Unlocking max turbo bins of Xeons on X99?1

geok1ng

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There is a new wave of Xeon overclocking, this time using haswell xeons on X99 mobos. I guess that someone [H]ere has done it, and i would like to ask what mobos are more suited for this hack and what xeons offer better pricexperformnace for this OC.

Sources:

http://www.overclock.net/t/1596519/...bile-i7-4xxxmq-hq-to-i7-extreme-conversion/10

http://www.overclock.net/t/1591590/xeon-hacking-and-overclocking-x79-x99-beyond-x58/1050

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/what-controls-turbo-core-in-xeons.2496647/page-3

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/what-controls-turbo-core-in-xeons.2496647/page-5

http://www.overclock.net/t/1596519/...-mobile-i7-4xxxmq-hq-to-i7-extreme-conversion

A picture to wet our dreams:

win7_all_core_turbo.png
 
Will be attempting when my 2683 comes in, albeit on a C612 board. Will report back.
 
Asrock boards are the easiest, but I think that's mainly because the original thread used one. You need a retail Xeon to have any significant turbo; the 2683V3 seems to be a no-brainer right now given its high-ish turbo (30x) and low price ($350) relative to the other SKU's. 2686V3's are a better choice performance-wise, but they are somewhat scarce (I only see two on eBay right now, neither of which are full retail parts, merely QS'es).
It's not as exciting as it seems; 2683 V3's have an all-core Turbo of 25x (which is pretty much sustained under all workloads), so you actually only get a 20% OC, and 3GHz is not really fast enough for gaming. 2686V3's are a bit more exciting; as I recall you lose 5 bins under full load on the 18c parts, and 30x on a stock 23x processor is not too shabby.
 
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most of those Xeons offer better price performance than a Ryzen 1700...

I curious: why this hack is not described on the EVGA SR-X, a dual socket mobo?
 
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I did it with my main system 12-core Xeon E5-2690v3 on an ASRock Extreme 6 x99 motherboard 64Gb RAM 980GTX videocard. 3.5Ghz on all cores under full load (3.6ish with pushing the clock to 103) . Was very easy with the ASRock motherboard. Not as fast a pure game system as my OC'd 4790K, but since I rarely game anymore (just aint got the time), it's VERY much more smooth multitasking and useful for everything else I do. The boosted Xeon can still game, it just won't throw out the big benchmark FPS numbers of the 4790K and same video card..

32587152281_587aa3e935_c.jpg
 
I was pretty set on Ryzen and considering upgrading either now or waiting until Naples came out. Now I'm thinking this might be cheaper and better performance for heavy workloads/multitasking.
 
I was able to find UBU and modify my BIOS :)
Everything was pretty easy following the steps on page 3 of the post at Anandtech
Read over the instructions by Dufus and then follow the instructions by someEEguy

Asrock X99 Professional Gaming
E5-2695 V3 ES/QS 306F2

Before Changes:

xp96is.jpg


After Changes:

mj8rp5.jpg
 
As far as I know it only works on the Haswell-E versions due to a bug or something in the microcode
 
IIRC all but the latest version of E5-1650 can have their multiplier changed out of the box without modifications, and some E5-2xxx series as well. This applied to the E5-1680 as well.
 
IIRC all but the latest version of E5-1650 can have their multiplier changed out of the box without modifications, and some E5-2xxx series as well. This applied to the E5-1680 as well.

There were NO E5-2600 series chips that were unlocked...only the E5-1600 V1-V3.
 
Does anyone know for sure if you can get full speed with this tweak at 100% on the 18 core chips? Or does it fall back to 3.0Ghz? I'm about to knab a couple inexpensive used ones but will just get the 14 core chips if the 18 core models don't do the 3.5 or 3.8 at 100% load.
 
Does anyone know for sure if you can get full speed with this tweak at 100% on the 18 core chips? Or does it fall back to 3.0Ghz? I'm about to knab a couple inexpensive used ones but will just get the 14 core chips if the 18 core models don't do the 3.5 or 3.8 at 100% load.

If they are not engineering samples they should run at 3.5GHZ all core I believe. Some people are disabling some cores to get a higher all core, but that kind of defeats the purpose. Where are you getting inexpensive used ones?
Also check the thread, there have been some developments and now instead of running the efi files they are building bioses with the old microcode built in to make it super easy. My 2683 has been running at 3GHz all core for months now.
 
Question.

Does the proc operate at full turbo all the time now, or does it just all-core to the max turbo ratio when under load?
 
Question.

Does the proc operate at full turbo all the time now, or does it just all-core to the max turbo ratio when under load?

You can keep speed step on so it only does max turbo under load.

On a side note, I just ordered an e5-2696 that with two cores disabled should run at 3.8ghz all core...
 
