eVGA 131-K8-NF44-AX NF4 SLi mATX Mobo Thread

Yea I really should follow the dfi-street guidelines here. It would be more helpful to everyone.

As an Update: I am super pi'ing at a 2T command at 2.313 ghz (258 though the bios say 257? despite me setting it to 258 :rolleyes: )

This board needs a serious bios revision as I bet it handles single core much better. My bios is the K8 NF44 E02 bios dated 2/16/2006. So I am guessing that the big brother's bios would work though I am too much of a scardy cat to work that. We will see how my testing continues, but this is something that needs to be addressed with the dual cores running on this setup. I could try a single core to prove my theory, but in case I didn't mention it the SLI bridge is a BITCH to get on there. So I have to work gingerly with it. I wished I had used my testbed (testing station) but I wanted to see how it did in the MATX case as they are two totally different environments...
 
Here are the specs:
Opty 165 at 2.313 ghz(257X9)
2 X 1 GB Mushkin PC4000 (3-4-4-8 2T 1:1 (or 200 in the bios))
2 X EVGA 7800 GT's in SLI,
74 GB Raptor, 250 G B Maxtor SATA, Lite on DVDRW w./ lightscribe
Seasonic S-12 600W PSU
Zalman 7700b Alcu

Did SuperPI 32M in 33:18 and 33:23 respectively.
3DMark05: 11651

Priming now and sleeping...
 
Big thing this 2T thing. System is much more stable at 2T. I figure running custom dual Prime will give me a good feeling. hopefully a bios update can get this thing to at least 2.4-2.5 and at 1T. Here is hoping. Though, 11651 in 3DMark05 is still nice on an SFF ;)

Things to watch out for as you build this system:

1. Make sure of the jumpers for SLI. There are a bunch and they ain't easy to fuss with.

2. The SLI Bridge is a bitch in a QPack. Cards slide in with the motherboard. Pull the PSU and then work on getting the bridge on. BE CAREFUL.

3. Things to look for in the bios:
a. Hypertransport should be moved to 600ish
b. The mem timings need to be manual. Also, use a 2T setting for 1 GB sticks of ram.
c. The 1.55v would not work for me. It could be different for others but I got no boot.
d. Look for the cool and quiet and make sure to disable it even though it says auto.

4. Make sure you are using a hunking PSU. This board doesn't seem to hold volts well. Make sure to use the optional molex for more stability.

5. Keep your hand near the cmos jumper you'll need it :D

I will keep posting my findings no matter how frustrating. While I am not the king of oc'ing, I am no slouch, and I figure worst case is you read my posts during all of this and gain at least some amusement and hopefully a little helpful knowledge along the way.
 
Well, I ordered one. 255 is good enough for me as it gets my CPU to where is is now.

Since I will have to run a 10x multi instead of my current 9x, it means I'll loose 15MHz on the ram and have to run at 2T instead of my 1T. To be honest, this rig is GPU bottlenecked anyways. I might end up running 10x247(RAM tops out at 247MHz 2T) with a 1:1 ratio to reduce heat output.

Hopefully an X2 3800 @ 2.4GHz and 7900GT SLi is is about equal and I have no bottlenecks.
 
Operaman, I applaud your enthusiasm, even in the face of crappy hardware. I'm pretty sure this mobo wasn't made to OC, it was made to game. I'm going to WC my 165 in it and see how high I can go. Probably not much.

Btw, which RAM worked best with the bigger eVGA mobo? OCZ?
 
Mark. it worked best with the Mushkin RAM. To me it is still a pretty crappy board. For me a gaming board IS an overclocking board, because it is why we overclock.
 
operaman said:
Mark. it worked best with the Mushkin RAM. To me it is still a pretty crappy board. For me a gaming board IS an overclocking board, because it is why we overclock.
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Well, all I really want out of this board is stability and performance, something the 61X0/4X0 boards couldn't give me. I've been waiting for a decent NF4-based mATX mobo for a long time, and this seems to be the ticket for me. I will try to OC mine though, with OCZ DDR400 and an Opty 165.
 
