Adventures of the 939 build

[Toothless]

I'm disappointed you're not going to get Asiahorse upHere. :C

That's for the 1150 build and I might have found the things I needed.

 

[delshay]

In the last few days I got hold of Abit Guru Clock. I should really post this in the TPU Nostalgic Hardware Club Thread. Anyway Abit Guru clock can work without any OS installed, so there's no cheating or getting around it. What I like about it is, it can monitor ambient temperature & it shows voltage applied to DDR. It's not common to see real DDR voltage monitoring, so i'm impressed. It monitors a lot more than what you see in the photo, but these are the two standout features for me, as you don't often see this done in hardware that does not even require an OS to be installed.

Fitted to Abit 939 Motherboards.

 

[eidairaman1]

So is the board smoked?

UltraXconnects tend to die suddenly, I know from experience...

 

[delshay]

This is the second vulkan benchmark & the first "vulkan" game that works on the 939 platform without locking-up (ultra setting) everything maxed @1080p.

Do not be concerned with the average FPS, it can go much, much faster than this. VSYNC enabled during this test.
No overclock, no power increase of either GPU/CPU, everything bog standard.

FX-60/R9 Nano with new capacitors.

 

[Toothless]

So is the board smoked?

UltraXconnects tend to die suddenly, I know from experience...

Yeah, I found the issue and I just gotta rip out the part. It's a little thing between the PCI slots, but as I'm prepping my room for my girlfriend to move in I don't have a place to do work stuff anymore.

Sorry for the late reply.

Picture requested.

 

[delshay]

Found more "Vulkan games" that work on the 939 platform FX-60 2626MHz. (2MHz FSB overclock for internal error checking), everything else not overclocked & no power increase. Ultra Settings 1080p, Vsync enabled.

Ashes of the singularity benchmark: FX-60 take's a massive hammering here, it's going to take a miracle to get this game to work smoothly.





Rest bite for the FX-60 after a hammering from AOTS, now it's World War Z




Other Vulkan Games: Can't get Dota 2 Vulkan API working, ie it's not enabling.

 

[delshay]

Dota 2 latest update has fixed Vulkan API. This is now working on the 939 platform

 

[delshay]

Dota2 Vulkan API is broken again with a new update, there's also at lease one bug, so i'm taking a break of testing Vulkan games & doing hardware modification.

The following MOSFETs are not for this application, but it works with no problems whatsoever other than it needs heatsink to keep them cool, this is normal. Because the MOSFETS are so fast, it was used on both high & low side.

ASROCK MOTHERBOARD 939

OLD MOSFETS HIGHSIDE AP72T02GH
OLD MOSFETS LOWSIDE AP86T02GH

NEW MOSFETS HIGH & LOWSIDE IPD70N03S4L (4N03L03) 70 amps as seen in the photo. With 90 amps MOSFETS on it's way for the lowside this will make this 939 motherboard the most powerful 4 phase vrm "on paper". All modifications are experimental.

 

[jaggerwild]

I had the A8N SLI with a FX 55 long ago, and the Ultra PSU for the win lol! Oh and 2 6800 Ultra's

 

[delshay]

MOTHERBOARD MOSFET MODIFICATION QUICK UPDATE:

Just a quick update what the effects the new MOSFETS has had on the motherboard.

The only thing that has changed is the processor frequency speed. The processor frequency only drift by 1Mhz with or without overclocking with Prime95.

For example, if the processor clocked @3000MHz it will now only drift to 3001MHz. This is something I have never seen before as the old MOSFETS the frequency drift much higher, around 4MHz max.

There's work to do around the controller as the voltage output is too high under load. I should be able to fix this.
The new MOSFETS do run hotter (confirmed) & need a heatsink to get the best out of them. Let's see what the new 90A low side MOSFET bring to the table which should be here in the next two days.

PROCESSOR: AMD FX-60.

EDIT UPDATE: Modding the controller to get the correct voltage can be skipped. You just have to set the voltage in the BIOS one step lower.