Any update in this space on which Xeon's are the cherry targets for X99 motherboard owners? (which a chance to overclock?)
 
which Xeon's are the cherry targets for X99 motherboard owners

I'm currently running E5-4669 v3 (18C/36T) on Asrock X99M killer motherboard to support our [H] team in the current Formula BOINC sprint event. Since I'm running my rig pretty much 24/7, the 4669v3 is quite power efficient since it has lower clock speed, hence lower core voltage needed. Currently running around 0.8235V. For DCing, I'll go for higher core count at decent clock speed.


upload_2018-4-7_17-21-2.png
 
Just curious. Looking at the prices on eBay - are you guys getting these cheap using work / connections? For the prices I'm seeing, it's cheaper to just buy / build a whole new threadripper system, instead of upgrading my x99 setup.
 
I got my E5-4699v3 from ebay for $500ish. Note this is a QS as shown in my earlier screenshot but it performs the same as OEM.
 
So you can essentially run the CPUs at their max single core boost over all the cores?
 
So you can essentially run the CPUs at their max single core boost over all the cores?

Depends on the number of cores. On my original 12 core, I could run all 12 at full normally-single core speed (x35 max turbo). On my replacement e5-2699 V3 18 core (x36 max turbo) I cannot. Once you go over a certain number of cores,14+ core counts simply draw too much power (not even a heat thing, just a power draw limit thing inherent in Xeons) and it starts throttling back the turbo. That's why some people simply disable some of the cores all the time so those cores aren't pulling power. I don't disable cores on my 18 core because while it won't run all of them at full turbo, it does constantly run most of them at full turbo (x36 in my case and a 105BCLK for 3.78Ghz) and since I don't actually need that many cores, it's plenty powerful. Running something like a benchmark that loads all 18 cores at once, mine drops to x30 or x31. Running something on all the cores that also includes AVX instructions, it will drop down to x27ish.

The power issue is why there are custom BIOS versions with -50mV, -70mV, etc lower internal power offsets so you start at a lower power to get more headroom at the top, but like any type of overclocking, it's dependent on whether your particular chip will work at at the lower offset voltages to fool the processor into thinking it is drawing less when all the cores are working and keep the max turbo multiple higher.
 
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Depends on the number of cores. On my original 12 core, I could run all 12 at full normally-single core speed (x35 max turbo). On my replacement e5-2699 V3 18 core (x36 max turbo) I cannot. Once you go over a certain number of cores,14+ core counts simply draw too much power (not even a heat thing, just a power draw limit thing inherent in Xeons) and it starts throttling back the turbo. That's why some people simply disable some of the cores all the time so those cores aren't pulling power. I don't disable cores on my 18 core because while it won't run all of them at full turbo, it does constantly run most of them at full turbo (x36 in my case and a 105BCLK for 3.78Ghz) and since I don't actually need that many cores, it's plenty powerful. Running something like a benchmark that loads all 18 cores at once, mine drops to x30 or x31. Running something on all the cores that also includes AVX instructions, it will drop down to x27ish.

The power issue is why there are custom BIOS versions with -50mV, -70mV, etc lower internal power offsets so you start at a lower power to get more headroom at the top, but like any type of overclocking, it's dependent on whether your particular chip will work at at the lower offset voltages to fool the processor into thinking it is drawing less when all the cores are working and keep the max turbo multiple higher.
So would a 2697v3 stay at Max turbo? I'm currently running a 5960x at 4.3 and it's not cutting it for gaming and streaming so I'm looking for something more powerful. If I got the 2697 I could keep the same board, but I want to make sure it's enough power. The other option is 7940x, but that's a platform upgrade as well.
 
So would a 2697v3 stay at Max turbo? I'm currently running a 5960x at 4.3 and it's not cutting it for gaming and streaming so I'm looking for something more powerful. If I got the 2697 I could keep the same board, but I want to make sure it's enough power. The other option is 7940x, but that's a platform upgrade as well.

How is a 5960x at a 4.3GHz not cutting it for gaming and streaming?

What video card are you using? If a 970 (in your profile?) then that's your next stop rather than a CPU refresh.

Look at post 5 here for reference:

https://hardforum.com/threads/i-made-a-mistake-going-x99-2011-v3.1957742/#post-1043564008
 
So would a 2697v3 stay at Max turbo? I'm currently running a 5960x at 4.3 and it's not cutting it for gaming and streaming so I'm looking for something more powerful. If I got the 2697 I could keep the same board, but I want to make sure it's enough power. The other option is 7940x, but that's a platform upgrade as well.

I don't really see a reason to get a 2697V3 over a Threadripper for a single-socket setup; with the latest round of price drops a 1950X + motherboard costs the same as a 2697V3, but you get a newer platform and officially-supported overclocking, as opposed to a 4-year old platform and an overclocking process which involves deleting Windows files and loading a buggy microcode.

Right now, the only reason I see to run a V3 Xeon on a 1P board is if you have an X99E-ITX; TR is not available on ITX due to the size of the socket, and getting high core count i9's is a costly proposition. It'll change once the V3 Xeon machines are decommissioned and eBay gets flooded with $200 Xeons, but right now Threadripper is a better value proposition.
 
