K7 F22b seems as stable as F21.

Main difference is my RAM now does 14-15-15-15-40 at 1.415V and 3360Mhz (33.33, BCLK 100.80) as opposed to 16-16-16-16-36 at 3333Mhz, before. Transfer speeds are improved ~6% compared to my initial 3426Mhz at 16-18-18-18-36. In short, read speed is up from 484xxMB/s to 514xxMB/s and latency is down from 72.0ns to 69.6ns
Not bad, considering I've mixed two 2x8GB kits.

CPU acts the same, though V-droop seems a bit worse (-0.010 to -0.013V w/LLC Extreme under Prime95)

I won't be testing any auto voltages, sorry. Not after the one time my CPU started asking for 1.5xxV, lol.

Layout looks good. It would be nice to see the memory speed while messing with BCLK, though.


All functionality seems good.

Hi Ket,

In your opinion which BIOS version is the best the X370 Gaming 5 F22bM-D or the F9fM-D??
I am asking because I am gonna keep AMD Ryzen 1600x for a while, I don't intend to upgrade to 2XXX series.

Zitat von ket im Beitrag #554

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Zitat von Mach5 im Beitrag #553

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Hi ket,

I have been following this thread for a while now, but have not tried your modded BIOS yet on my Gaming 5. Unfortunately the one major issue I do have with it cannot be fixed by a BIOS fix. I am unlucky to have a Sound Blaster Z sound card, so I always have to discharge my motherboard every time I start up my PC. Other than that, the board has given me minimal issues, so I have stayed on BIOS version F9/F10 for now.

I'd like to ask your opinion on following the advice of several people here in getting an AsRock Taichi, given that it does not have dual BIOS. I am surprised that not every manufacturer has dual BIOS by now, and I am a bit concerned in getting it and then having to update the BIOS. Is there another way to recover from a failed BIOS update on a Taichi? I also see that the X470 Taichi can be found on the AsRock website, so I will wait until that is available. Would it be safe to assume that the new one would also be of the better quality compared to Gigabyte? I am also hoping the VRM quality and cooling will be better, as I had to mount a RAM cooler over my VRM heatsinks to maintain reasonable temperatures while overclocking.

Thanks for your time, and for the effort you have put into these modded BIOSes.

---

I do occasionally prod my contacts at Asrock about adding dual ROM chips to their boards but I can say for Asrock at least you need not fear updating the firmware they easily have the most rigorous bug testing before releasing any new firmware so a bricked board due to a bad update isn't something you need to particularly worry about. As for recovery methods I do believe the Taichi has a flashback method which while not as reliable as an actual backup ROM chip should service 95% of bad flash scenarios. The Aorus boards however like to soft brick their firmware just because they feel like it, not something I've really run in to myself but countless other people have. In terms of cooling, voltage stability, etc the Taichi is night and day difference compared to any Aorus board. Even the Asrock very much value geared Fatal1ty K4 board I have has substantially more stable voltage readings than the Gaming 5 I have does.

As for those horrible VRM temps on the Gaming 5 invest in some Laird 6w/mk thermal pads, remove the plastic shroud over the VRM heatsink and remove the terrible plastic standoffs from the VRM heatsinks and replace them with rubber washers. This will allow substantially better thermal contact, heat transfer and dissipation which will lead to much better temps. Currently sitting here using the lemon Gaming 5 while I make the modded firmware while running SETI@Home as well as milkyway@home scientific projects, the CPU @ 3.85GHz 1.35v the VRMs are not getting hotter than 66c with an ambient temp of 24.6c and thats with everything cased up as well not an open test bench. Stock mounting and thermal pads for the Gaming 5 are extremely poor, under the same conditions I would be surprised if someone were under 80c VRM temp.

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Zitat von Mach5 im Beitrag #558

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Zitat von ket im Beitrag #554

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Zitat von Mach5 im Beitrag #553

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Hi ket,

I have been following this thread for a while now, but have not tried your modded BIOS yet on my Gaming 5. Unfortunately the one major issue I do have with it cannot be fixed by a BIOS fix. I am unlucky to have a Sound Blaster Z sound card, so I always have to discharge my motherboard every time I start up my PC. Other than that, the board has given me minimal issues, so I have stayed on BIOS version F9/F10 for now.

I'd like to ask your opinion on following the advice of several people here in getting an AsRock Taichi, given that it does not have dual BIOS. I am surprised that not every manufacturer has dual BIOS by now, and I am a bit concerned in getting it and then having to update the BIOS. Is there another way to recover from a failed BIOS update on a Taichi? I also see that the X470 Taichi can be found on the AsRock website, so I will wait until that is available. Would it be safe to assume that the new one would also be of the better quality compared to Gigabyte? I am also hoping the VRM quality and cooling will be better, as I had to mount a RAM cooler over my VRM heatsinks to maintain reasonable temperatures while overclocking.

Thanks for your time, and for the effort you have put into these modded BIOSes.