Okay, let me first say that i'm not an OC specialist like operaman or some of you guys. I've had a chance to play with with this board. So far, i cannot do what i've been able to do with my foxconn6150 with the same hardware. Can't even come close to 226fsb, 212fsb is the best i can do with 1t. What i have noticed is the voltage to cpu is lower that what i set it at. It seems like i can't go past 1.450v no matter what. I'm also having the same problem as operaman, when i set the vcore to 1.550v, it won't post.
Specs:
amd 4000 sd
1gb ocz 4000vx gold
74gb raptor
Bfg 550 psu
1-leadtek extreme 7800 gtx
 
lozaning said:
it sure does ;)
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1021674&highlight=extrememhz
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Its all conjecture untill someone truely has it in thier hands and I bought knowing it may only work as well as regular water cooling becuase it also is very compact and will fit nicely in my case and looks cool as well and I can afford to buy new things like this and modify them if I like etc. I seriously doubt that the thing will be any like it was when it came to me after a few weeks.;) Thats why thye call us modders. :)
 
No overclocking results....sorry! I just don't have the patience anymore, I decided to just spend the extra $$$ on high end parts so I don't feel like I need to overclock.

Here's a few pics of my EVGA mATX in an SG01 that I picked up at FRY's for $129:

SG01-1.jpg


DSC00007.jpg


Silverstone SG01-Evolution
Silverstone 500W Element SLI PSU
EVGA mATX MB
X2 4800+
(2) BFG 7800GTX SLI (EVGA ACS 1+ cooler on outside card)
2gb Corsair XMS
Creative X-fi
Thermaltake 120mm Blue Orb2 CPU Cooler
Sony CDRW/DVD
Dell 2001FP
Klipsch 4.1
 
Looks nice. I'm looking at a very similar setup with two ko edition cards and an audigy but I'm worried about air getting to the outside card next to the sound card. Is the EVGA ACS 1 card able to get adaquate enough amount of air with the x-fi blocking it?
 
I am with you on the buying expensive parts, when you need stability its the only way to go.

That system looks great in there and you did a super job keeping the wires tidy. Any results on how the temps are with the cover on?
 
Ok, I really want to know one thing, I am not going to overclock, Is this a good board for gaming? Is it stable at stock speeds and does it have any strange Quarks or anything I should know about? How easy is it to setup....ect.
 
Diablo2K said:
Ok, I really want to know one thing, I am not going to overclock, Is this a good board for gaming? Is it stable at stock speeds and does it have any strange Quarks or anything I should know about? How easy is it to setup....ect.
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The general consensus so far is that it's stable, as long as you don't OC it.

I'm with Dworley on this board; I want it for fun, not OCing. It's going to be my media box (a couple hundred gigs of anime), my emulation box (a few more gigs of roms), and my gaming rig (to pwn noobs in Halo 2 PC, whenever Vista comes out). ;)
 
f2c28d76.jpg


Running very stable and 1T timings

Top/Back fan blows down over the video cards, Top/Middle fan blows out and the Side/Front LED fan blows out. I have a fan mate controlling the top 2 fans set at about 70% to quiet them down some.

The outer card does seem to get enough air - keep in mind I was running SLI in a Shuttle SN26P where there is no space between the SLI slots! (So this setup is a big improvement and my temps are about 10C cooler idle/load than in the Shuttle.)
 
10C cooler even for the processor over the Shuttle? If not what temp is your processor running compared to the Shuttle?
 
GPU's run about 8-10C cooler in the SG01, The CPU runs about 5C warmer in the SG01 than in my Shuttle SN26P
 
Of course it runs at 1T it is a single core processor right? A bios update will fix this dual core situation and oc'ing will be better...
 
