DFI CFX3200 Setup and tweak guide

[Tony]

DFI release what is ultimately the last AMD 939 performance motherboard we will see from them before we all move to AM2

The CXF3200 has to be the most tweakable DFI board to date, while this is a good thing for the enthusiast it can make the board a nightmare for the average Joe to get set up correctly. The CFX has brought a whole new dimention to DRAM overclocking and really should extend DDR1's life for another 12 months as long as AMD don't completely drop the 939 line and bring us 1 or 2 more performance CPU's to push the platform forward.



Looking at the motherboard we see absolutely no space left for anything to be added, the board is based around the latest ATI Northbridge chipset RD580 and ULI's performance SouthBridge 1575. The NorthBridge has the potential to run at 1500LDT speeds if tweaked correctly, it features dual 16X PCIE video hooks and is ofcourse crossfire ready, the Southbridge features both SATA2 and high speed USB2 as well as HD Audo capablity, overall a quality package. Lastly the board has the usual SI 3114 SATA1 4 port IC that DFI must have a warehouse full of (as they feature on every DFI Lanpart motherboard)

The purpose of this post is to try and show you how I set the board up, i will try and cover medium level overclocking and setting up video cards in single mode and crossfire. I have asked Rgone (Robert) from DFI USA online tech support to cover Audio and HDD setup for me.
Now how I set the board up may NOT be the optimum setup for your system take what we put here as a lose guide, not the difinitive way to set up the board. Also please remember while DFI make motherboards aimed at overclocking they do not guarantee any overclocks, they can only guarantee stock stable setup, please always remember this.

Now we have the disclaimers out the way lets move to the bios.

Genie Bios



Working from the top we see the usual links to the:

DRAM config page - we will leave this for its own subsection.
LDT and PCI Bus control - defaults here are all you need
PCI Device control - here you find the switch for ULI raid and SATA setup off the South Bridge.All sata controls and the onboard LAN's enable or disable.

Now we hit the Overclocking features

FSB Bus Frequency - Otherwise known as HTT Bus frequency, this is where we tweak up Bus speed.
LDT/FSB Frequency Ratio- Here we set the LDT multiplier. Remember CPU speed is worked out from the LDT bus speed, CPU multiplier and the LDT ratio.
CPU/FSB Frequency Ratio - commonly known as the CPU multiplier, here we usually down clock the multiplier so that we ran ramp up the HTT frequency.

RD580 HT PLL speed - The RD580 chipset has 2 modes for setting the clock on the Hypertransport speed, normal(LOW) and High speed.
Sub 250HTT running LOW speed is just fine, over 250 choose HIGH speed

HT Bus NMOS Drive Strength, HT Bus PMOS Drive strength 0 to 31 - These options cover the drive for the send and recieve functions of the Hyper transport bus.
For high LDT overclocking 25 or higher may be needed, I use 31 on both options when pushing 300X5LDT. If you are not interested in LDT overclocking remember the board will do around 1200HT easy so you should only ever need to set either 5X or 4X for the LDT multiplier and leave the drive strengths at the default of 5

HTBus Reciever Impedance 0 to 31 This option controls the impedance the board sets to counter signal reflection on the RD580 chipset. SO, as you clock higher you may need to increase the value higher. I have tested at 5 and it does seem ok for most overclocks, if you are ramping up the LDT you may find upping this value gets you a higher stable overclock.

Between 5 and 10 seems to be the settings to test, 10 actually gets me the best clocks with 2gig kits.

CPU HT Bus Drive strength Weak or Strong options.
for high LDT Bus overclocking choose Strong
K8 Cool n Quiet.....if overclocking best to leave this disabled.

Voltage Controls

CPU Vid Options here depend on the max VID your CPU will allow, its usually 2 options above the normal Vcore the CPU runs at.
CPU VID Special Control Here you can set the over volt for the voltage you want to run on your CPU, remember to to keep this below 1.6V for most CPU's if you can, to much Vcore can damage your CPU.

Dram Voltage control Here we find the finest Vdimm control seen on any motherboard. Dependant on the Powersupply voltages to your mothertboard you may see voltages actually measured on the board higher than you set in bios, as a rule the voltage on the board is usually 3 options higher than you set in bios, IE, 2.6 in bios will give 2.65V on the motherboard....try to keep this in mind

SB PCIE Voltage - this option in reality is the SouthBridge Vcore voltage.A slight bump will allow for higher PCIE overclocks and can aid in getting your general overclocks stable
NB Analogue Voltage - ???
LDT Bus voltage - when overclocking the LDT bus you will need to tweak this voltage higher, small jumps here, don't ram the voltage
NB Core Voltage - vcore for the Northbridge, high LDT and PCIE overclocking gains from a bump in voltage here.

[Tony]

DRAM config setup



Don't be overwhelmed by what you see on this page, setting up the memory is actually quite easy as long as you follow a few simple rules. I will try and talk you thru how I set up for performance using OCZ Platinum and Gold series dimms. For the sake of this guide I am going to only show my present 4000EB settings.
Please refere to the
prime stable database for settings for the memory you choose to run.

As you see from the picture there are a lot of options, most who use DFI boards will be familiar with most but there are some new. I will touch on what to set quickly here in the following list from the top half of the set up page. I will also tell you what not to set

From the top:

DRam Frequency set - This depends on your CPU as to what options you have, 200 183,166, 150 etc all popular options
CPC - enabled for 1T Disabled for 2T. I set 1T with 2dimms and 2T with 4Dimms while overclocking.

