Many companies claim to offer the best overclocking for your money, yet only two compete for the best overclocking at the very highest price point. Today we put those claims to the test, including
a full set of benchmarks to analyze performance gains.
The editors of Tom's Hardware do our best to cover the broadest selection of hardware that finds its way into your PC, but some components fall through the cracks whenever the steady march of
technology pushes us to move on to the next new thing. Such was the case for a few X79 Express-based motherboards priced over $380.
There is a
10.80V, 4400.00mAh COMPAQ
Laptop 436281-241 Battery at electronic-parts.com.au. The COMPAQ 436281-241 Battery is designed for your COMPAQ Laptop, every piece of battery has been tested and validated on COMPAQ Laptop
to ensure it will work with your COMPAQ 436281-241 Laptop. Electronic-parts.com.au is also supplies ASUS laptop batteries, Acer laptop battery, Hp notebook battery and laptop ac adapters and
more.
Reader John Case wrote in a few weeks after our premium X79 motherboard comparison to tell us that one of the products we missed wouldn't support any of his high-end memory at its rated frequency,
no matter how much time he spent trying to optimize timings and voltage levels. After several successful RMAs, he was ready to ship us his board for testing. That’s when the manufacturer stepped in
to provide a full refund.We contacted that manufacturer (along with one of its closest competitors) to see how two of today’s top-rated enthusiast-oriented boards would compare to each other in
terms of overclocking ease, stability, and features.
Asus and EVGA committed to this article with their Rampage IV Extreme and X79 Classified. We were a little surprised when EVGA instead sent its X79 FTW, but noted that this still fell within the
$380+ ultra-premium market that was so scantly covered by only one board in our previous round-up.
This Compaq 436281-241 laptop battery can replace the following part numbers of COMPAQ:452057-001(
452057-001 Compaq notebook battery) 462337-001 HSTNN-DB42 HSTNN-LB42
Asus’ Republic of Gamers motherboards add exclusive overclocking technologies to all other features expected from high-end enthusiast products. One of the Rampage IV Extreme’s USB ports can, for
example, be repurposed at the push of an I/O panel button to control clock speed via the company's now-famous ROG Connect technology.
Reeling in the gamer crowd is the Rampage IV Extreme’s PCIe x16 slot layout, which Asus highlights with red connectors, even though there’s a fifth (grey) slot in the middle. The layout actually
devotes sixteen lanes exclusively to the top slot, sends eight lanes to the second slot, and allots the fourth slot its full sixteen. The fifth x16 slot takes eight lanes from the fourth whenever
it’s populated (using automatic configuration). The initial result is two-way graphics at x16-x16 transfers with quadruple slot spacing, three-way graphics at x16-x8-x16 transfers with double slot
spacing, or four-way graphics at x16-x8-x8-x8 transfers with double slot spacing.
Discount
8800.00mAh 10.80V laptop
COMPAQ 462337-001 Battery from electronic-parts.com.au is quite high quality, grab it for your compaq laptop. Electroinc-parts.com.au is largest batteries and chargers of AU, there are high
speed digital camera, camcorder battery chargers, laptop ac adapters and batteries for laptop, netbook, mobile phone, smart phone, camera, camcorder etc.
The grey slot adds the option of three-way graphics with triple slot spacing by stealing all eight lanes from the second slot. The resulting lane configuration is x16-x8-x8 using the top, middle
(grey) and bottom connectors.
Some of the Rampage IV Extreme’s more extreme overclocking features can be seen in the above full-view shot, such as the pair of Subzero Sense temperature interfaces next to SATA that are used with
separately-purchased K-type thermocouples.
An internal CLR_CMOS button is placed in the top-rear corner, while a BIOS IC selector switch is found at the bottom front.
The top-front edge looks far more interesting, with its selection of status LEDs, line voltage detection points, and PCIe slot disabling switches. The Go button jumps from current settings to a
preset overclock, while Slow Mode allows the system to be momentarily dropped from a super-high overclock in order to prevent cold-crashes at light load when using liquid nitrogen.
Two sets of jumpers perform the amazing trick of monitoring and setting GPU voltage from the motherboard, but require leads to be soldered to each card. Making this technology even more useful is
that the settings can be changed in firmware, software (Asus TurboV Evo), or remotely (Asus OC Key)
The enthusiast-expected additions like on-board Start/Reset buttons and a Port 80 display are also found.
