New boards are coming - DFI RD600 & 680i / Asus Commando sneak peaks

[Tony]

Exciting times ahead, Intel look to be embracing the whole enthusiast thing and look to be shipping out Badaxe2 for reviewers to peak at...I hear its crammed with new tweaks and voltage options etc, I am hoping to get one soon to test so stay tuned for a rundown here on TTR.

Also it seems RD600 will finally ship soon also with DFI releasing pics of the final board to the web...I should have a board next week I hope to test so again look to TTR for results.

C55 boards looks to be clocking quite well also, I can't go into specifics but it should be giving Intel and ATI a run for their money so it looks like all these boards maybe able to push a 6300 to 3.5GHZ and beyond

I can see some awesome overclocking boards released on the run upto Xmas this year, November will be crammed with reviews so get saving.

T

[Tony]

Had some time with C55 reference, I won't post benches or clocks but the board is real nice with awesome 1T performance.

Bring on RD600 over the next day or so and I should be able to post how they compare with regard to 1T on the memory

Reviews coming soon I hope here on TTR

[Tony]

DFI invited me over to see them while I am here in Taiwan, all I will say is I had RD600 in one hand and their C55 board in the other The boards are being tuned by the master him self so expect some awesome performance when Oskar has finished with them

I for see a strong comeback from DFI in a few weeks, both boards should have awesome 1T performance and are capable of over 500fsb...I will have both here for review and for overclocking guides on TTR.

Also some exciting news for those looking at the infinity 975, DFI have a new bios in testing that should enhance the overclocking, more soon.

T

[Tony]

Well its been a long wait but finally I have DFI RD600 in hand. I will be posting a OC results as soon as DFI release me to do so, for now enjoy the pics of this fine board.

I have been asssured this is final PCB but may need a new bios update, so what you see here looks to be final rev pcb.






next up DFI RD680






Benches and tweak guide to follow

T

[Tony]

All the excitement about DFI had me forgetting another board which i will be testing over the next few weeks. Asus have released what could possibly be the finest i965 board we will see. Codenamed commando the board is part of the ROG line of boards which also have crosshair and Striker extreme as members.

I have the board and can say I have not yet tested a board that overclocks DDR2 better than this one, if you want to run 1300+DDR this is the board for you

Voltage options are nothing short of stunning, i will post screen shots in the next 24hrs so sit tight. Tests to come in the nex week or so.

1 pic for your enjoyment, you may see others posted as Asus gave a sneek peek of the board here in taiwan at the 1st OCZ Overclocking summit.

[Tony]

Bios shots as promised, just the over clocking and PCIE options.

Click the thumbs to see the pics, they should give you an idea just what this board offers.

[Tony]

RD600 allows for 1T 2T and 3T command rate with DDR2 memory. With this in mind a short comparison was put together to see the effects on simple benchmarks that most enthusiasts use that are known to respond well to memory timing tweaks.

Memory is OCZ 8500Platinum EPP (although iCFX3200 does not support EPP at this time).
Timings are 5-4-4-15 DDR1000. Command rate was the only timing option that was changed; speed and timings always remained constant.

2 tests were chosen; 4m test SuperPi and Lobby Low detail from 3d2001SE. 10 runs of each in each CPC value were taken and the top 5 plotted in graphs so we can compare.

First up Lobby Low

Its plain to see from the graph 1T is the winner here, in fact it follows the logical order of performance with 1T best and 3T worst.

Moving onto SuperPI.

Things with SuperPi get turned completely on their head here, 3T is faster than 1T which in turn is faster than 2T.
Only the last 30 secs of the run are shown in the graph, the actual average time is 1M 30secs.

Why is 3T faster....? I have no idea, investigations will follow.