Example: 1.350v will now have to be set at 1.325v.

 

[Toothless]

I'm happy you hijacked the thread, keeps it alive and possibly one day I can pull out my 939 board and give it a go on fixing it.

 

[delshay]

IPD90N03S4L 90A MOSFET fitted to low side only. I have nothing much positive to say about this as it seems to perform about the same as the original MOSFETS fitted by ASRock. Load voltage seems to be all over the place, ie some settings it's higher than normal & with others it's lower than normal.

Processor frequency drift has gone up, drift 2MHz (peak 3MHz). So it's worse than the high & low side IPD70N03S4L. I have to fit 90A MOSFET to the high side to get a better picture of what's happening. Currently the high side still has IPD70NO3S4L. I'm not sure fitting the 90A version to the high side will work due to slower switching speed. Switching speed i'm talking about turn on/off & the rise/fall times. See PDF Docs.

I also have the following 90A MOSFETS to test, IPD031N03LG, IPD036NO4LG & IPD040N03LG which I will do offline until I have positive news.

With IPD70N03S4L high/low side computer boot cycle is faster with 1MHz drift in frequency (Prime95). This is clearly the right direction to go, so i'm monitoring this very carefully as it's pointing me in the right direction. I think the switching speed of the MOSFET is very important on a low phase count. I'm also looking at my GFX card MOSFETS (R9 Nano) because this also drift in frequency under extreme loads.

 

[delshay]

90A MOSFET has been fitted to the high-side. So now this motherboard has all round 90A MOSFET. There was no gain in performance whatsoever. In-fact it seems to perform I tiny bit worse but it's very small. Temperature of MOSFET were back to normal. Overall there nothing much to say as I think the switching speed has made it a little worse. But here comes the most important information.

FREQUENCY DRIFTING:

Frequency drifting is related to the MOSFETS high/low-side being different. It's important that the frequency does not drift as this can lead to errors. The processor is not effect by this & still overclocks the same, but the memory modules are effected by the frequency drift as they are connected to the same bus. So if you pushing to the bleeding edge in benchmarking, you are less likely to encounter an error because the frequency is not drifting. A stable clock is pointing towards better overall performance, but I have no real data on this at this time. Below is a screenshot of the 1MHz drift. It does not matter if you overclock/underclock/undervolt/overvolt, full load or idle, the frequency drift will always be 1MHz when you lock the processor at a particular frequency. The locked speed of the processor in screenshot is 2990MHz.

Some user(s) may not realize how important this is, but it's very important. I can show screenshots just how bad it can be when the frequency drift.

 

[delshay]

The SURGE 2 is working on 939 platform, another vulkan title. Performance is around the same as World War Z.

No overclocking of CPU or GPU. FX-60/R9 Nano.

Awaiting test of Wolfenstein Youngblood & No man's sky.

 

[delshay]

Current status of my 939 motherboard (update).

With upgraded MOSFET & more capacitors added to the back of the motherboard here is a screenshot of my FX-60 @3GHz running P95. Note the new record low voltage @3GHz compared to the screenshot already in this thread.

1.375v set in the BIOS, but under load (p95) it jumps to 1.412v which is a record low for this processor. I can also confirm this processor can do 3.1GHz+ with P95 with just under 1.5v.

Also note the high temperature of CPU. This is deliberate to prepare this motherboard for extreme summer months. The CPU & VRM (CPUTIN) will never see those kind of temperature. It's a stability check.

 

[eidairaman1]

Current status of my 939 motherboard (update).

With upgraded MOSFET & more capacitors added to the back of the motherboard here is a screenshot of my FX-60 @3GHz running P95. Note the new record low voltage @3GHz compared to the screenshot already in this thread.

1.375v set in the BIOS, but under load (p95) it jumps to 1.412v which is a record low for this processor. I can also confirm this processor can do 3.1GHz+ with P95 with just under 1.5v.

