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In Reply to: RE: cMP - the open source high-end Memory Player posted by cics on December 30, 2007 at 05:42:01
Hi all,
this weekend the Atom based Asrock AD525PV3 arrived: AND IT ROCKS!!
Boy, this board is SINGING AND SWINGING! Great detail, soundstage etc...MUSIC!!No deletions done yet!! Only:
- small nLite install (as per Junaid / Rick)
- minlogon
- awe
- mem=256 boot.ini-tweak
I am VERY VERY happy!!My current Gigabyte GA-H55M-USB3 will move to desktop and take care of office-work. I purchased the h55m a year ago, for its well-designed cpu power phases. Unfortunately sq was disappointing: too much needles chips (sound, hdmi, dvi, sata2/IDE, USB-3) which made it difficult to get good sound and real music.
Then Ryelands set me on the Atom-trail (thanks Dave!). For me upsampling to 88.2 is enough, so i don't need sse4-capable CPU.
see http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/9/98866.htmlWhy the Asrock ROCKS:
- simple design, no needles functions
- detailed bios
- fanless (i removed the fan and extended the heatsink, by putting an old heatsink up-side-down on top - for the moment, later more elegant solution - it keeps temp below 50 max is 100)The Bios
- cpu: i clocked it to 1,5GHz. By changing system/'FSB'-clock. This means underclocking memory as well.
- memory is clocked @333MHz - DDR3-667
- most steep dram latency settings:
tCL 5
tRCD 4
tRP 3
tRAS 11
tRFC 30
tWR 4
tWTR 2
tRRD 2
tRTP 2
- besides latency this bios offers "DRAM Rcomp control". This is a set of 6 variable settings which controls the datatraffic between RAM and CPU. I didn't find anything on it, have to ask Asrock.
Some settings give more detail, others more laid back.
Any ideas how to set Rcomp?
- cpu voltage set to 1,0v (lowest setting)
- dram voltage set to 1,3v (lowest setting)
- disabled spread-spectrum, usb, lan, pci-ide-busmaster, parrallel port, com-port
- fixed graphics memoryOnly strange thing is xp (and cpu-Z) only sees two cores, not the hyperthreads / 4 cores.
I installed xp in MPS-multicore (non-acpi). Maybe that's why xp only sees 2 cores. But i did this on the h55m and this worked ok (4 'cores').
Any ideas?In the mean time, i'll play some music and enjoy all the new details!!
Cheers!
Douwe
Edits: 12/21/11Follow Ups:
Hi all,
i saw this very interesting post on undervolting by HW-tweaking the mobo.
http://www.overclock.net/t/1075300/asrock-525-undervolting-and-other-atom-platforms
Could be a nice tweak for atom-users, but it mainly is important because it contributes to our hardware-knowlegde.
under the same Windows and hardware conditions?
Hi JackWong, yes, the AD525PV3 is sounding much better!
I'm very happy, and even more happy when i think about implementing your hw-tweaks on bypassing caps and dedicated DRAM-psu!!!Same setup for both AD525PV3 and GA-H55M-USB3 boards:
- minimal nLite install, MPS-Multiprocessor
- AWE
- minlogon
- boot.ini tweaked as per steppes mem=256
No hardware tweaks (only Juli@ has dedicated psu)
Edit: yes 1 difference in HW setup: AD525 runs on 30GB-SSD (40 cd's stored), h55m has 120GB-SSD (80 cd's stored). I'll check effect on sq in next weeks.
Edit 2: after comparing 30GB and 120GB SSD's in AD525PV3: subtle difference in favour of 30GB SSD. Conclusion: AD525PV3 beats H55M-USB3 with ease.AD525PV3 provides more detail, more musical. I really heared some new details. In multi-voice songs the location of the singers is better, more subtle.
And it needs less power: h55m could run 6 hours on SLA-batteries, AD525pv3 sings 10 hours.Nice thing is, there is only one cpu power phase. Simple design, less switching, more constant power-draw (i think but not sure - i'm sure about the SQ though). Easy to tweak/bypass with sikorel-Wima combo's.
Other nice thing is the Rcomp control in bios. Playing with these settings can provide different optimum-settings for instrumental / sing-a-song / classical. Three different bios settings can be stored in bios (like the h55m).
So if one could do with 88.2/96 upsampling or less, one should definitely try the ad525pv3. I'll keep the h55m for future use in a roomcorrection setup.
Of course i'm still very interested in your h55m-usb3 development. We have a shared reference now (untweaked h55m-usb3). During the next weeks, after burning in, i'll do another A-B test (ad525-h55m) and report.
Question: Could you have a look at the 2nd picture in
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/9/98866.html
Top left corner: between sound-chip and pci-slot, you can see a tiny black smd-souldered 'thing'. There is another right next to it (in the picture it's hidden behind the pci-slot). Could this be the choke for powering sound-chip? So if i remove it i disable the sound-chip?
Is it the same thing as you described in http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/pcaudio/messages/9/98886.html ?Besides that i can't wait until your next post on DRAM-psu!!
Cheers!
Douwe
Edits: 12/21/11 12/21/11
Yes. Removing the choke will disable the sound chip, although partially. I checked the data, the chip needs 3.3V and 5V supply. You will disable either of them.
Based on your experience, I re-test my GA-D510UD (1.66Ghz, 1M cache), underclocked to 1.0Ghz, 0.95V, ram 1.8V(no lower setting), Julia@, similar CMP as yours. I must say I was disappointed, when compared to others. There are only 3 chokes on this mobo, 6 on yours. I believe this is the reason.
Yes i guess chipset and GPU of the Asrock get cleaner power.
Thanks for the advice on audiochip. i'll remove the chip by (de)soldering.
Since in bios cpu and memory frequency are directly related, i willtry the asrock AD525PV, which has DDR2. I'll try to runit on slowest possible memory, but with CL3. I think i can get cpu to 900MHz, while running DDR2 memory on 100MHz. A 100Mhz CL3 gives closely the same action-time as 166Mhz with CL5 memory. to be continued...
Douwe
It would be very difficult to remove the chip by solder iron, because the iron tip cannot transfer heat to all the pins at the same time. You may try but a heat gun is preferable.
Doesn't this Mobo use DDR3? The manual says so.
The AD525PV3 uses DDR3, the AD525PV uses DDR2. It will arrive in a few days. Later on i will try to remove the sound-chip.
Happy Christmas!
Douwe
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