spend much time on this, so if you find a better read point let me know!


Percent Difference:
Average Vcore percent difference: 0.5% difference
QPI/VTT percent average percent difference: 0.1% difference
DDR3 percent average difference: 0.6% difference
System Agent percent difference: 2%
CPU PLL percent difference: 1.5%

It looks like the Ite voltage monitoring super I/O chip is doing its job. The voltages you should be most concerned with are Vcore and VTT, and they are almost dead on (VTT is really dead on). Now this board is for enthusiasts, so I am sure many will use read points, but software is just fine. You can use the above data on Load Line Calibration to see what level you want to use, if any at all.

Power Consumption:

[sin0822]

Re: Ultimate Sandy Bridge OC Guide + P67A-UD7 Performance Review

CPU/ Board performance testing VS X58 system:
Here is a pic of the Sandy Bridge system in my case after testing was done.



Overclocking settings per chip:
Stock means loaded stock defaults, 1333 MHz ram cas 9 for P67A-UD7 and 1066mhz cas 9 for X58A-UD5. For the 2.8ghz 2600K memory speed of 1066MHz at 9, 9,9,24 was used to even out the bottom comparison line. In some memory benchmarks I used another setting as well with the 2.8 GHz 2600K at 1333MHz to compare speed to stock 3.4 GHz 1333 MHz; same timings were used for all runs, except max OC. I made note where any setting was changed.

Test Systems:


CPU Performance Benchmarks:real world performance

[sin0822]

Re: Ultimate Sandy Bridge OC Guide + P67A-UD7 Performance Review

SLI Performance w/ NF200.SLI Gigabyte GTX 570, two cards, both in 16x slots. Not OCed, at stockSATA6G performance:

[sin0822]

Re: Ultimate Sandy Bridge OC Guide + P67A-UD7 Performance Review

GIGABYTE Programs Conclusion:Performance:Score: 9.9

Functionality:
This board has more connectivity than I have ever seen. It even provides the ability to change SATA internal ports into eSATA, and vice versa. USB 3.0 is all over the place, two internal connectors and many in the back, I have never seen so many SATA ports. Instead of using the LAN connectivity of the PCH P67 GIGABYTE chose to use dual Realtek NICs, so you can team them and use them in parallel or serial. The heatsinks get pretty hot (the NF200 one does) and this is a good thing, as they are actually working. They are also very low profile, and there were no spacing issues. There is however a little spacing issue with RAM problem but it is just a matter of looks, and actually is like that for better performance. Score: 9.7

Overclocking:
This board is just sick, if max BLCK is quality of the board then this board is extremely high quality at 107.5, 107.7 set. I was able to take my D1 stepping 2600K to 5.2 GHz, the only problem was the heat from the processor, and well that is the processors problem, these might be lower TDP at stock, but OCed they really know how to release heat. 5.1 GHz is my 24/7 OC and that is more than enough. At a minimum auto OC of 4.5GHz you will have a really hard time finding any system that OCs that well. I was able to just walk up the multiplier to 5 GHz and the VID slowly increased. This proper implementation of SVID is just AMAZING. On what other system can you auto overclock like that? X58 systems will just over-volt, might even damage your processor too, so only try this on P67 with a K series processor. This board has CPU PLL Overvoltage option which only works for D2 stepping chips, but that is an option every Overclocking board should have. I have to give this board a 9.9 as it took my processor to its limits; I wish I had a D2 stepping so I could go for 5.5 GHz! Score: 9.9

Value:Score: 9.5

Appeal:Score: 9.7

Total Score: 9.75Pros:
High Overclock Ability
VRD 12 Certified (Very good SVID implementation)
Excellent SLI performance
Excellent SATA6G and USB3 connectivity
Very stable board
Nice board and heatsink color scheme

Cons:I would like to thank everyone at GIGABYTE for making this review happen!!! Without you guys we wouldn't have this amazing board!

If you have any questions or comments, do feel free to PM me in private if you would like.

[phillywood]

Re: Ultimate Sandy Bridge OC Guide + P67A-UD7 Performance Review

Wow, great review! Thanks for the time spent putting this together.

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Ultimate Sandy Bridge OC Guide + P67A-UD7 Performance Review

Up there!!

Nice work man, I can see this took a lot of hours to do!

[sin0822]

Re: Ultimate Sandy Bridge OC Guide + P67A-UD7 Performance Review

hey thanks a lot man, i appreciate it1

[Lsdmeasap]

Re: Ultimate Sandy Bridge OC Guide + P67A-UD7 Performance Review

Anytime!

Your reviews and articles are always well written man, you should be proud for sure!