x58 - the chipset that keeps on giving?

[HeavenCore]

I’ve been following LTT on YouTube for years, and it occurred to me today that the post-NCIX channel is 7 years old now with one of its very first videos being a review of the EVGA X58 board.

 

Back in 2009 I spent stupid money on an X58 rig with the i7 965 Extreme (4 cores + HT), 2 ATI 4870X2’s & 12GB DDR3 – expensive I know, but I’m still using it to this day – only two upgrades have been made in these past 7 years – SSD’s and replaced the 4870X2’s with a GTX 580. The X58 chipset itself is “as-is”, rock solid and super stable.

 

What I am VERY curious to find out however, is how a system such as this would handle modern GPU’s such as the 1080’s or perhaps a titan “xp” – there seems to be lots of debate as to whether the i7 965 & lack of pcie3 would bottleneck it or not? If it can run the 1080, does that mean it could do VR? VR on a 7 year old PC? that would be funny as hell.

 

I would love to see some proper benchmarks on the x58/i7965 with GTX 1080 / Titan vs modern systems (VR?)

 

I was thinking this would be a cool Idea for a simple video perhaps. Would be nice to see how the x58 and “enthusiast mantra” has stood the test of time.

 

J.

[SLAYR]

The only problem with x58 is the lack of single core speed. An i7 965 is as powerful as a modern i5 6500.

 

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-965-vs-Intel-Core-i5-6500/m4036vs3513

 

So it barely meets minimum spec for vr.

 

PCIe 2.0 still doesn't bottleneck gpus.

[TheRandomness]

It would be able to run the 1080 as PCIe 2.0 x16 is still overkill for GPUs but the CPU may bottleneck it a bit.

[Jer45]

that and the G41 express chipset for lga 775, my cpu is a q9300 however kicks ass tho with a R9 270

[Analog]

I think that if you'd swap that 965 for an i7 990X and overclock it to around 4.4GHz, you'd have a sick system which will not be bottlenecking a GTX1080. 

[Emberstone]

To this day I am still using my i7-980X. Aside from single-core performance, I couldn't be happier with my computer and how it has aged. If I'm playing a multi-threaded game like Doom, you wouldn't even notice the CPU is nearly seven years old as it always runs over 120 fps thanks to the GTX 1070 that's also in there, which makes playing the game a hoot on a 120hz monitor.

 

The only time I notice the CPU's age is when I'm playing Heroes of the Storm or Starcraft 2, which rely on single-threaded performance. That's where my CPU falls short. In Cinebench R15, my stock 980X scores 810, which is right on the tail of a stock i7-6700k. The single-threaded test only scores 102, however.

 

X58, surprisingly, is still very relevant about seven years after it became a thing. Assuming Zen can deliver, I'm probably going to upgrade then, though. I need my single-threaded performance for some games!

[xgn]

Im in the same boat. I buildt a new pc but the stupid unstable thing will never boot. There is a few things im going to try. but man its boring mount and check everything.

My x58 rig never dissapoints me Can run all games , can render and do pretty much anything i do. I did change the original gpu after a failed flash to a gtx 780.

I get with this pc no lag in gta 5 , no lag in battlefield 1 no lagg in nomans sky or ashes of singularity and so on. Its pretty amazing how good this is 7 years later.

[Canada EH]

Very very interesting, I am very interested in this topic of discussion.

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-X-980-vs-Intel-Xeon-X5690/m1822vsm16752

 

@Emberstone So what games are single threaded? besides the ones you mentioned ( Heroes of the Storm or Starcraft 2 ) ?

@HeavenCore Do you remember what you paid for that X58 system so many years ago?

 

I think for most people though, the 1080 is just too pricey. Even the 1070's price is hard to swallow. For people who still rock the X58, they are budget friendly people obviously, UNLESS you are totally into gaming then that would make sense for @Emberstone to drop coin on a 1070, specifically for the X58.

 

I myself am pretty stoked about scoring a ASUS X58 complete system for what it costs on eBay to buy just the board and in some cases the i7-9xx CPU.

 

I am using a GTX-650 and only really play World of Tanks, I did buy a bunch of really cheap games on Steam. Total price $25cdn, for like 18 games.

 

[NelizMastr]

This reminds me of when I had a Mac Pro 2008 with dual E5462 Xeons and an X58 system with an i7-920 D0. Managed to push the CPU to 4GHz quite easily. Between 3.0 and 4.0 it refused to be stable, but 3.0 and 4.0 were both solid. Anyway, synthetically, it wiped the floor with the 8 Xeon cores in the Mac Pro and single thread was also a lot stronger than the old Penryn based Xeons.

Added a GTX580 later on and it really amazed me. All of the games I played ran like a dream, including Cities:Skylines, which ran like maximum ass on Win7 on the Mac Pro and better than the stock 2500K I had as well. If only X58 boards were easier to find for an acceptable price, I'd still use the platform, honestly. I loved my X58-USB3.

[HeavenCore]

12 hours ago, SLAYR said:

An i7 965 is as powerful as a modern i5 6500

As i understand it, the i5 6500 runs the rift quite well with a 1080 (no first hand experience though - just what i've seen on frontier forums (Elite Dangerous)).

