wow !!! I'm impressed with my GA-X58A-UD3R

[scjet]

I got my i7-930 to go with it and by playing around with the "M.I.T" settings in the BIOS easily hit "4 GHz" It honestly ran great no probs running Sandra benchmarks.
 However, being a Unix sys admin, I used "Easy Tunes 6" to let it put it at ~3.6GHz, just in case.

I've very impressed with this, it OC's like a champ and everything just fu___-works !!!, for a change.
 This is my 2nd time Overclocking and this board makes it look easy.

 I do have 1 question:
1./ does/did anyone have any settings/tricks that have got their 920's, or 930's running stable at 4, or 4.2 GHz....?
  any advice is welcome.
2./  Right now I'm using WinXP Pro (32-bit), is there any potentially good "hardware" reason (for example, for overclocking mentioned above), to upgrade to Windows 7 (64-bit). Obviously we are ALL gonna go 64-bit eventually,... but I'm just curious...?

 Cheers all,

 and kudos to the folks at:
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/gigabyte_ga_x58a_ud3r/
 for their, what proved to be, an honest review.
 And that was the clincher for me NOT getting an ASUS Rampage II, ...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SiSoftware Sandra

Computer
Model : Gigabyte X58A-UD3R
Processor
Model : Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU         930  @ 2.80GHz
Speed : 3.65GHz
CPU Temperature: 32 C
CPU Heatsink: Noctua NH-U12P-SE2
Cores per Processor : 4 Unit(s)
BIOS : Award (Phoenix) F5 03/11/2010
Total Memory : 6GB DIMM DDR3
Memory Bus Speed : 2x 664MHz (1.33GHz)

Memory Module(s)
Memory Module : G.Skill F3-12800CL9-2GBNQ 2GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-10700U DDR3-1334 (9-9-9-25 4-34-10-5)
Memory Module : G.Skill F3-12800CL9-2GBNQ 2GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-10700U DDR3-1334 (9-9-9-25 4-34-10-5)
Memory Module : G.Skill F3-12800CL9-2GBNQ 2GB DIMM DDR3 PC3-10700U DDR3-1334 (9-9-9-25 4-34-10-5)

Graphics Processor
Adapter : NVIDIA Quadro FX 1700 (32SP 4C 920MHz, 511.7MB 2x200MHz)
Adapter : NVIDIA Quadro FX 1700 (32SP 4C 920MHz, 511.7MB 2x200MHz)

Storage Devices
Disk 320GB (SATA4800, 40kB Cache) : 298GB (C:) (D:)
TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S182D (RAID, DVD+-RW, CD-RW) : N/A (E:)

Logical Storage Devices
Hard Disk (C:) : 146GB (NTFS) @ WDC WD1600AAJS-00PSA0 (320GB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 8MB Cache)
Hard Disk (D:) : 152GB (NTFS) @ WDC WD1600AAJS-00L7A0 (320GB, SATA300, 3.5", 7200rpm, NCQ, 8MB Cache)
Optical Drive (E:) : N/A @ TSSTcorpCD/DVDW SH-S182D (RAID, DVD+-RW, CD-RW)
3.5" 1.44MB (A:) : 1MB (FAT)

Network Services
Network Adapter : Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller - Packet Scheduler Miniport (Ethernet, 1Gbps)

Operating System
Windows System : Microsoft Windows XP Professional 5.01.2600 (Service Pack 3)
Platform Compliance : x86
-----------------------------------------------

[azynkron]

I do have 1 question:
1./ does/did anyone have any settings/tricks that have got their 920's, or 930's running stable at 4, or 4.2 GHz....?
  any advice is welcome.
2./  Right now I'm using WinXP Pro (32-bit), is there any potentially good "hardware" reason (for example, for overclocking mentioned above), to upgrade to Windows 7 (64-bit). Obviously we are ALL gonna go 64-bit eventually,... but I'm just curious...?

 

That's two questions.. but I will let it slide.. 

1. It's a hard questions to answer simply because two systems aren't exactly the same. Small, small differencies in the manufacturing can have impact when you try to run at extreme values. Remember, when you buy the processor, for instance, it says 2,8GiHz (or something) and that's the speed that they test it at. My processor might be able to run smoothly at 4 GiHz but yours won't. Or the other way around. Put this together with that the rest of the components has the same behaviour (memory sticks e t c) and you'll understand that it's virtually impossible to give you any advice beforehand. The only way to see what your system is capable of is to test and test again. Play around until you find a setting that works for your system. The only thing that we can be sure of is the heating issue and I advice you to read up on the overclockers forums around to see what after market cooling options that they generelly recommend. Because it will get hot

2. No, not really in the sense that the 64-bit OS can squeeze more power out of your processor for instance. However, there are other benefits that gives you some advantages to run in 64-bit that can't be overlooked. A 32-bit system can only address up to 3Gib of memory and this alone should make you consider swapping. Alot of applications (escpecially the memory intensive) can also address larger chunks of data which makes them run faster. 3D applications is one of those and I believe also Adobe Photoshop is faster on a 64-bit OS. But, as said, it has nothing to do with that you can set the specs higher, only that it can utilize the memory better. Do I make sense here?
The only real hardware related connection I can see is that the newer 64-bit drivers might be better which of course can improve the performance.