ASRock did it: BCLK OC the Xeon E3-1230v5

[maxtch]

So this is official then, ASRock Fatal1ty E3V5 Performance Gaming OC, the first C232 motherboard capable of BCLK overclocking a Xeon E3-1230v5 or E3-1220v5, using a separate chip to generate the BCLK signal independent of the PCH. SetFSB is back.

Now it is all down to platform costs. If this board is priced not too expensive from Z170 offers, it can result in a good chunk of overclockers and home users in general to choose this platform.

If LTT ever managed to get this board, I would really like to see two comparisons between i5-6600K versus E3-1220v5 and i7-6700K versus E3-1230v5 overclocks as well as the much needed Xeon overclock guide.

[Jumper118]

30 minutes ago, maxtch said:

So this is official then, ASRock Fatal1ty E3V5 Performance Gaming OC, the first C232 motherboard capable of BCLK overclocking a Xeon E3-1230v5 or E3-1220v5, using a separate chip to generate the BCLK signal independent of the PCH. SetFSB is back.

Now it is all down to platform costs. If this board is priced not too expensive from Z170 offers, it can result in a good chunk of overclockers and home users in general to choose this platform.

If LTT ever managed to get this board, I would really like to see two comparisons between i5-6600K versus E3-1220v5 and i7-6700K versus E3-1230v5 overclocks as well as the much needed Xeon overclock guide.

why do that when you can oc the i5 6400 or the none k 6700 on a z170 board? 

[gadgetguy99]

1 hour ago, Jumper118 said:

why do that when you can oc the i5 6400 or the none k 6700 on a z170 board? 

xeons are binned so you know that youre going to get a good one plus no onboard gpu

[johnny5c]

4 minutes ago, gadgetguy99 said:

xeons are binned so you know that youre going to get a good one plus no onboard gpu

Plus the E3-1230v5 is currently $60 less than the i7 6700 so should be a good choice for people on a budget as long as the board is reasonably priced.

[MageTank]

3 minutes ago, gadgetguy99 said:

xeons are binned so you know that youre going to get a good one plus no onboard gpu

They are binned for low leakage, like the T SKU's. This does not mean they are great overclockers. I have a 6600T and its leakage is next to none, but it is still voltage hungry. It took me 1.35v to make 4.32ghz stable. That being said, It appears to tolerate this voltage a lot better than normal SKU's, as heat scaling is not that brutal on these large voltage increases. 

However. My 6600T has a wall. It cannot go beyond 4.5ghz without dangerous levels of VCCSA. It could be bad luck, maybe I got a bad bin, who knows? Not like there is anyone else buying 6600T's and testing them like me. However, I do not see these Xeons being good overclockers just because they are Xeons. Like every other SKU, there will be good and bad bins. Even Xeons will suffer from this. A xeon can have low voltage leaking and be able to hit its rated speed just fine, but as soon as it is overclocked, it might not hold up as well.

[Imakuni]

Yeah, we can BCLK OC... but can these non-z170 mobos adjust voltages freely? If they can't, might as well consider it non-OCable.

[maxtch]

2 hours ago, Imakuni said:

Yeah, we can BCLK OC... but can these non-z170 mobos adjust voltages freely? If they can't, might as well consider it non-OCable.

A fixed "force 1.35V" will cover 80% overclockers. And hey they already got external BCLK generator adding a VRM controlling unit would be more or less trivial.

[runit3]

1 hour ago, maxtch said:

A fixed "force 1.35V" will cover 80% overclockers. And hey they already got external BCLK generator adding a VRM controlling unit would be more or less trivial.

On Haswell, yes. Not on Skylake. ~1.4-1.45v seems to be the magical number for most locked SKU's getting up in the 4.5GHz area.

[maxtch]

1 hour ago, runit3 said:

On Haswell, yes. Not on Skylake. ~1.4-1.45v seems to be the magical number for most locked SKU's getting up in the 4.5GHz area.

So an "Auto" and a "1.45V" options for core voltage at minimum then.