I have managed to overclock the system to the same level as my X38 Maximus Extreme.
Been able to run some benchmarks. 3DMark06 had around 1000 points higher on the 790i Ultra, and 1500 points less in PCMark Vantage then my X38.
HOWEVER, the Asus Striker II Extreme is FAR from stable with ANY FSB overclock over 350 with my QX9650. Torture tests past with flying colours, but the system randomly BSOD, shutdown, and programs randomly terminates.
Relaxing the Memory timings helped a little, but not much. Rising voltages made it even worse. Very disappointed with the Asus motherboard. Damn nice board quality wise too.
I have since ordered a EVGA 790i Ultra as a replacement until better BIOS is released...
i am in pain. to take sooo long to release a new chipset and have it unstable on 350FSB overclock..what a shame...stick with skulltrail guys.
btw, EF if you plan to watercool the northbridge, be very careful - the die is very fragile. the 780i is very fragile, but i guess that 790i is not that different
It seems to me that the overwhelming consensus on the web is that the 790i chipset is a really great overclocker reaching FSBs no Intel chipset can touch, cool running and fast, etc. However the majority of the said feedback is from nVidia reference motherboard designs. I have found sources that favors the Asus Striker II Extreme, stating it has a definite BIOS tweaking advantage over the reference design. Until they publish their BIOS settings and me able to duplicate their result, I remain skeptical of the Asus motherboard.
A reference EVGA branded 790i is also headed my way tomorrow, so hopefully that will fare better under my scrutiny.
On a totally different subject, I found the EK NB S-MAX waterblock to be quiet inefficient compared to the MIPS design.. air is often trapped in the EK block, as a huge dead-zone forms on the other side of the block from the inlet and outlet. They do look sexy though.
Vincent, the northbridge is secured with spring pressured mount with pressure spreader, so no problem there. I actually prefer a naked chipset.. better heat transfer!
From all the report on the internet, I'm beginning to think I've got a bogus board or bad CPU...
Using the QX9650 I can only run at default FSB.
Using the E8400 only up to 3.8Ghz
Using the QX6850 up to 3.6Ghz, 450Mhz FSB, and using only 1.28V!!! (usually need about 1.4V)
So until I receive the reference 790i (which will be delivered tomorrow ) I can't confirm my findings.
Also I agree with luan the board (Made in China) is of much lower quality then my Maximus Extreme (Made in Taiwan).
In my own experience the EVGA 790i reference board was 100% stable at any setting, with no data corruption. The ASUS Striker 2 Extreme on the other hand was giving me all kind of grief... had to install Vista around 10 times in the past fortnight from critical system files corrupted.. not fun at all... so the S2E is on the surgical table while the EVGA 790i is quad-SLi'ng at 4+Ghz.
I actually prefer a naked chipset.. better heat transfer!
(usually need about 1.4V)