operaman said:
Of course it runs at 1T it is a single core processor right? A bios update will fix this dual core situation and oc'ing will be better...
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Actually if you go back youll see hes running a x2 4800 so it being single is really not the issue the issue is prolly a matter of undervolting and lack of ability to change voltage to the chipset. BTW does this board have an auto oc in the bios? It perplexes me that mobo makers, knowing that the trend is going toward smaller cases and smaller boards, doesn't make an ass kicking ocer sff board. I suppose they are worried noobs will buy it and put them in a smalll hot case and fry them left and right and they will get stuck with an RMA nightmare. However if they just charged o say, 20 bucks more for each board they would more than make enough for probs arising with rma's . I'd gladly pay 200 bucks for a sweet board with the ability to 300 fsb stable. ~DREAMS of DFI making a sff LanParty~~~~enough venting I guess
never the less its a first and I'd be willing to bet that once the gurus of oc get a chance to mess with them we'll have v-mods and bio's(custom) that will help us. One thing you can do if you can afford it is get a fx60 and then use the unlocked multi to get the oc. I bet within one year we will see a mobo manufacturer come out with a reasonable ocer. I write weekly emails to DFI asking them to consider the idea. If they dont hear from us they wont act. Im rambleing and will stop now.
 
Well, if DFI did come out with a Lanparty, I'd have to make another QPack rig! :)
 
Well 11660 in 3DMark05 has me rethinking this POS motherboard thing. STILL, I wish they had a better bios because this chip did 2.7 ghz at 1.5 on my Expert board. I was hoping for something around 2.4-2.5 1T . With that said, if 2T command is what I get I am throwing in 4 Gigs of RAM just because I can... :D

Ome thing I need to do is figure how to get a card cooler BETWEEN the cards. I got one on the outside of my 2nd card and it never goes above 57 C at full load. The other card is hitting around 92 C when under heavy duress for a while :eek: So I am wondering if one of the AS silencers will fit in that space and lower temps on it a bit. The processor idles around 39 and jumps up to 52-54 C at full load. I don't think I will need to do any modding after all. I am actually going to throw the raptor into a Hard Drive cooler in the lower 5 1/4" Bay and grab a big ass 400+ GB Hard drive and stick it out there with the 250 SATA. That way I got plenty of Archival space. Throw in a card reader and I am good to go...

Overall this is a mamba jamba machine now. I lost about 300-400 mhz off of my CPU but I went from a P180 to this :eek:

Needless to say I am pleased....
 
well i hate to say i told you so, but if you check posts 2 and 16, i told you so. folks with nf41 and nf43 still waiting for "bios update". somebody would have to pay me to get me to run my cpu 400mhz slower and my ram at 2t. should have stuck with your tforce or whatever and used the money to take your girl out for pizza and to buy a copy of "live at leeds"

edit only nf41/43 bios update since august was for "fx60 update test". the bios update will come for this board at about the time that pigs fly.
and obviously the fact the evga can pick good vid cards to sell doesnt mean that they can pick good anything else to sell. the oem for the nf4 boards is jetway. i wonder if the jetway branded boards do 1t and decent overclock? maybe they just sell the crappy ones to evga. or maybe the jetway boards suck too.
 
So what overclocking / features would you want changed in the BIOS?

Let's compile a priority list and agree on what is reasonable to ask for a change and I'll post it on EVGA's boards and see if they will respond. They have been pretty good in the past supportuning the enthuisiast community.
 
dworley,

You could also bugger the Monarch Deals guy with the BIOS wishlist. Since they are the exclusive dealer they could put some pressure on EVGA as well.
 
Good idea guys. How about a PCI-E lock? Someone said this board doesn't have one...
 
vanilla_guerilla said:
i'm sure if all 3 people who own the board insist on it they will jump right to it.
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Why are you trying to be such a dick. Go rain on someone elses parade and quit being a preditor in thes thread. In other words get a life jerk
 
MsB said:
Why are you trying to be such a dick. Go rain on someone elses parade and quit being a preditor in thes thread. In other words get a life jerk
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howdy. obviously you ordered the board.
 
MsB said:
~puts the psychopath on ignore~~
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right. ignore the psychopath. like you did when you most obviously ordered the board.

i said the board would not run at 1t memory. i said the board will have issues. so when i turn out to be right, i am a psychopath.
 
MsB said:
Ordered mine last night its going in a new black qpack with one of these that is on its way
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boy. dont you just hate it when somebody is always right?

especially when they are a psychopath?
 
Vanilla, no one cares! Go bother someone else! This thread is about the motherboard with an emphasis on support, not condemnation!

If you don't own the mobo, don't bitch about it. If you're not going to help us find solutions, you might as well leave.
 
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