 

This combined with the fact that a 1080 would not bottleneck on PCIe2 - this makes a compelling argument to try it.

 

Problem is, i'm not going to fork out for a 1080 just to find it wont perform on the X58 - Luke & Linus however have a stack of 1080's lying around - would be easy for them to grab an old X58 rig and give it a go - "go on guys, you know you wanna."

 

@Canada EH Took some digging but i found the invoice - £6k! I swear 50% of that was on the 1st gen SSD's and 4870X2's lol

 

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Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-965 Extreme 3.2GHz 8MB Cache 
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Graphics Processor : Dual 2GB GDDR5 ATI® Radeon® HD 4870 X2with CrossFireX™ and Quad GPU Technology

Memory: 12GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz - 6 x 2048MB 
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[Tork]

I find this interesting. Until recently I have been running 2 systems with X58. I have been trying to decide on doing a full new build but going with some lower TDP parts as my new place the office gets really hot when gaming or just dropping in a few 1080's. My two systems are as follows..

 

System still running:

EVGA X58 SLI

Intel i7-920 *stock*

Corsair H55 replaced stock fan 4 yrs ago

EVGA GTX 970SSC (Orig EVGA GTX 285)

Mushkin 24GB (6X4GB) DDR3 1600 @ speed 7-9-8-24 timings

Samsung 850 Evo. 512GB

WD Black 1TB

Cooler Master UCP-700w 

 

 

Non Running System (gifted to me by a close friend):

EVGA X58 Classified3

Intel i7-990x

Cooler Master Seidon 120M

EVGA GTX 580 in SLI

Corsair Dominator 24GB (6x4GB) DDR3

Samsung 830 128GB

WD 500GB 

Corsair 1200AX

 

 

Currently im trying to fin out why 2 of the RAM slots are not working on the dead system along with a continuous boot loop.

 

All that said and I have considered combining the two systems with the best parts doing some OC and purchasing a GTX1080 or two, my concern was if it's worth it for gaming. I would really like to either fix the Classified board or find another X58 to put the 990X in and replace the 580's so I have two gaming systems for when I have company.

 

[Emberstone]

I just overclocked my 980X to 4 GHz for the first time, and I am really, really surprised with the result. I watched a video of someone filming their monitor while they ran Cinebench on their 6700K, and they scored 888.

 

My 980X scored 915 after the overclock, up from 801-810, and its single core performance went up to 120 from 101. That's a 20% increase on the single core performance, and this is a modest overclock in the grand scheme of things. That is very noticeable in Heroes of the Storm.

 

I know it's just one bench and it doesn't tell the entire story, but it makes me giddy knowing that my seven-year-old processor can beat a 6700K in something, even though the 6700K is stock. (It still kicks my ass in the single core bench, though.)

 

X58 really does keep on giving, doesn't it?

 

 

[done12many2]

1 hour ago, Emberstone said:

I just overclocked my 980X to 4 GHz for the first time, and I am really, really surprised with the result. I watched a video of someone filming their monitor while they ran Cinebench on their 6700K, and they scored 888.

 

My 980X scored 915 after the overclock, up from 801-810, and its single core performance went up to 120 from 101. That's a 20% increase on the single core performance, and this is a modest overclock in the grand scheme of things. That is very noticeable in Heroes of the Storm.

 

I know it's just one bench and it doesn't tell the entire story, but it makes me giddy knowing that my seven-year-old processor can beat a 6700K in something, even though the 6700K is stock. (It still kicks my ass in the single core bench, though.)

 

X58 really does keep on giving, doesn't it?

 

Great to see old chips like these still delivering the goods.  Can you squeeze anymore out of it?

 

I think a more realistic comparison would be with a 5820k or 6800k vice a 6700k.  You're single threaded performance comes a little closer to those chips, whereas the 6700k just dominates single threaded.  HWE and BWE chips pushed really hard will usually score in the 180's for single threaded Cinebench R15 and not get higher than the 190+ area.   The 6700k on the other hand is pretty awesome in this area.  I had a 6700k that hit 216cb on Cinebench R15 single threaded with a high overclock.

[arnavvr]

I don't have a single socket X58 board anymore, but I have an SR-2 and it flipping amazing @done12many2 Once I get my dual 6 cores and custom loop, I'd love to race you on R15. What does your 5960X get?

 

[done12many2]

1 minute ago, arnavvr said:

I don't have a single socket X58 board anymore, but I have an SR-2 and it flipping amazing @done12many2 Once I get my dual 6 cores and custom loop, I'd love to race you on R15. What does your 5960X get?

 

 

Sounds like fun bud.

 

Best I've managed to date is a 1968cb for multi core at just over 4.8 GHz.  When I run 4 cores at 5.0 GHz, I can get 200cb with single thread.  There's a little left to squeeze out of the multi core so we'll see.

 

It's getting to be that time to start refreshing all of my benchmarks, so get that dual 6 core up and running man!

[Emberstone]

11 minutes ago, done12many2 said:

 

Great to see old chips like these still delivering the goods.  Can you squeeze anymore out of it?

