overclocking xeon on x58

[Brockm]

Post them specs and oc setups!

Im getting 4.4ghz on a x5650 with 1.6v. Thats alot I know, but this Asus supercomputer mobo with the ov jumped enabled goes to 1.9v!
been running it for a bit and so far so stable! happy with my 14$ 6c/12t cpu! 

[Snipergod87]

1.6v? thats rather insane, for long time use i would't go over 1.4v

[Brockm]

Just now, Snipergod87 said:

1.6v? thats rather insane, for long time use i would't go over 1.4v

Like I said this board is designed for high voltage

[XR6]

Just now, Snipergod87 said:

1.6v? thats rather insane, for long time use i would't go over 1.4v

Yep. Just because you can do 1.6v doesn't always mean you should. 

But as long as the OC is stable, I see no issue with 1.6v.

[Slayer3032]

1.6v is definitely way way way too much for 4.4ghz, Intel spec is 1.35 for the QPI/VTT and vcore. I didn't even need 1.5v to boot at 5ghz for a cpu-z validation on my X5675.

 

The IMC is known for degrading if you exceed 1.35v on the QPI and is highly not recommended for daily use. I run 23x200(4.6ghz) at 1.4v stable and I used to run almost as low as 1.375v, most of those jumpers will never need to be used unless you're using going to like LN2 anyways. You definitely have the capacity to hurt the cpu long before hitting the stock bios limits.

 

There's a fairly large thread around for X58 and xeons, there's a ton of good info in there and a few members do some really awesome stuff ranging from dry ice overclocking to acquiring cool old hardware like the EVGA SR2.

 

 

[Brockm]

So I couldnt get passed 3.6ghz with 1.4v It is a used boarded and chip. could just been worn out? 

[Brockm]

I mean its a 14$ cpu. so I dont expect for long term use. Its staying cool at 60c under full load 

[Jurrunio]

7 minutes ago, Brockm said:

Like I said this board is designed for high voltage

This board is designed to run high voltage that will kill CPUs before you can say no, all boards are like this to varying extent.

[XR6]

9 minutes ago, Brockm said:

Like I said this board is designed for high voltage

That doesn't mean the CPU is designed for that though.

Again, just because you can do things doesn't mean you should  

 

[Slayer3032]

It's possible it could be a dud, sometimes you'll just encounter base clock holes or multipliers that the cpu just doesn't like. I've always seemed to have decent luck getting fairly round numbers but my X5660 didn't like more than 191x23 and my X5675 doesn't like more than 200x23, I can add upto 1.5v and they don't become any more stable any higher. Unfortunately that's the problem with these xeons is that you don't have full control over the multiplier to be able to work around frequencies so all of your multipliers can be tweaked.

 

I needed just over 1.2v to reach 4ghz and the stock voltage for a stock westmere at 3.6ghz definitely doesn't exceed 1.2v AFAIK. 60c sounds really suspicious at 1.6v, I hit like 90c by 1.45v and I'm probably sucking down like 250w by then. I'm curious if you're actually getting your full voltages and speeds.

 

If you want to buy another really cheap cpu to test with, the E5649 goes for next to nothing and it's a later production cpu so I'd imagine it's probably binned better than X5650's. The multipliers kinda suck though but 4.4ghz should be easy. It's hard to not recommend just dropping $25 on a X5675 though since those are the safest bet for the most performance.

 

The supercomputer really isn't an overclocking board though, it's an enthusiast workstation board for slamming a bunch of video cards into. The power delivery great but there's definitely far better boards for overclocking. The NF200 chips also reduce performance a little bit compared to a standard board, HardOCP found like a 2-3% decrease in performance in most games because of them. I nearly picked one up second hand though just because it's a much nicer board than I'm currently using. I just couldn't justify spending money for mostly atheistics that could maybe decrease my performance.

[Brockm]

Just now, Slayer3032 said:

It's possible it could be a dud, sometimes you'll just encounter like base clock holes or multipliers that the cpu just doesn't like though. Unfortunately that's the problem with these xeons is that you don't have full control over the multiplier to be able to work around frequencies so all of your multipliers can be tweaked.

 

I needed just over 1.2v to reach 4ghz and the stock voltage for a stock westmere at 3.6ghz definitely doesn't exceed 1.2v AFAIK. 60c sounds really suspicious at 1.6v, I hit like 90c by 1.45v and I'm probably sucking down like 250w by then.

 

If you want to buy another really cheap cpu to test with, the E5649 goes for next to nothing and it's a later production cpu so I'd imagine it's probably binned better than X5650's. The multipliers kinda suck though but 4.4ghz should be easy.

 

The supercomputer really isn't an overclocking board though, it's an enthusiast workstation board for slamming a bunch of video cards into. The power delivery great but there's definitely far better boards for overclocking. The NF200 chips also reduce performance a little bit compared to a standard board, HardOCP found like a 2-3% decrease in performance in most games because of them. I nearly picked one up second hand though just because it's a much nicer board than I'm currently using. I just couldn't justify spending money for mostly atheistics that could maybe decrease my performance.

Thank you very much for the useful info! dually noted! yea I got the board on ebay for 110$. for x58 it was the cheapest I could find that wasnt the cheap china brand boards. Im running evga 360 AIO with 6 3000 rpm fans on it all pull air in. Ill post some screen shots in a bit.

[Slayer3032]

$110 for a P6T Supercomputer is an absolute steal, that's a lot of cooling for these old cpus, I'm using an NH-D14 which isn no slouch but it's definitely not a top end AIO or custom loop.

 

I'd definitely just reroll on a X5675 since with that cooler your build isn't like a highly budget constrained build, some X5650's pull some insane numbers but that's surely the minority. There's tons of people in the X58 thread who break 1000 in Cinebench, I'm around 1051cb with the settings I'm running now on the ram and Uncore. There's also a bunch of people with NVMe's, 1080Ti's and even some RTX cards with benchmarks at least. There's tons of potential to be unlocked with that board, people have found really cost effective methods of using Sata 3 raid cards to replace the junk Marvell Sata 3 controllers which were added to many X58 boards which perform worse than the Intel chipset Sata 2.

 

Since benchmarks are always fun.

[Ground]

These CPUs degrade really quickly at voltages that high, it doesn't matter that the board is able to supply said voltage. I've tested it myself with a properly cooled Xeon and it only took 3 days for noticeable degradation to appear at 1.55V. My daily CPU can do 4.5 at 1.35V, but the best one I've had myself was an E5620 that did some benches at 4.7/1.3V, but that one is kind of a unicorn.