---

I do occasionally prod my contacts at Asrock about adding dual ROM chips to their boards but I can say for Asrock at least you need not fear updating the firmware they easily have the most rigorous bug testing before releasing any new firmware so a bricked board due to a bad update isn't something you need to particularly worry about. As for recovery methods I do believe the Taichi has a flashback method which while not as reliable as an actual backup ROM chip should service 95% of bad flash scenarios. The Aorus boards however like to soft brick their firmware just because they feel like it, not something I've really run in to myself but countless other people have. In terms of cooling, voltage stability, etc the Taichi is night and day difference compared to any Aorus board. Even the Asrock very much value geared Fatal1ty K4 board I have has substantially more stable voltage readings than the Gaming 5 I have does.

As for those horrible VRM temps on the Gaming 5 invest in some Laird 6w/mk thermal pads, remove the plastic shroud over the VRM heatsink and remove the terrible plastic standoffs from the VRM heatsinks and replace them with rubber washers. This will allow substantially better thermal contact, heat transfer and dissipation which will lead to much better temps. Currently sitting here using the lemon Gaming 5 while I make the modded firmware while running SETI@Home as well as milkyway@home scientific projects, the CPU @ 3.85GHz 1.35v the VRMs are not getting hotter than 66c with an ambient temp of 24.6c and thats with everything cased up as well not an open test bench. Stock mounting and thermal pads for the Gaming 5 are extremely poor, under the same conditions I would be surprised if someone were under 80c VRM temp.

---

Thanks for the advice. I did consider the VRM heatsink mods you suggested, I even got some thermal pads from AliExpress (I live in Namibia, so I couldn't find the brand you suggested), but decided against it as I wanted to try and have the hardware mods done by Gigabyte to fix the sound card issue, but after several months they told me they had to send it back to Asia to fix it, which would take another month or two, so I just gave up. Removing the plastic shroud and using the RAM cooler keeps the temps under 80 (maybe even under 70) when running Prime95, so that was enough for me.

Would you also recommend AsRock above Asus? I am not looking for necessarily massive overclocks, just around 3.8 or 3.9GHz on my 1700x, but I am looking for stability. I have always bought Gigabyte motherboards in the past, but after seeing the lack of support for this platform, I think it is time to explore the other brands.

One last question: I see the Taichi has a 8 pin and also a 4 pin power plug, but my current PSU only has one 8 pin. Will the motherboard work if I only plug in the 8 pin? Should I get a converter from Molex to 4 pin and use that? Or will I need a whole new PSU just to be able to switch to AsRock/Asus?

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Zitat von hansen_DK im Beitrag #556

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K7 F22b seems as stable as F21.

Main difference is my RAM now does 14-15-15-15-40 at 1.415V and 3360Mhz (33.33, BCLK 100.80) as opposed to 16-16-16-16-36 at 3333Mhz, before. Transfer speeds are improved ~6% compared to my initial 3426Mhz at 16-18-18-18-36. In short, read speed is up from 484xxMB/s to 514xxMB/s and latency is down from 72.0ns to 69.6ns
Not bad, considering I've mixed two 2x8GB kits.

CPU acts the same, though V-droop seems a bit worse (-0.010 to -0.013V w/LLC Extreme under Prime95)

I won't be testing any auto voltages, sorry. Not after the one time my CPU started asking for 1.5xxV, lol.

Layout looks good. It would be nice to see the memory speed while messing with BCLK, though.


All functionality seems good.

---

Zitat von PickMeNow im Beitrag #557

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Hi Ket,

In your opinion which BIOS version is the best the X370 Gaming 5 F22bM-D or the F9fM-D??
I am asking because I am gonna keep AMD Ryzen 1600x for a while, I don't intend to upgrade to 2XXX series.

---

@ket You've done plenty of Gigabyte's work. That one function might bring me another 2-4% memory performance on average so unless it becomes absolutely necessary for some other reason I'd let Gigabyte do their job. Unless of course they start sending you money, lol.

Over-all, I'm completely happy with what you've done and you should be as well. My main concern is the increased V-droop which is hardly your fault and all I've had to do is increase Vcore a notch. With absolutely no consqeuence towards the CPU max temp, I might add. VRM still stays below 70C so nothing's bad per sé, although still not good enough on Gigabyte's part.

Something tells me my ICM doesn't like clocking RAM much higher. Even ridiculously loose timings and 1.45V+ won't allow the 3466Mhz my RAM are rated at. 3400Mhz plus a tad is possible with XMP-settings but this means seriously sad secondary timings and I've failed at tightening them at this speed. If I bump BCLK to 101Mhz (3366Mhz RAM), Windows crashes HARD as soon as I pull a memory load beyond the startup. TL;DR I think I'm at my system's limit.

Zitat von hansen_DK im Beitrag #560

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@ket You've done plenty of Gigabyte's work. That one function might bring me another 2-4% memory performance on average so unless it becomes absolutely necessary for some other reason I'd let Gigabyte do their job. Unless of course they start sending you money, lol.