 

I think a more realistic comparison would be with a 5820k or 6800k vice a 6700k.  You're single threaded performance comes a little closer to those chips, whereas the 6700k just dominates single threaded.  HWE and BWE chips pushed really hard will usually score in the 180's for single threaded Cinebench R15 and not get higher than the 190+ area.   The 6700k on the other hand is pretty awesome in this area.  I had a 6700k that hit 216cb on Cinebench R15 single threaded with a high overclock.

I don't think I'm going to be squeezing any more out of my chip. I just wanted a modest overclock so I can play Heroes at 60 fps while not cooking my chip, and 4 GHz is plenty for that.

 

I went from 30 fps in teamfights to a solid 60+.

 

I'm not sure how a modest overclock like mine managed a doubled framerate in fights, but I sure as hell ain't complaining with the results. I love this processor.

[Intelfreak]

X58 is not to be taken lightly. Just because its old, the performence is still pretty great. I have a X58 i am very happy with. The only thing i want is a 6 core cpu in steed of my quad core i have now. Planning for to go on a hunt on ebay for at cheap 6 core I7/xeon cpu. I can say a I7 920 oc to 4 GHz+ can handle up to GTX 980 Ti/GTX 1070 with no problem and to some point GTX 1080 while in some games that would not give full use of at GTX 1080. Titan XP just forget it that will not be used properly on a X58 setup. But taken its age in counter it is stille very respectable it can handle a GPU up to GTX 1070. This is based on my own exspirience with a I7 920 and two GTX 970 in sli that in single gpu compares to a GTX 980 TI or GTx 1070 in performence.

 

Right now my system is:

I7 920 DO @ 4 GHz (but can 4.4 GHz stable, my cooling just cant keep up at that speed to keep it at safe temp. So for every day use it runs 4 GHz).

Asus rampage 2 extreme ROG motherboard

Corsair 12 GB DDR3 1600 MHz triple channel memory (6 x 2 GB config).

2 x Zotac GTX 970 in sli

two SSD for OS and games

and a bunds of HDD al from two WD velociraptors to a WD caviar black 1 TB drive.

Windows 10 PRO 64 bits.

 

Under here are some benchmarks of my system if that can be a help for others X58 users to compare.

 

 

[arnavvr]

7 hours ago, done12many2 said:

 

Sounds like fun bud.

 

Best I've managed to date is a 1968cb for multi core at just over 4.8 GHz.  When I run 4 cores at 5.0 GHz, I can get 200cb with single thread.  There's a little left to squeeze out of the multi core so we'll see.

 

It's getting to be that time to start refreshing all of my benchmarks, so get that dual 6 core up and running man!

3

Main Problem is heat, by overclocked 4 cores do 49c on IDLE.

[System Error Message]

i got a pair of xeon x5650s cheap. they are a common CPU but they support dual sockets. There is an evga board that is dual socket and can overclock and is the only server board able to overclock. Dual 6 core xeons overclocked to double frequency is amazing and this is what made the x58 platform good, the overclockability, the ability to tweak things. On close inspection things start to get unstable if you let the level 3 cache exceed level 2 cache speeds but i got my xeon's level 3 cache to be almost the same speed as the level 2 cache. There is a bus that effects this that is meant to stay 1.5x or 2x (depending on if its 45nm or less cpu).

 

the x58 chipset also has more PCIe lanes than newer iseries mainstream boards. They have tripple channel memory too.

 

the lga1366 is still capable for multicore stuff and the overclockability lets you still use it well.

 

The difference between pcie 2 and pcie 3 for a gtx 1080 is minimal. on the pcie 2 it is slightly slower (less than 1% slower).

[Sauron]

It should work fine with modern cards, you'd probably get a bit of a bottleneck but nothing too major. If you're looking into an upgrade the gpu certainly has priority over the cpu, but maybe I wouldn't go for a 1080 - more like a 1070.

[arnavvr]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

It should work fine with modern cards, you'd probably get a bit of a bottleneck but nothing too major. If you're looking into an upgrade the gpu certainly has priority over the cpu, but maybe I wouldn't go for a 1080 - more like a 1070.

 

There would be no bottleneck with a 4Ghz Overclock, at stock, of course they bottleneck the 1080.

[done12many2]

54 minutes ago, arnavvr said:

Main Problem is heat, by overclocked 4 cores do 49c on IDLE.

 

Damn.  That's a bit warm.

[arnavvr]

Just now, done12many2 said:

 

Damn.  That's a bit warm.

 

That why I need to finish building my custom loop- going to buy the XSPC 560 from ppcs for $76.

[done12many2]

Just now, arnavvr said:

That why I need to finish building my custom loop- going to buy the XSPC 560 from ppcs for $76.

 

That will definitely get it done.

 

Seems like idle voltage may be impacting your idle temps?

[arnavvr]

Just now, done12many2 said:

 

That will definitely get it done.

 

Seems like idle voltage may be impacting your idle temps?

 

Well X58 isn't like newer platforms- it keeps your CPU at 4GHz all the time at 1.35v

 

This is a picture of my SR-2: