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ASUS Striker II Formula under the Microscope

 by Rajinder Gill on March 19, 2008 4:00 AM EST
18 Comments | Add A Comment
18 Comments

Initial Thoughts

Initial BIOS releases from ASUS were certainly a little rough around the edges, with each release completely changing how the board operates. The 1101 BIOS release is pretty much dead-on for dual-core CPU overclocking and general day-to-day use. During our time with the board, we were subjected to five different BIOS revisions, each with their own sweet-spots for performance and idiosyncrasies. Performance with the 1101 BIOS is generally good, and stability and peripheral device operation is excellent as we will see in the comparison article.

NVIDIA's 780i is on a par with the Intel X38/X48 DDR2 boards when it comes to dual-core CPU overclocking in the performance zone. ASUS has managed to supply clean power to the memory banks that allows us solid performance and 8GB memory overclocking potential, something we have not managed on other boards with the same settings.

It will be interesting to see how the reference boards measure up to the strengths of the Striker II Formula. For now, we would not hesitate to recommend this board for a dual-core SLI-based gaming system. Although 790i may be robbing this platform of the limelight, the real-world performance figures of both platforms are not enough to convince gamers that they need to make a jump over to the new DDR3-based chipset unless they have money burning in their pockets.

For the quad-core CPUs, we see the 780i coping with the 45nm Penryns in the same way we experienced when the 680i was first introduced to 65nm quad-core processors. As we expected, refinements to the GTL reference voltage circuitry has improved things a little, but the basic characteristics of the 680i SPP remain intact. The stable FSB limits of the 780i boards are still lower than we'd like - especially compared to Intel boards.

It's also interesting to note that the board behaves quite differently in its reboot cycles and failed overclock recovery when a quad-core CPU is used for testing. These effects generally begin to manifest as FSB speeds approach 400FSB, while speeds over this may require a CMOS reset to get the board up and running again. Then you can return to the prior settings before the overzealous overclocking attempt.

Our experiences using the EVGA 780i board so far have shown similar tendencies in certain ways, so the fault is down to the BIOS base code or the SPP itself. "Memory hole" issues are almost non-existent, with the Penryn quad-cores being the only ones to show any real flaws in the current BIOS. We still have some testing left to do, and our conclusion hinges upon the capabilities of the EVGA board when subjected to similar forms of testing. (The failure of the original board is naturally a concern already, however.) Of course, we are seeing the revised 750i and 650i boards hold their own in SLI performance in the midrange sector, so our final roundup of NVIDIA's current products for Intel owners should be interesting.

Overclocking Results
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  • glasforex - Tuesday, October 7, 2008 - link

    thanks for the review and thanks guys for the coments. they helped me achive a 400mhz fsb clock(1600) on my e7200 taking it from 2.5-> 3.8Ghz

    example:
    load setup defaults
    manual
    spp-m.. 200
    fsb to mem...linked
    sync mode
    fsb 1600
    mem 800

    c1 state - disable, disable bit - disable...
    and everything there - disable... except use 2 or 4 cores
    auto voltages.

    my vga nvidia 9800GX2.
    It was a significant performance improvement.

    ps: guys remember to load defaults in bios every time before you want to do something with this mobo... strange.

  • Slavek - Thursday, March 20, 2008 - link

    Good day! I would this motherboard: Asus Striker II Formula buy ,but I want know if is power motherboard and if is production of high-quality kit. Thanks

  • Rajinder Gill - Thursday, March 20, 2008 - link

    Hi,

    For dual core processors + if you want to run SLI, this board works fine. If using quad core processors, you really need an unlocked multipler CPU in order to achieve high clock speeds. Despite hearsay, I found the board to work very well using the 1101 BIOS and my E8500. Using this combination of parts left me with nothing to grumble about. Performance in Sync mode at around 475FSB using the 1101 BIOS is fine and does not leave much to be desired IMO.

    regards
    Raja

  • electricx - Saturday, March 22, 2008 - link

    It should be terribly interesting to see what the Striker II Extreme could offer to deal with the quirks this board is presenting. One could speculate quite a bit, especially based on the praise AT has lavished upon the 790i so far. I expect performance bordering on rediculous with a ROG board that I'll never own. But for me it's not about owning, it's about drooling. muhuhhahahahha.

  • Amuro - Friday, March 21, 2008 - link

    In this blog article, Gary Key was able to push the FSB to 450mhz with the QX9650 and BIOS 0901:
    http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=37...">http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/showpost.aspx?i=37...

    Maybe 1101 is just not for quads.

  • Rajinder Gill - Friday, March 21, 2008 - link

    Hi,

    The 0901 has instability issues in many ways. Other than Everest, there's little else the board will do at 450FSB (even in the 0901 BIOS). The screenshots were only really shown for the low memory access latency. Later on, it was discovered that 450 FSB and the low access latency was nothing more that a pipe-dream for real world application stability.

    regards
    Raja

  • Amuro - Wednesday, March 19, 2008 - link

    I'm using a QX9650 with the Striker II Formula and 4.0Ghz (400x10) is Prime stable with the 0902 BIOS that my board came with. However, with the latest 1101 BIOS, I couldn't even boot into Windows with the same overclock, so I had to revert back to 0902. There's definitely some issues with the 1101 BIOS and QX9650.

  • ianken - Wednesday, March 19, 2008 - link

    other than the NICs failing after resuming from S3, my board has been rock solid.

  • lopri - Wednesday, March 19, 2008 - link

    When can we expect these high speed 2GB DDR2 sticks? Is it possible to let us know what IC will be used for these sticks? (Micron? Powerchips? Infineon? Samsung?) Thank you. ^^

    quote:
    It's also interesting to note that the board behaves quite differently in its reboot cycles and failed overclock recovery when a quad-core CPU is used for testing.

    Endless/uncontrollable reboots? :D

  • skinflickBOB - Thursday, March 20, 2008 - link

    I could not care less about the chips as long as they do what it says on the 'tin'. 1200MHz sounds cool, I would imagine that some of the die advancements from DDR3 are beginning to filter down into DDR2. But like I said, as long as they do 1200MHz - as stated, that's fine for moi..

    later days
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