Over-all, I'm completely happy with what you've done and you should be as well. My main concern is the increased V-droop which is hardly your fault and all I've had to do is increase Vcore a notch. With absolutely no consqeuence towards the CPU max temp, I might add. VRM still stays below 70C so nothing's bad per sé, although still not good enough on Gigabyte's part.

Something tells me my ICM doesn't like clocking RAM much higher. Even ridiculously loose timings and 1.45V+ won't allow the 3466Mhz my RAM are rated at. 3400Mhz plus a tad is possible with XMP-settings but this means seriously sad secondary timings and I've failed at tightening them at this speed. If I bump BCLK to 101Mhz (3366Mhz RAM), Windows crashes HARD as soon as I pull a memory load beyond the startup. TL;DR I think I'm at my system's limit.

---

A bit of daily news guys, anyone who may come to this thread but also owns a Biostar GT7 Biostar have now released new firmware based on AGESA 1002a. I know I'm not popular with Biostar where I kept prodding them about this (and the easy to solve bugs with their firmware) but they are still head and shoulders above the likes of Gigabyte.

EDIT: All modded F22b firmware is now up

Zitat von ket im Beitrag #562

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A bit of daily news guys, anyone who may come to this thread but also owns a Biostar GT7 Biostar have now released new firmware based on AGESA 1002a.

---

Ket that biostar is a mighty fine little board, i love the layout and the racing flag scheme, gonna have to get one of these next weekend.

Zitat von hansen_DK im Beitrag #556

---

K7 F22b seems as stable as F21.

Main difference is my RAM now does 14-15-15-15-40 at 1.415V and 3360Mhz (33.33, BCLK 100.80) as opposed to 16-16-16-16-36 at 3333Mhz, before. Transfer speeds are improved ~6% compared to my initial 3426Mhz at 16-18-18-18-36. In short, read speed is up from 484xxMB/s to 514xxMB/s and latency is down from 72.0ns to 69.6ns
Not bad, considering I've mixed two 2x8GB kits.

CPU acts the same, though V-droop seems a bit worse (-0.010 to -0.013V w/LLC Extreme under Prime95)

I won't be testing any auto voltages, sorry. Not after the one time my CPU started asking for 1.5xxV, lol.

Layout looks good. It would be nice to see the memory speed while messing with BCLK, though.


All functionality seems good.

---

Zitat von redrain85 im Beitrag #563

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Zitat von ket im Beitrag #562

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A bit of daily news guys, anyone who may come to this thread but also owns a Biostar GT7 Biostar have now released new firmware based on AGESA 1002a.

---

http://download.gigabyte.cn/FileList/BIOS/?C=M;O=D

Looks like Gigabyte has just released new F23d firmwares based on AGESA 1002a, as well. Plus, there are now X470 firmwares available if you want to compare them to the X370 ones.


BTW, I used Q-Flash to flash your K7 F22b firmware and it's working like a charm. I really appreciate how many settings you unlock, and how you organize many of them more sensibly than the original BIOS. Thank you!

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Zitat von Mach5 im Beitrag #558

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[quote=ket|p51043][quote=Mach5|p51042]Hi ket,



Would you also recommend AsRock above Asus? I am not looking for necessarily massive overclocks, just around 3.8 or 3.9GHz on my 1700x, but I am looking for stability. I have always bought Gigabyte motherboards in the past, but after seeing the lack of support for this platform, I think it is time to explore the other brands.

One last question: I see the Taichi has a 8 pin and also a 4 pin power plug, but my current PSU only has one 8 pin. Will the motherboard work if I only plug in the 8 pin? Should I get a converter from Molex to 4 pin and use that? Or will I need a whole new PSU just to be able to switch to AsRock/Asus?

---

Zitat von hansen_DK im Beitrag #556

---

K7 F22b seems as stable as F21.

Main difference is my RAM now does 14-15-15-15-40 at 1.415V and 3360Mhz (33.33, BCLK 100.80) as opposed to 16-16-16-16-36 at 3333Mhz, before. Transfer speeds are improved ~6% compared to my initial 3426Mhz at 16-18-18-18-36. In short, read speed is up from 484xxMB/s to 514xxMB/s and latency is down from 72.0ns to 69.6ns
Not bad, considering I've mixed two 2x8GB kits.

CPU acts the same, though V-droop seems a bit worse (-0.010 to -0.013V w/LLC Extreme under Prime95)

I won't be testing any auto voltages, sorry. Not after the one time my CPU started asking for 1.5xxV, lol.

Layout looks good. It would be nice to see the memory speed while messing with BCLK, though.


All functionality seems good.

---

Modified F23d firmware is up for Gaming 5 and K7.

I hope you're all sitting down for this news but... GB have actually done some work for F23d, I'm yet to test how much actual work they have done but for the first time in a damn year advanced memory subtimings are displayed correctly in the UEFI.

Zitat von ket im Beitrag #569

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Modified F23d firmware is up for Gaming 5 and K7.

I hope you're all sitting down for this news but... GB have actually done some work for F23d, I'm yet to test how much actual work they have done but for the first time in a damn year advanced memory subtimings are displayed correctly in the UEFI.

---