Asus Striker Ex OR a Bad Axe?

M!!cook · 29 Dec 2006 at 17:31

I am in need of a new board to go with my new CPU and RAM,
CPU is either a QX6700 or X6800
RAM is still up in the air! i dont know if i want to go with a 4gb kit, 4gb in 2t or If a 2gb kit of Dominator?

Gibbo · 29 Dec 2006 at 17:45

Hi there

Well the only real advantage of the NF 680 chipset is they support SLI.

You can get SLI working on the 975X but need hacked drivers and thats not so straight forward.

Bad Axe are damn good boards, they seem to sit quite happily at 440-480FSB, however be aware that with a Quad core CPU's you might struggle past 350FSB, wheras an X6800 will see 450+ FSB no problem on a Bad Axe.

Maybe the Quad Core can hit higher FSB on the NF 680 boards?

Also the Asus Striker is extremely expensive, look at the EVGA 680 board, same chipset and pretty much identical but a huge amount cheaper with a superior warranty and after support. It would be nice if somebody could inform me why the Asus is so much more?

M!!cook · 30 Dec 2006 at 00:54

From what i can see.. the striker has the little lcd on the IO, its illuminated, has the extra slots and has that fancy heat pipe.

simonnance · 30 Dec 2006 at 02:52

lcd on the IO, illuminated, fancy heat pipe.......... i.e.- "Bling"

the BFG and EVGA 680i's are £60-70 cheaper..... you might want to be sure you will get your money's worth out of the board you want to buy.

M!!cook · 30 Dec 2006 at 04:15

bah! who said anything about money! its for free my brother from another mother! (well i hope it is!) i have spent a few hours reading reviews about it, all seem to rate it top notch!
????
any more for any more!

balth_dire · 30 Dec 2006 at 07:56

I've used both these boards. I'm afriad I'm not able to report on overclockability as I don't often indulge in the art.

However, what I can say is that the Striker has a couple of small but significant issues that are as yet unresolved and required many hours of tinkering in order to achieve what I remain uncertain is an entirely stable setup. Additionally, it would seem that recent Nvidia boards (590, 650 and 680) are extremely fussy over memory, even Asus's own QVL list - which is an utter joke besides - cannot be relied upon

By contrast, the Bad Axe 2's only hiccup was a bizarre reluctance to boot from my CD-ROM drive, despite my setting the boot priority correctly, I eventually managed it by leaving a floppy disk in drive A :confused:

go figure.
Anyhow, since windows has been safely installed , it has never even looked like crashing - 20 hours prime/orthos stable running with 4gb g.skill
memory set to 3-4-3-8. I would also trust the Intel's ICH7 SATA controller far more than Nvidia's effort, which has lately been the subject of numerous complaints, though admitidly, these are now being addressed.

Jokester · 30 Dec 2006 at 12:28

Gibbo said:
Maybe the Quad Core can hit higher FSB on the NF 680 boards?

I'm led to believe that you can't break ~330MHz on quad core and it's not a motherboard limitation but an actual chip issue. The 680i boards are supposed to be good for 450MHz as well.

I've also been struggling with the SATA RAID issues on the 680i, though I have appeared to have resolved them by flashing to the latest BIOS and moving my drives off the ports on the edge of the board and into the main port cluster. Only time will tell though.

Jokester

FlakMagnet · 31 Dec 2006 at 12:13

Jokester said:
I'm led to believe that you can't break ~330MHz on quad core and it's not a motherboard limitation but an actual chip issue. The 680i boards are supposed to be good for 450MHz as well.

I've also been struggling with the SATA RAID issues on the 680i, though I have appeared to have resolved them by flashing to the latest BIOS and moving my drives off the ports on the edge of the board and into the main port cluster. Only time will tell though.

Jokester

Over at the EVGA forums, Jacob has admited that they are currently looking into this issue with quad cores : Link to EVGA forum

Maybe they will discover that it is a chip issue, but I think others have had success in overclocking with other boards.

Jokester · 31 Dec 2006 at 12:18

I'm not bothered about the lack of FSB overclocking with quads (seems to effect all chipsets/boards to some degree), I'm sitting Prime stable at 3.6GHz with mine

.

Jokester

FlakMagnet · 31 Dec 2006 at 12:36

Not fair

I want a stable BIOS for the 680 before I upgrade... currently running an Athlon 3200+ with 6800 Ultra - desperately want to upgrade, but am currently put off by all the issues with the EVGA BIOS. I guess you have been one of the lucky ones and got a stable system

BUFF · 31 Dec 2006 at 12:37

Jokester said:
I'm led to believe that you can't break ~330MHz on quad core and it's not a motherboard limitation but an actual chip issue.

supposedly the BadAxe2 will run a Kentsfiled at over 400
http://sg.vr-zone.com/?i=4130&s=2

Jokester · 31 Dec 2006 at 12:44

Key point there though is that when he stresses it in 3dmark he's using a much lower FSB.

Jokester