DFI LP UT X48-T3RS - Info, overclocking tips & photos

05:50 AM

DFI Lanparty UT X48-T3RS
+
2x 512MB HIS IceQ 3 Turbo HD3850 Crossfire

Now that I have a better understand of how memory works on this motherboard, time to fully load up the motherboard with 2x 512MB HIS IceQ3 Turbo HD3850 in Crossfire.

Notes:

As you can see the PCI-E slot spacing required DFI to include with their accessories a longer Crossfire bridge connector cable.
There's still ample room to reach the the power and reset connectors even with double slot with video card coolers
The fan header connector near the 1st set of SATA ports is still accessible as well

[Click thumbnail to view full size photo
- use keyboard arrow keys to cycle through images
- click and hold full size photo to drag and move around]

More photos here.

System specs

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Q740A493T
Corsair Nautilus 500
DFI LP UT X48-T3RS 6/9 beta bios
NB Cooling: Thermalright HR-05 + 80x25mm Sunon 49cfm fan
2x 512MB HIS IceQ3 Turbo HD3850 Crossfire in PCI-E 1 & 3 slots (x16 + x16)
2x1GB OCZ PC3-14400 Platinum dual channel kit cooled by 3x 60x25mm Sunon 23.5cfm MagLev fans.
750GB Samsung HD753LJ
Pioneer DVD-RW
620W Corsair HX620
WinXP Pro SP2

Interesting discovery when I installed Catalyst 8.5 drivers, CCC complained that CrossfireX is disabled and can't be enabled and for me to check the crossfire connector bridge was connected properly. It turns out from the above photos you can see I installed the crossfire connector bridge on the connectors closest to the PCI retention plate. This is in fact incorrect. You need to install the crossfire connector bridge on the other connectors pictured here.

When crossfire connector bridge is installed in wrong connector slots you see the following (click image for full version):

When crossfire connector bridge is correctly installed:

Results (without LOD tweaks):

E8500 @9x445FSB = 4008Mhz
2x512MB HD3850 CF stock @715/909

3dmark06 = 17,426
3dmark05 = 26,663

E8500 @9x467FSB = 4203Mhz
2x512MB HD3850 CF stock @715/909

3dmark06 = 17,905
3dmark05 = 27,684
3dmark2003 = 64,801
3dmark2001 = 76,202
AM3 = 254,000

E8500 @9x467FSB = 4203Mhz
2x512MB HD3850 CF @810/999

First time using Cat 8.5 drivers, so not sure why I can't clock my HIS HD3850 CF setup past 810Mhz GPU core, as both rivatuner 2.09 and GPUZ report 810mhz GPU even though I set GPU to 815mhz or 820mhz (resulted in same score as 810mhz) ?

3dmark06 @810/999 = 18,778
3dmark06 @815/999 = 18,823

Update: July 27, 2008
New 714 beta bios with new set of memory and Cat 8.5 vs 8.7 3dmark results.

System specs

Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Q740A493T
Corsair Nautilus 500
DFI LP UT X48-T3RS 714 Beta bios
2x512MB HIS IceQ3 Turbo HD3850 CF @810/1000 Cat 8.5 & 8.7
2x1GB G.Skill F3-12800CL7D 2GB HZ Micron D9JNM
750GB Samsung HD753LJ
Pioneer DVD-RW
620W Corsair HX620
WinXP Pro SP2

3Dmark: Cat 8.5 / Cat 8.7
3dmark2001: 74,770 / 74,641
3dmark2003: 70,123 / 70,338
3dmark05: 27,445 / 27,445
3dmark06: 18,509 / 18,517