So would a 2697v3 stay at Max turbo? I'm currently running a 5960x at 4.3 and it's not cutting it for gaming and streaming so I'm looking for something more powerful. If I got the 2697 I could keep the same board, but I want to make sure it's enough power. The other option is 7940x, but that's a platform upgrade as well.

Maxing the Xeon is not a typical easy overclock unless you have a board that someone has swapped out the microcode of the flashable BIOS. If not, you're going to be booting off a USB stick each boot. As to that particular 14 core CPU being able to stay maxed, I don't know. i had a 12 core and now a 18. I don't know how the ones between do.

I would agree with bwang in that unless you get the parts really cheap or have already, jumping over to the Threadripper platform is probably more economically efficient to get a lot of cores.
 
I don't really see a reason to get a 2697V3 over a Threadripper for a single-socket setup; with the latest round of price drops a 1950X + motherboard costs the same as a 2697V3, but you get a newer platform and officially-supported overclocking, as opposed to a 4-year old platform and an overclocking process which involves deleting Windows files and loading a buggy microcode.

Right now, the only reason I see to run a V3 Xeon on a 1P board is if you have an X99E-ITX; TR is not available on ITX due to the size of the socket, and getting high core count i9's is a costly proposition. It'll change once the V3 Xeon machines are decommissioned and eBay gets flooded with $200 Xeons, but right now Threadripper is a better value proposition.
Thanks for the info about the Xeon, unfortunately the gaming performance is threadripper just isn't enough for me :(
 
Thanks for the info about the Xeon, unfortunately the gaming performance is threadripper just isn't enough for me :(
I'm not sure the Xeon will do better; there is precious little data about gaming on Xeons, but generally the more cores you have the more weird scheduler problems you run into, not to mention the generally reduced clock speed.
 
I'm not sure the Xeon will do better; there is precious little data about gaming on Xeons, but generally the more cores you have the more weird scheduler problems you run into, not to mention the generally reduced clock speed.
That's why I was curious about the turbo, I ran a 10 core Xeon for a while and the gaming performance was pretty rough. I'll probably just save up got a hcc i9
 
I don't really see a reason to get a 2697V3 over a Threadripper for a single-socket setup; with the latest round of price drops a 1950X + motherboard costs the same as a 2697V3, but you get a newer platform and officially-supported overclocking, as opposed to a 4-year old platform and an overclocking process which involves deleting Windows files and loading a buggy microcode.

Right now, the only reason I see to run a V3 Xeon on a 1P board is if you have an X99E-ITX; TR is not available on ITX due to the size of the socket, and getting high core count i9's is a costly proposition. It'll change once the V3 Xeon machines are decommissioned and eBay gets flooded with $200 Xeons, but right now Threadripper is a better value proposition.

When do you figure V3s are going to be decommissioned en mass?
 
When do you figure V3s are going to be decommissioned en mass?

I would guess next year; Xeons are usually on a 3-5 year cycle and the V3's have been especially enduring. V1->V2 and V2->V3 were both >50% jumps in performance; V3->V4 was a 25% increase for a substantial increase in cost, and the flagship "V5" (Xeon Platinum) parts are incredibly expensive. Hopefully the fact that Epyc is generally competent will force Xeon pricing back to sane levels...
In any case, it doesn't hurt to hoard X99 boards right now; once the 2696V3's start popping up anything X99 will almost certainly be $300+ (recall the heyday of the 2670V1's, where even the guts of Dells were going for $250+).
 
I read this topic

And people on Xeons can mod their bioses to change multipliers to maximum on 4 cores.

My problem is that i have QDE4 engineering sample and it is 4770K.

But my motherboard Gigabyte B85 D3H v1.0/1.1 is blocking to overclock it and i can only force max turbo. I can't even change voltage.

Default clock is 2800Mhz and i can force it to 3200Mhz on all cores.

Can anyone help? Maybe we can change microcodes or something.

I tried flashing older bioses but with no profit.

This is my CPU-Z report:

https://www.sendspace.com/file/iphms2
 
Bump for an update if the landscape has changed for x99 Xeon overclocking?
 
I read this topic

And people on Xeons can mod their bioses to change multipliers to maximum on 4 cores.

My problem is that i have QDE4 engineering sample and it is 4770K.

But my motherboard Gigabyte B85 D3H v1.0/1.1 is blocking to overclock it and i can only force max turbo. I can't even change voltage.

Default clock is 2800Mhz and i can force it to 3200Mhz on all cores.

Can anyone help? Maybe we can change microcodes or something.

I tried flashing older bioses but with no profit.

This is my CPU-Z report:

https://www.sendspace.com/file/iphms2

Have you tried an older bios? Some people reported older bioses having multipler OC enabled on their ASUS B85 boards.
 
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