General Intel HEDT Xeon/i7 Discussion

[Crunchy Dragon]

47 minutes ago, T3DDY14 said:

It's a nanoxia deep silence 6, it's a good case but can be quite expensive, although the high price £180-£200 it has excellent build quality and good airflow, another good case is a 900D I used one to store this server previously but it was damaged and didn't close properly, and it seems water-cooling ready and thanks

I love the 900D. Probably my dream case.

[T3DDY14]

4 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I love the 900D. Probably my dream case.

The 900D is a Very Very nice case, just the one i bought was damaged with the top part bent and the side panels werent able to close properly . as i was gonna make that my own system with a small matx system in it aswell but couldnt be botherd for the effort to fix it and then modify it

 

[Crunchy Dragon]

6 hours ago, T3DDY14 said:

The 900D is a Very Very nice case, just the one i bought was damaged with the top part bent and the side panels werent able to close properly . as i was gonna make that my own system with a small matx system in it aswell but couldnt be botherd for the effort to fix it and then modify it

The idea of double AIOs never occurred to me before, but goshDANG that's sexy

[T3DDY14]

2 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

The idea of double AIOs never occurred to me before, but goshDANG that's sexy

I would have kept both wood in the system if first one didn't have a broken pump and second if the board didn't die

Has some dodgey memory error which makes it not post 

[Skunch]

Okay people, I need some opinions!!!

Due to the these delicate financial times, I have decided to sell my hardware on ebay. I've sold almost all of my x58 motherboards except for these 3:

 

EVGA X58 SLI LE 141-BL-E757-TR

Gigabyte X58A-UD3R

Asus Rampage III Formula (current gaming PC)

 

My friend gave me his old audio workstation with the evga board, the gigabyte was my first X58 board, and I was given the asus board by a local repair shop who told me it was dead. It booted up as soon as I tested it and has been running for years.

 

I know the rampage would fetch a higher price than either of the other boards, so I'm thinking about moving over to the evga board and selling the asus. I cant use the the gigabyte because it doesnt support NVME boot. Does anyone know if the EVGA X58 SLI LE 141-BL-E757-TR plays nice with a samsung 950 pro? The other thing I'm concerned about with the evga board is the QPI and south bridge cooling. I know x58 runs hot, and the asus has finned heat sinks that I've screwed fans onto, so things stay at a respectable temperature. But I would be able to do that with the evga.

 

I would like to run a stable overclock on my 980X before i upgrade to a modern system (not sure when), does the evga seem like a decent board to hold out on? I'm going to test the nvme compatibility this week, so if I can confirm it works, I'm probably going to sell the asus board fast, as high end skus on x58 sell well online.

 

Any opinions and questions are welcome! Thanks people!

[Crunchy Dragon]

12 hours ago, Skunch said:

I know the rampage would fetch a higher price than either of the other boards, so I'm thinking about moving over to the evga board

That's actually pretty debatable. All of the EVGA boards I've seen on the X58 platform have cost a fair bit, even if they're listed as for parts/not working.

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

That's actually pretty debatable. All of the EVGA boards I've seen on the X58 platform have cost a fair bit, even if they're listed as for parts/not working.

This is one of the lowest end boards EVGA made vs the highest end one ASUS made though. That + being listed for a lot doesn't mean they sell quickly at that price. 

I'd compare all the boards tbh. I've heard good things about Gigabyte's boards for this gen, the Rampage series is amazing, and EVGA's boards are solid. The Classifieds I have absolutely kick ass, but they have a worse BIOS than the ASUS ones, so depending on how much time you spend in there, that may be a consideration. IIRC that specific gigabyte board is one that some lads here have used on LN2 for some nutty clocks, so it's no slouch either. I'd personally keep the ASUS board since it'll be the nicest user experience, but I guess it depends on how much money you want and which you think will fetch the most. 

[Skunch]

7 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

That's actually pretty debatable. All of the EVGA boards I've seen on the X58 platform have cost a fair bit, even if they're listed as for parts/not working.

You may be right about some evga skus, but what I have is one of the lowest end models. Same with the gigabyte, and the were both ~$200 boards when new. Used rampage iii formulas are going for ~300 on ebay, and the evga and gigabyte boards are getting no attention

 

7 hours ago, Zando Bob said:

This is one of the lowest end boards EVGA made vs the highest end one ASUS made though. That + being listed for a lot doesn't mean they sell quickly at that price. 

I'd compare all the boards tbh. I've heard good things about Gigabyte's boards for this gen, the Rampage series is amazing, and EVGA's boards are solid. The Classifieds I have absolutely kick ass, but they have a worse BIOS than the ASUS ones, so depending on how much time you spend in there, that may be a consideration. IIRC that specific gigabyte board is one that some lads here have used on LN2 for some nutty clocks, so it's no slouch either. I'd personally keep the ASUS board since it'll be the nicest user experience, but I guess it depends on how much money you want and which you think will fetch the most. 

