Didnt have much time to post any new gadget as i was busy working ... long hours little pay=(. anyway.. i bought a few new fans/coolers and a new board...

we have the
zerotherm BTF90 cpu cooler




Firstly i bought the zerotherm BTF90 cpu cooler for $89 so as to proceed further with the overclocking. I was hoping for a 500mhz stable oc. After a few tweaks, i couldnt up the NorthBridge, Dimm voltage to +0.3v. As a result all i receive was
..

3.3ghz ~ 950mhz .. cpu stress test passed .

It did boot up to windows @ ddr2 1000mhz cpu@ 3500mhz but couldnt pass any of the stress test and was unstable... mainly bcuz the Northbridge/Rams was way too hot...burning hot and scaling when touched.

So i went back down to sls and bought ocz memory cooler @ $40 from fuwell and HR-05 SLI/IFX @ $70~ after a long search in sls.. did managed to install the memory cooler
and chipset cooler on my Northbridge after a long struggle with the gigabyte northbrige. It was stuck under my cpu cooler and i had to removed the cpu cooler, memory cooler and the board from the casing.After installing it, i had to slant the whole HR-05 by 45degree as its pretty cramp.

buttterflly ;D


NB stuck under my cpu cooler..
Northbridge --->the big golden thingy with gigabyte written on it

finally after all was installed, i discover that i couldnt boot up at all.. it looks like the board is dead. with constant beeps. dual check, triple check all the connectors but its the same beeping.. now i have to send it for rma to get a new one.

so i went down to sls today and bought ASUS P5k deluxe from bell .. i had a hard time deciding on ASUS maximus formula which cost $550, Gigabyte X38- DQ6 $498 and ASUS P5k deluxe $398 ..
Maximus formula was tempting, under the flagline of ASUS famous ROG(rig of gamers) series mobo and comes with stalker and 3Dmark 06 full verison.. crossfire 2x16 pci 2.0 lanes.. if u do a search on asus striker extreme on googles, theres pretty much compliment on it. However reviews on Maximus formula seems unpromising, pretty mixed comments on its performance i must sae..
Gigabyte x38-dq6 was also tempting with its lower price yet similar performance to maximus. The box was pretty huge(huger than anyother of the boards) with shining golden words "X38 -DQ6" on it. QUAD BIOS,QUAD SAFETY, QUAD blahblah was all imprinted in gold on it. There was even a x38-dq6 on display there with geil ultra rams, 8600gt!.
Lastly P5k Deluxe, need not to be introduced.. pretty much praised for its high overclockability(both cpu and ram) and functions.You have lotsa ports eg 8 sata ports 12 usb, crossfire(1@ x16 the other @x4 not that good i know) ddr2 1066 support,45mn procesor support, wifi card, dual lan ports , great heatpipes and asus super memspeed technology .

Firstly i wasnt really happy to pay $550 for smt which doesnt offer more oc than anything $100 below of it .. so it came down to P5k deluxe and Gigabyte X38-DQ6.
gigabyte was really tempting. with PCI-e 2.0 crossfire .. thats pretty much more bandwidth u can get.. but then again. when PCI-e 2.0 boards become mainstream.. i could get it for much lesser price.. so in the end i chose ASUS over GIGABYTE cuz of its Pc probe II, a temperature monitoring program which also controls the fan speeds. Bios was much better too for tuning.


1x wifi ,2xlan ports 3xSATA ports and lotsa USB ports could be found at the back panel. its pretty convenient since i only had 2 front usb ports on my casing.now i need not pluck and unpluck my xbox controller every now and den. SATA ports behind are pretty convenient too.


after installing everything(HR-05 was not neeeded as the board cooling was far superior)..


front view..




Lights On!

Couldnt see the butterfly clearly as i swap the exhaust fan for a 3.5k rpm high airflow delta fan.. pretty loud but efficent too, gpu/cpu temp drop by almost2-3 degree..


Delta fan.


i learnt my lesson after getting this board.. its pretty much shows how important sufficent cooling is needed for the extra few hundred mhz.
Northbrige was cooler by almost 20-30 degree
Cpu was cooler by 2degree under 100% load .
average ambience temp drop by2-3 judging from the individual temp records, caused by the less heat produced.

500fsb hit easily on this board. Fsb @ +0.2v NB@+0.3v, ram voltage @2.25v , cpu voltage @ 1.475v



stay tune while i try to go higher... though i think most likely will be cpu limited.