Also note the high temperature of CPU. This is deliberate to prepare this motherboard for extreme summer months. The CPU & VRM (CPUTIN) will never see those kind of temperature. It's a stability check.

View attachment 138295

Before and after on motherboard

 

[delshay]

Before and after on motherboard

You can see the voltage require when I first did the MOSFET upgrade, it's running Cinebench in this thread. If your taking about seeing all the capacitors on the back of the motherboard, well it's everywhere. Their all SMT capacitors, some stacked on the back where the chipsets are located, some are on the highside VRM, some on back of the CPU socket & 24 pin connector, but it's everywhere. There are 0402 tantalum to larger size tantulum to ceramic all over the back of the motherboard.

EDIT: I should point out there are two modified motherboards but it's the "same processor". Both motherboards have the same type of upgraded MOSFETS fitted (IPD70NO3S4L) & the only difference between the two motherboards is the northbridge, but everything else on the motherboard is the same.

The current motherboard is my main motherboard which I use for gaming. You can't see the MOSFETS on my main motherboard as it has soldered heatsink directly attached to the MOSFETS & can't be removed, it's permanent.

 

[delshay]

The following vulkan games has had updates as of download yesterday.

AOTS, broken can't run benchmark.

World War Z, benchmark score is lower, but GPU load is up.

Dota 2, Vulkan API is back now working.

This test was carried out with the latest hardware power mod to the R9 Nano & latest Radeon driver, but I have not touch any of the setting in wattman, it's still all standard & World War Z GPU load is due to the hardware power mod.

Strange Brigade has jump to 40FPS from 33FPS. There's no update for this game.

 

[INSTG8R]

This makes me want to dig this back out. The water cooling is long gone but I still have the OG Opty heatpipe cooler. But when I moved last I stupidly threw out my Seasonic M12 600W so I don‘r have anything to power it all. I do have a 4870 that should round it out well.

TechPowerUp

www.techpowerup.com

 

[delshay]

AOTS: To fix this game install the latest AMD driver, it's completely broken in the driver before the last release, ie game does not work 100% broken.

Warhammer 40,000: "Gladius - Relics of War" is another vulkan game that works & seems ultra fast "max settings" (1080p) no overclocking of CPU/GPU.

I now have "No Man's sky" & "Wolfenstein Youngblood" currently downloading along with other games, around 270GB download thanks to Steam winter sales. So it won't be long now to test these games.

EDIT: Red Dead Redemption 2 added to list.

 

[candle_86]

Your making me want to pull out my epox 939 board and opty 180

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Your making me want to pull out my epox 939 board and opty 180

Weren't Epox boards mostly just office and OEM pc junk?? They never had that much of a footprint but they only seem to operate in China these days.

 

[candle_86]

Weren't Epox boards mostly just office and OEM pc junk?? They never had that much of a footprint but they only seem to operate in China these days.

Not back then they competed with dfi and Abit in the enthusiast space from 2001 - 2005.

Mine is an EP-9NPA+ SLI

I do have a cheap junk 939 though, it's a Compaq with an ecs x200 chipset with an x2 3800 on it, though it shipped with a semperon at 2ghz, that one is junk.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Not back then they competed with dfi and Abit in the enthusiast space from 2001 - 2005.

Mine is an EP-9NPA+ SLI

I do have a cheap junk 939 though, it's a Compaq with an ecs x200 chipset with an x2 3800 on it, though it shipped with a semperon at 2ghz, that one is junk.

Maybe it was a US thing then.

Here in the UK even ECS and Biostar tried to step up and compete alongside a few other unpopular brands. One or two ECS enthusiast boards did get pretty good reviews but then the tech moved on and they just kinda lost all the steam they had built up and faded back into obscurity.

Both companies are still around though but I think both of them really focus on the Asian market. But still. all their products arent really enthusiast grade anymore.

 

[theFOoL]

Well at least BIOStar makes a correct of actually painting their I/O black which looks neat since most cases are black anyway