I like the asus, I'm just wondering if it's worth holding onto if I'm not taking advantage of all the bios functions. I also find it to be super finicky with any setting pertaining to ram and clock speed settings. I dont know much about overclocking in general, but simply swapping ram sticks on default settings is enough to make the system boot loop. It's fully stable now, but everything is at stock speeds.

[Zando_]

13 hours ago, Skunch said:

I like the asus, I'm just wondering if it's worth holding onto if I'm not taking advantage of all the bios functions. I also find it to be super finicky with any setting pertaining to ram and clock speed settings. I dont know much about overclocking in general, but simply swapping ram sticks on default settings is enough to make the system boot loop. It's fully stable now, but everything is at stock speeds.

OG i7 IMCs can often be worse than the X56xx series Xeons (Gulftown vs Westmere-EP). If your RAM is much higher than 1333-1600 you could have some funkiness. I've pushed my 1600MHz CL9 8GB DIMMs to around 2100 CL10, but that's on a Westmere-EP Xeon and pushing manual settings. 

This platform in general is often finicky, best bet is to forget all other clocks and find the highest stable BCLK possible, then start figuring out the CPU and RAM clocks. Otherwise it very quickly becomes a big ole fustercluck. 

Quick and dirty guide on that from @bimmerman: "I'd recommend turning the mults down to something silly low while you bench test your bclk and voltages, if you want to raise them. I like going through each 'group' individually-- low cpu mult (like, 10x), low mem mult (6 or 8x), each with decent volts, then raising BCLK in steps of 10 then bench then adjust voltages. Once you get to the 1.4 ish V range then that's where you're at, but you can fall into 'bclk holes' where more volts don't do anything but much more freq adds stability. Then focus on memory mult-- leave bclk voltage where you found it but dial it back to stock, key in the mem mult for your eventual desired setting (eg, 200bclk * 10x mem = 2000 mem speed), whatever volts you think it'll run at, then step bclk back to that already tested speed. Then, dial back down, key in a CPU mult you want to run (eg 23) and step up bclk, adjusting cpu volts each time for stability."

Relevant safe voltages for 32nm chips (from this guide: https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/overclocking-the-x58-a-practical-guide.108526/

Spoiler

Common voltages (32nm Westmere)

• VCore - directly related to the CPU frequency. Chances are if the cpu frequency doesn't change then this does not need to be changed. "Safe" for overclocking voltages range from 0.9-1.4V (intel spec).
• QPI voltage/CPU vtt- Any change in CPU frequency for 32nm chips. If you change the BCLK, the memory frequency will change. This voltage also affects the uncore stability indirectly. "Safe" for overclocking voltages range from 1.1-1.4V (intel spec). ***CAUTION*** Raising the vtt beyond 1.35V has shown to damage 32nm based chips. This observation was made by a number of overclockers, and the information is to be used as a measure of caution. If you're approaching the intel spec MAX for this voltage then you are getting dangerously close to causing damage. Approaching the maximum or going beyond would not be advised unless someone is benching with sub-zero cooling for some time under 24 hours.
• IOH Core Voltage- Different than IOH PLL, and more important! This observation will be explained later. The catcher.
• ICH Core Voltage- Not important.
• Core pll- Signal strength of the CPU. At higher core voltages/frequencies the Core pll can be reduced below spec to enhance stability.
• IOH pll- Think of this like the catcher's pitching strength. The catcher (IOH) needs to catch, not pitch so much.
• QPI pll- The pitcher's pitch! When you are reaching (within .5GHz) the physical limit of the QPI clock for your chip this is usually a culprit for stability. At a max of 1.5V (DON'T GO HIGHER) some stubborn chips and boards can reach high BCLK OCs. The IOH Core Voltage needs to be = to the QPI pll voltage for best results. The two voltages should be the same at stock 1.1V or something like that. If they are not the same then do not change them because your bios probably has them named differently.
• CPU pll- This voltage is overlooked for 45nm chips mostly because it is not an issue when overclocking. For 32nm chips the maximum voltage is 2V, and slight increases above the automatic setting of 1.8V may increase stability.

[Skunch]

On 5/19/2020 at 7:33 AM, Zando Bob said:

OG i7 IMCs can often be worse than the X56xx series Xeons (Gulftown vs Westmere-EP). If your RAM is much higher than 1333-1600 you could have some funkiness. I've pushed my 1600MHz CL9 8GB DIMMs to around 2100 CL10, but that's on a Westmere-EP Xeon and pushing manual settings. 

This platform in general is often finicky, best bet is to forget all other clocks and find the highest stable BCLK possible, then start figuring out the CPU and RAM clocks. Otherwise it very quickly becomes a big ole fustercluck. 