TCL or CAS - Board will work with 1 thru 3...the rest leave well alone, this setting depends on what your ram is spec'd for.

TRCD- Settings 2 thru 5, leave the rest alone. Big change on performance with this setting, lower the better

TRAS - 0 thru 15 clocks, always set the highest TRAS value that gives you the best bandwidth, IE, if 7 8 9 10 all give the same bandwidth scores set 10. This item is one that always needs tuning, if your ram is spec'd at 8 ignore this and tune to find what works best.

TRP - Settings 2 thru 5, forget the rest, lower for more speed.

TRC - 7 thru 22, A64 suits a low timing but to tight effects stability, 8 thru 12 is where I test it.

TRFC - 9 thru 24, should always be a minimum of 2 clocks higher than TRC, 14 thru 24 is where i test it

TRRD - 2,3,4 only options worth looking at, 2 for Infineon and BH5/UTT etc 3 for everything else

TWR - 2 and 3, set 2 for low tight timings 3 for high overclocks, has a big effect on bandwidth and stability

TWTR - 2 and 1, 1 is VERY AGRESSIVE 2 is usually better for stability.

TRWT - 2,3,4 are the options you need to use, 2 being aggressive, 4 slacker for high overclocks.

TREF - This is the one item there is no difinitive option to set, On the CFX3200 you have to set this manually, AUTO is real slow I use 3120, 1560, 4708 and many others. best to tune this for stability and speed.

Bank Interleave Leave enabled if you can, disabled can sometimes get the ram to clock a little higher but at a loss of efficiency.

Errata 94 and Errata 123 - leave at bios defaults unless your CPU calls for a change of setting

Odd Divisor Correct ODC - This option rounds up ODD memory divisors to EVEN options...in reality it slows the ram to the next option ratio down like going from 180 to 166 mode. BUT only if your memory controller is using an ODD divisor, if it has set an EVEN divisor this option has NO EFFECT

[Tony]

Bottom half of DRAM setup Config

DQS Skew control - Now i hear this option has effect, the only issue is i also hear this option actually does not work, some use it, I leave on defaults.

DRAM Drive strength Options 1 thru 31. The table here should explain how to set this option. I use 3 for TCCD, 4 for BH5 UTT etc and 6 to 8 for 2gig kits. 4 dimm overclocking is catered for but not guranteed.



Data drive strength - 100 to -50%, I use -30 and -50. -30% on moderate overclocks and -50% on high ram overclocks.

Dimm 1/3 Clock timing Skew - Yellow slots to you and me, +150, auto or down to delay 600 are useful. As I ramp up the FSB 20MHZ I reduce the skew 150ps.



Dimm 2/4 Clock timing skew - Orange slots to you and me, treat same as the yellows but I have found advancing skew is NOT needed, I always seem to be at 150 to 450 delay.

Max async latency - options 7 thru 10 are all you should need, 7 for agressive tight timings 10 for high fsb overclocks. This option HAS TO BE SET MANUALLY

Read Preamble - 4.5 thru 6 is all you need worry about, 4.5 for BH5 etc and 6 for high fsb overclocks. i usually use 5.5 and 6. Again HAS TO BE SET MANUALLY

Idle Cycle limit - 0 thru 256, 0 is VERY agressive, i usually use 64, 128 and 256. BH5 etc will run 0 to 32 if needed.

Dynamic counter - enabled or disabled, i usually set disabled for better performance

Read Write Queue Bypass 16X seems best on the CFX3200

Bypass max 4 thru 7 is where you need to test. 4 for high clocks 7 for tight timings

Burst length 2 4 8, I set 4 seems to work best. 8 can give better performance.

Started the prime stable data base, have a look
here for settings etc

[Tony]

PCIE setup

Not much here to explain, there are some points you need to be aware of though. As i get more info on some of the tweaks I will add to this post but for now this is how i set up for max video card overclocking and the best benching scores.



The TXCLK Gating and PCIE Common Clock are normally disabled by default, I found an increase in video performance setting these 2 to enabled.

Also you will notice I set the 2 GFX slot power limits to 130W, and enabled 10% extra current to the GFX slots, i found this helped with card overclocking also.

If you have 1 video card just enable the settings for the slot the card is in. Also remember for crossfire the Master card has to go in the top 16XPCIE slot nearest the CPU, the slave in the bottom one.

A last tweak i found was that upon a fresh XP SP2 install i could NOT run crossfire. The drivers etc all installed fine and I was able to enable crossfire for windows in CCC, the issue was no 3d would run...just a hard crash to desk top.
The fix...disable write combining in the trouble shooting section of your display properties, once this was disabled all was good. Only do this if crossfire will not run, I have seen others have no issues so it may be one of those weird driver issues that crop up from time to time.

[Tony]

Guys This is fully 3d stable, Prime i have no idea as i have had sooooo much to do and no time.

I hope it helps for now. LDT was at 4X

[Tony]

well for now testing high HTT will have to wait, I have more kits to add to the data base which will take a few more days. i have seen peple up as high as 380 so it should be ok

[Snafu]

Thanks to Tony for this guide.

Please discuss this guide here.