Asus OC Key adds video overlay of key firmware features (monitoring and O/C controls) to Asus' ROG Connect technology. This allows a user to do his “remote” tuning from a separate keyboard,
locally. The benefits of being outside the influence of an operating system remain.
Electronic-parts.com.au supplies high quality cheap laptop batteries such as Compaq laptop battery(
COMPAQ HSTNN-LB42 8800.00mAh 10.80V Battery), Dell laptop battery, TOSHIBA laptop battery, power tools batteries, camcorder batteries,
digital camera batteries, mobile phone batteries, laptop AC adapters, laptop DC adapters, battery chargers, PDA batteries and other devices for Australia customers.
The Rampage IV Extreme is packed with cables, connectors, and PCIe bridges, even including an X-Socket adapter that allows users to remove Intel’s integrated cooler support frame for increased
compatibility with LGA 1366 coolers. The only missing piece is a three-way SLI bridge for triple-slot card spacing, enabled by the grey slot that Asus barely mentions. Bridges for double-slot
spacing are available in both three-way and four-way SLI, along with flexible dual-card bridges that span the four slots between full x16-length connectors.
The Rampage IV Extreme OC Tweaker menu gets slightly expanded from the already well-populated versions of Asus’ other high-end boards, including four built-in overclocking profiles at 4.375, 4.70,
and 4.985 GHz. Additional screenshots are available in our photo album by clicking on any of the below images.
COMPAQ PRESARIO V6707TU batteries
are the hot sale battery of Compaq laptop from electronic-parts.com.au. You can choose suitable batteries for your laptop of Compaq, HP, ACER, Apple, Asus, Toshiba, Samsung, Sony, Dell and
more.
The voltage levels for “Extreme” profiles are a little too aggressive for our tastes, since we prefer our processors to survive though several of these experiments. Yet, rather than chose our
traditional long-term-safety levels, we stepped up our game to a marginally-safe 1.45 V.
Our maximum stable overclock was 4.86 GHz, using a 101.3 MHz base clock and 48x multiplier. Our target 1.45 V core came at the Rampage IV Extreme’s 1.40 V setting.
CPU ratio control and power safety limits are found under the CPU Performance Settings submenu. Asus states that Auto is optimal for most users, and we experienced no restarts when using it.
Per-channel timing controls lead to an extra-long DRAM timing control menu. Our memory’s XMP register made configuration simple.
The DIGI+ Power Control offers droop control (among other things) in the form of the CPU Load-line Calibration function. We found that the High setting kept our CPU core very close to its original
voltage level under a variety of test conditions.
Various additional signal controls are found under the Rampage IV Extreme’s CPU, Memory, Chipset, and VGA Tweaker’s Paradise submenus.
Asus TurboV EVO includes three overclocking profiles in addition to a fairly extensive set of manual controls. The highest of these Level Up profiles sets a modest 1.27 V CPU core.
Manual controls include CPU base clock frequency, CPU ratio, CPU base clock ratio, CPU core and DRAM voltage, and various interface voltages for the chipset and memory controller.
Many of those settings require a reboot to work properly, though the program itself does not impose this requirement. As such, changing the BCLK and clock strap from 125 to 100 MHz, for example,
caused the system to lock, even though it’s a frequency reduction.
Asus Digi+ power controls are also present in software, including the often-needed Load-line Calibration setting that reduces voltage droop at full CPU load.
Asus Fan Xpert lets users set a custom fan speed curve based on component temperatures.
EVGA’s X79 FTW gives users dual gigabit Ethernet controllers for around $20 less than its competitor in today’s article, but makes up the cost difference by dropping other features that Asus
offers. As an example, its $100 EVBot handheld overclocking tool probably costs more to produce than Asus’ OC Key, but EVBot must be purchased separately.
EVGA’s I/O panel has twice as many USB 3.0 ports. But all eight of these ports share a single 5 Gb/s PCIe link through a single controller and two four-port hubs.
Also noteworthy on the I/O panel is the connector for the previously-mentioned and separately-sold EVBot overclocking controller.
Unlike its competition, all five of the X79 FTW’s x16-length slots can be used at the same time. The first and fourth long slots are true x16 parents that donate eight of their lanes to the second
and fifth when they're populated. The third x16 slot is only wired up to run at x4 data rates, but isn’t tied to any sharing system.