Quick and dirty guide on that from @bimmerman: "I'd recommend turning the mults down to something silly low while you bench test your bclk and voltages, if you want to raise them. I like going through each 'group' individually-- low cpu mult (like, 10x), low mem mult (6 or 8x), each with decent volts, then raising BCLK in steps of 10 then bench then adjust voltages. Once you get to the 1.4 ish V range then that's where you're at, but you can fall into 'bclk holes' where more volts don't do anything but much more freq adds stability. Then focus on memory mult-- leave bclk voltage where you found it but dial it back to stock, key in the mem mult for your eventual desired setting (eg, 200bclk * 10x mem = 2000 mem speed), whatever volts you think it'll run at, then step bclk back to that already tested speed. Then, dial back down, key in a CPU mult you want to run (eg 23) and step up bclk, adjusting cpu volts each time for stability."

Relevant safe voltages for 32nm chips (from this guide: https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/overclocking-the-x58-a-practical-guide.108526/

  Reveal hidden contents

Common voltages (32nm Westmere)

• VCore - directly related to the CPU frequency. Chances are if the cpu frequency doesn't change then this does not need to be changed. "Safe" for overclocking voltages range from 0.9-1.4V (intel spec).
• QPI voltage/CPU vtt- Any change in CPU frequency for 32nm chips. If you change the BCLK, the memory frequency will change. This voltage also affects the uncore stability indirectly. "Safe" for overclocking voltages range from 1.1-1.4V (intel spec). ***CAUTION*** Raising the vtt beyond 1.35V has shown to damage 32nm based chips. This observation was made by a number of overclockers, and the information is to be used as a measure of caution. If you're approaching the intel spec MAX for this voltage then you are getting dangerously close to causing damage. Approaching the maximum or going beyond would not be advised unless someone is benching with sub-zero cooling for some time under 24 hours.
• IOH Core Voltage- Different than IOH PLL, and more important! This observation will be explained later. The catcher.
• ICH Core Voltage- Not important.
• Core pll- Signal strength of the CPU. At higher core voltages/frequencies the Core pll can be reduced below spec to enhance stability.
• IOH pll- Think of this like the catcher's pitching strength. The catcher (IOH) needs to catch, not pitch so much.
• QPI pll- The pitcher's pitch! When you are reaching (within .5GHz) the physical limit of the QPI clock for your chip this is usually a culprit for stability. At a max of 1.5V (DON'T GO HIGHER) some stubborn chips and boards can reach high BCLK OCs. The IOH Core Voltage needs to be = to the QPI pll voltage for best results. The two voltages should be the same at stock 1.1V or something like that. If they are not the same then do not change them because your bios probably has them named differently.
• CPU pll- This voltage is overlooked for 45nm chips mostly because it is not an issue when overclocking. For 32nm chips the maximum voltage is 2V, and slight increases above the automatic setting of 1.8V may increase stability.

hey thanks, that's some good advice! I've got an X5690, but it would lock my memory speed at 1333mhz.

[Zando_]

29 minutes ago, Skunch said:

hey thanks, that's some good advice! I've got an X5690, but it would lock my memory speed at 1333mhz.

Not on an X58 board, they OC same as the i7s do, both core and RAM. Some have a core multi cap but heavy OCing on X58 is done via BCLK and multis are just for balancing, so that's not really an issue. 

[Skunch]

4 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Not on an X58 board, they OC same as the i7s do, both core and RAM. Some have a core multi cap but heavy OCing on X58 is done via BCLK and multis are just for balancing, so that's not really an issue. 

huh, that's odd, because I put the 5690 into the rampage, I've got 24gb of 1600mhz  ram, and it reports as 1333mhz when I boot. Attempts to change the speed do nothing. The 980X will let me change ram speed, but I'm shitty at ram overclocks, so it fails to post.

[Zando_]

32 minutes ago, Skunch said:

huh, that's odd, because I put the 5690 into the rampage, I've got 24gb of 1600mhz  ram, and it reports as 1333mhz when I boot. Attempts to change the speed do nothing. The 980X will let me change ram speed, but I'm shitty at ram overclocks, so it fails to post.

That's strange.. what settings are you changing to tell the RAM to go faster? 

[the pudding]

I'm back, I did a thing >:3

 

I got a corker of a deal on a used dell precision T7600, £400 delivered for the following, pair of xeon E5 2643's, 256gb ssd,1300w psu, decent ish raid card, 128gb of 1600MHz reg ecc ddr3, few optical drives, just had to chuck in my 480 and a 500gb raptor i had knocking around and jobs a good en, upgrade plans coming next month are the upgrade to a pair of E5 2690's and I'll have storage in the form of 5 2tb sas 7.2k drives in the next week or so

[X-System]

I see @Den-Fi and @The Blackhat made nice picture of its CPU.

 

I want to do too, can I ?