We began to wonder why the middle slot hosted four lanes instead of the available eight, like many less expensive boards include, when we discovered that the unsanctioned Intel SAS controller was
enabled in Windows' Device Manager. This controller adapts four of the CPU's PCIe lanes to four SAS or SATA ports on certain unsanctioned motherboard designs. Compatibility isn’t an issue, though,
since EVGA doesn’t actually expose the ports on this motherboard. But enabling the Storage Controller Unit makes four of the processor’s 40 PCIe 3.0 lanes disappear.
Other unusual or problematic design decisions include a forward-facing power connector, center/rear-edge front-panel audio connector, a single USB 3.0 connector along the bottom edge, and a 13-pin
IEEE-1394b internal header with no external port. Of these, the forward-facing power connector will turn into a wonderful opportunity for clean cable routing if your optical drives don't block off
the interface.
Installing a card in the second slot for three-way SLI in x8-x8-x16 mode almost requires that you crush the front-panel audio connector's wires. Moving the cards to avoid this issue forces
x16-x4-x8 mode with no clearance for the inflexible USB 3.0 cable end. EVGA’s competitor faces a similar issue in regard to its bottom USB 3.0 header, but adds a second USB 3.0 connector in a more
accessible location. This is also not a four-way SLI design, though that configuration might be possible by using at least one single-slot card and a bunch of flexible bridges.
Overclocking-oriented features include two rows of voltage detection points near power, reset, and CLR_CMOS buttons, DIMM and PCIe slot disabling switches, and a three-way CMOS selector switch. One
of the CMOS ICs is even replaceable, just in case an enthusiast figures out how to screw up all three chips.
Flexibility is the theme of the X79 FTW’s installation kit, since it includes two round and two flat SATA cables, two styles of four-pin to SATA power adapter cables, and three-way SLI bridges with
two different configurations. We were a little confused that a company would bother adding a FireWire 800 controller to a motherboard that had no I/O panel ports for it, and even more confused to
find that the included break-out cable supports only FireWire 400.
EVGA’s overclocking menu is exceptionally easy to navigate, and it offers a wide range of settings at very small intervals. The main menu includes voltage and CPU multiplier controls.
We found that the closest match for our consistent 1.45 V CPU core target came by combining the 1450 millivolt setting with 50% V-droop compensation.
Memory tuning was somewhat more problematic, since the board would not work at our memory’s XMP-2133 defaults. In fact, it didn’t even work at DDR3-1866 without applying manual configuration. We
found that the easiest way to use the DDR3-1866 multiplier was to manually set CAS 9-11-9-28.
That’s not to say that DDR3-2133 was unachievable. Even though we couldn’t use the 21.33x memory multiplier at 100 MHz BCLK, we were able to use the 16x multiplier at 133.3 MHz BCLK after copying
all the secondary timings from the Rampage IV Extreme screen shots to the X79 FTW. The problem for high-speed memory has been isolated to the board’s use of unstable secondary timings when in
automatic configuration mode.
EVGA E-Leet utility is derived from the CPU-Z utility from CPUID.com, and the CPU and Memory tabs reflect this association.
Unlike CPU-Z, EVGA E-Leet allows users to change several operating parameters of the X79 FTW. We were, for example, able to alter all but one voltage level from its Voltages menu. The one item that
refused to budge was VCCSA.
Altering the BCLK was easy once the voltage was increased, but we had to change firmware to manual multiplier control before Turbo Mode Control functioned.
Another menu item labeled Enable Brink O/C takes a CPU-Z validation image every time a new setting is Applied. That feature allows tuners to show off a frequency that wouldn’t have been stable long
enough for them to manually take the screenshot. We've seen the need for this first-hand during our own international overclocking competition back in 2008.
E-Leet also has a menu for GPU voltage control, though it didn’t work with our reference GeForce GTX 580. This feature is likely exclusive to EVGA graphics cards.
Users can also set program-to-core affinity to move processes around for best performance, and save all their custom settings as user profiles.
Performance is obviously going to be one aspect of today’s article, but variations in base clock can’t always be repeated on different processors. So, we began by shooting for the highest
multipliers at the X79 Express' stock 100 MHz.
The spread between achievable maximum multipliers at 1.45 V is fairly large, with EVGA’s 4.6 GHz overclock falling 200 MHz behind Asus' 4.8 GHz. Additional screenshots can be found in our photo
album by clicking on the above images.
The Rampage IV Extreme also jumped straight to the memory’s DDR3-2133 XMP profile, while the X79 FTW required manual timing configuration to hit a far smaller DDR3-1866 using the same 1.65 V.
Asus also hit 4.8 GHz at 133 MHz base clock, while EVGA improved its 4.6 GHz result at 4.67 GHz.
Both motherboards reached DDR3-2133 at 133.3 MHz, but the Rampage IV Extreme got there easier using the memory’s XMP-2133 setting with a manual 16x multiplier setting. The X79 FTW required full
manual configuration of both its primary and secondary timings, as well as the memory multiplier.
There are 2 kind of types
batteries for COMPAQ PRESARIO C700ET laptop in electronic-parts.com.au. 8800.00mAh 10.80V Replacement COMPAQ PRESARIO C700ET Battery and
4400.00mAh 10.80V Replacement COMPAQ PRESARIO C700ET Battery.
While we attempted to use identical base clocks for our overclocking benchmarks, those weren’t necessarily the absolute overclocking limits of this processor. We found that by adding just a few
hundred kilohertz to the base clock, the Rampage IV Extreme was capable of pushing an extra 67 MHz behind its highest 100 MHz BCLK result.
|
BIOS Frequency and Voltage settings (for overclocking)
|
|
Asus Rampage IV Extreme
|
EVGA X79 FTW 151-SE-E777-KR
|
|
Base Clock
|
80-300 MHz (0.1 MHz)
|
85-287.5 MHz (1 MHz)
|
|
CPU Multiplier
|
12x to 57x (1x)
|
0x to 60x (1x)
|
|
DRAM Data Rates
|
800-2666 (266.6 MHz)
|
1067-2400 (266.6 MHz)
|
|
CPU Vcore
|
0.80-2.10 V (5 mV)
|
0.90-1.99 V (1 mV)
|
|
CPU VCCSA
|
0.80-1.70 V (5 mV)
|
0.90-1.99 V (1 mV)
|
|
VTT Voltage
|
1.05-1.70 V (6.25 mV)
|
0.90-1.55 V (1 mV)
|
|
X79 PCH Voltage
|
0.80-1.60 V (6.25 mV)
|
0.71-2.59 V (40 mV)
|
|
DRAM Voltage
|
1.20-2.1 V (5 mV)
|
0.90-1.99 V (1 mV)
|
|
CAS Latency
|
3-15 Cycles
|
3-15 Cycles
|
|
tRCD
|
4-15 Cycles
|
3-15 Cycles
|
|
tRP
|
4-15 Cycles
|
3-15 Cycles
|
|
tRAS
|
4-40 Cycles
|
9-63 Cycles
|
EVGA gained nothing, tolerating not even the tiniest increase beyond the 4.67 GHz previously found in our 133.3 MHz base clock attempts. The same stability limit could be reached at 101.5 MHz base
clock by using a 46x multiplier.
Our processor doesn’t work well at the chipset's 1.66x strap, with Asus’ 153 MHz max representing an underclock of some components. Anything less than 153 MHz was too much of an underclock for
those components (likely the PCIe and/or SATA controllers), and the X79 FTW couldn’t successfully fit the processor within the narrow frequency range that allowed this strap.
This Compaq HSTNN-LB42 laptop battery can replace the following models of COMPAQ:Presario V3011AU Presario V3011TU Presario V3012AU Presario V3012TU Presario V6300 Series Presario V6400 (
COMPAQ PRESARIO V6400 notebook
batteries) Presario V6500 Series Presario V6500z Presario V6600 Presario V6700 Presario V6700TX CTO Presario V6701AU Presario V6701TU Presario V6702AU Presario V6702TU Presario V6703AU
Presario V6703TU Presario C701TU Presario C701XX Presario C702LA Presario C702TU resario A900 Presario A900ED Presario A900EO Presario A900ES
Experienced hands are required to reach DDR3-2133 on the X79 FTW, since its default timings weren’t stable using XMP values. We couldn’t use its 21.33x multiplier anyway, and this overclock
required both manual timing configuration and a 133 MHz base clock.
We performed all tests using Automatic as our primary choice and Enabled as our secondary choice for every power-oriented option, and this revealed something about the Asus Rampage IV Extreme:
Unlike most motherboards, the Rampage IV Extreme appears to automatically disable certain power-saving options. Our third choice would have been to force everything on, but our primary concern in
today’s comparison is overclocked performance where these features are disabled anyway.
The X79 FTW’s voltage regulator heat sink appears slightly less effective than its competitor’s. But then again, we're using a liquid cooler with a low-speed SFF21D fan over the motherboard.
Stronger airflow would help the board survive under greater overclocking extremes.
Remembering what we observed from Asus’ automatic power settings, its baseline measurements are unsurprisingly higher than EVGA’s. But this is primarily an overclocking comparison, and EVGA
performs exceptionally well when we compare its performance to its lower overclock.
Unable to use XMP or the 21.33x memory multiplier to reach DDR3-2133 on the X79 FTW, manually copying Asus’ secondary timings to EVGA’s firmware finally provided the solution for DDR3-2133 testing.
Performance is similar at that setting, with Asus holding only a slight lead.
Once again focusing on overclocked performance, we see that Asus’ small clock speed advantage gives it an even smaller DiRT 3 performance advantage at low gaming resolutions. By the time we reach
2560x1600, that lead is gone.
Metro 2033 favors EVGA’s 4.60 GHz overclock configuration at our lowest test settings. But once again, those differences disappear at increased resolution and/or detail levels.
We started this project a while ago, but Skyrim update 1.4.27 was still good enough to remove most of the game's CPU-bottlenecking tendencies. We’re left primarily comparing identical graphics
performance to produce substantially similar performance results.
Slightly lower stable clock speeds at extremely similar voltage levels keep EVGA’s overclocked performance slightly behind Asus’ in each of our audio and video encoding benchmarks.
Differences in Auto-mode power settings keep us de-emphasizing baseline performance numbers as we focus on this article’s overclocking theme. Asus’ stable 4.8 GHz holds a slight edge over EVGA’s
4.67 GHz at extremely similar voltage levels.
Today’s comparison leaves little doubt that Asus provides the most comprehensive set of out-of-the-box overclocking features. Its Rampage IV Extreme also has the most complicated firmware. And yet,
users who don’t want to change a hundred settings can still achieve a very respectable overclock. Although the easiest overclocking method (using built-in-profiles) didn’t appear optimized for our
specific CPU, manually configuring the system to XMP-2133, a 48x CPU multiplier, and a 1.45 V core setting was simple.
EVGA has the greenest default power settings, so we're using them as today's performance and power baseline. The true goal of today’s test was to seek overclocked performance, where low-power
settings aren’t used
Asus’ baseline performance lead comes at a huge cost in power consumption, while its overclocked performance lead is relatively small compared to EVGA. For the best balance of performance and power
savings at standard settings, EVGA has the upper hand.
But most overclockers disable power-saving settings anyway in order to achieve the highest stable performance. Once you do that, EVGA’s power consumption increases up to Asus levels. The result is
an extremely small efficiency loss, due to its slightly-inferior overclock at similar voltage settings.
Asus might have won this round, but its Rampage IV Extreme costs around $50 more than its similarly-capable and more productivity-oriented four-way SLI motherboard, the P9X79 WS. While we’re
hesitant to pay the extra money for this platform's exact feature set, we know many users who would. And so, we give the Rampage IV Extreme our entry-level recommendation, the Tom's Hardware
Approved award, for its ability to service overclocking exhibitionists.
A Case of Mistaken Identity?
Our examination of the X79 FTW’s DDR3 configuration issue, originally brought to our attention by a reader, demonstrates that this is primarily a timing issue. We were able to use our RAM at
DDR3-1866 by simply changing its primary timings manually. And while we never were able to use its 21.33x multiplier to reach DDR3-2133 at stock base clock, we were able to hit our target data rate
by combining the board's 16x memory multiplier with a 133.3 MHz base clock and manual secondary timings. We further relied on our screenshots from the firmware of EVGA’s competitor to provide those
secondary timings.
An extensive web search indicated that the same configuration problem equally affects both the X79 FTW and X79 Classified. Sharing of certain firmware modules is the most likely explanation, and we
could confirm that if we had both boards. On the other hand, firmware issues are something we would not expect at this price point on a product so specifically aimed at overclocking enthusiasts. We
expect the issue to be resolved in future products, but must rely on our community to track changes in the firmware of current products as we again try to move on to the “next big thing”.