 

[X-System]

HEDT in other category : Intel Itanium 2 (HP had built workstations with Intel Itanium 2)

 

 

 

Intel Itanium 2 can to execute four double precision per cycle and eight single precision per cycle. For comparison, in the same year, Intel Xeon Netburst and AMD Opteron K8 can to execute two double precision per cycle and four single precision per cycle (and one double precision & four single precision for Pentium III). It means Intel Itanium 2 is two time faster than Xeon Netburst and Opteron K8 at the same frequency.

 

The CPU in my picture is 900 MHz version. It can to execute 3.6 GFLOPS FP64 and 7.2 GFLOPS FP32 (and for fun, Pentium III 900 MHz, release in oct. 2000 = 0.9 GFLOPS FP64 & 3.6 GFLOPS FP32)

[the pudding]

niiiiiice, managed to grab a pair of E5 2687W's for £150 (only about a tenner more than what a pair of 2690s would set me back), pretty chuffed with that 

[X-System]

17 minutes ago, the pudding said:

niiiiiice, managed to grab a pair of E5 2687W's for £150 (only about a tenner more than what a pair of 2690s would set me back), pretty chuffed with that 

E5-2687W a few more GHz in all cores turbo mode than E5-2690

 

And E5-2687W is higher in frequency base.

 

That why E5-2687W is hotter than E5-2690

[the pudding]

8 minutes ago, X-System said:

E5-2687W a few more GHz in all cores turbo mode than E5-2690

 

And E5-2687W is higher in frequency base.

 

That why E5-2687W is hotter than E5-2690

yeah they're toasty chips but i can be happy now knowing that this thing is as maxed out as it can be cpu wise  cooling is a worry though so i may end up actually getting a different board and running as a custom build rather than the dell system when i get paid in a few weeks 

[X-System]

My wish is to have a pair of E5-2689 v4 for to replace my pair of E5-2667 v3. It's better than E5-2687W v4 for me.

 

E5-2687W v4 is 12-core with 3.2 GHz all cores turbo mode but E5-2689 v4 is 10-core with 3.7 GHz all cores turbo mode (165W TDP  )

 

But it still very expensive in used (about 2000 € per CPU on eBay)

[the pudding]

6 minutes ago, X-System said:

My wish is to have a pair of E5-2689 v4 for to replace my pair of E5-2667 v3. It's better than E5-2687W v4 for me.

 

E5-2687W v4 is 12-core with 3.2 GHz all cores turbo mode but E5-2689 v4 is 10-core with 3.7 GHz all cores turbo mode (165W TDP  )

 

But it still very expensive in used (about 2000 € per CPU on eBay)

oh whew, yeah those things are silly, and yeah the V4 stuff is still somewhat recent as far as xeon stuff goes so they're hella steep unfortunately  

[X-System]

6 minutes ago, the pudding said:

yeah they're toasty chips but i can be happy now knowing that this thing is as maxed out as it can be cpu wise  cooling is a worry though so i may end up actually getting a different board and running as a custom build rather than the dell system when i get paid in a few weeks 

I use Intel heatsink BXSTS200C 150W. It's enough good.

 

It costs about $65 unit on eBay.

 

You must to check if the LxW holes of your DELL are 80 mm x 80 mm (it's standard size)

[the pudding]

12 minutes ago, X-System said:

I use Intel heatsink BXSTS200C 150W. It's enough good.

 

It costs about $65 unit on eBay.

 

You must to check if the LxW holes of your DELL are 80 mm x 80 mm (it's standard size)

Honestly if i could change them easily i'd just use a pair of those noctua 4U things, the hole spacing is standard but they don't have the M4 threaded parts on the ILM like most 2011 socket boards, they just have a through hole and screw into the case, but i was planning on upgrading to a proper dual 2011 board anyways and then using the T7600 to upgrade my pc at the other halves or something, though there are guides to show how to fit normal coolers in, for the most part though it's wiring since they get arsey about fans with the dell stuff, replacing the ILM itself isn't so hard 

[X-System]

6 minutes ago, the pudding said:

Honestly if i could change them easily i'd just use a pair of those noctua 4U things, the hole spacing is standard but they don't have the M4 threaded parts on the ILM like most 2011 socket boards, they just have a through hole and screw into the case, but i was planning on upgrading to a proper dual 2011 board anyways and then using the T7600 to upgrade my pc at the other halves or something, though there are guides to show how to fit normal coolers in, for the most part though it's wiring since they get arsey about fans with the dell stuff, replacing the ILM itself isn't so hard 

Damn proprietary

[the pudding]

9 minutes ago, X-System said:

Damn proprietary

Yeah, big shame, but not to worry, I have a friend that has an old intel dual 2011 board he'll do me cheap so all's good, just need coolers then, pair of 212 evo's or something and I'm off to the races