1366 x58 Xeon Enthusiast overclocks club

tbob22 said:

Hmm, that sucks. Are you running the latest bios?

Click to expand...

of course.....don't get me wrong what the bios says is possible and what is are 2 different things i imagine....but lowering ULCK always minimizes any gains from higher clock speed anyway in my tests...since im more of a general user i use cinabench to see if higher clock or whatever setting is really any benefit at all.....course i imagine a few games react differently depending on the game but as in everyone's case tune it to your needs since we all use are pcs a bit differently...

primetime said:

of course.....don't get me wrong what the bios says is possible and what is are 2 different things i imagine....but lowering ULCK always minimizes any gains from higher clock speed anyway in my tests...since im more of a general user i use cinabench to see if higher clock or whatever setting is really any benefit at all.....course i imagine a few games react differently depending on the game but as in everyone's case tune it to your needs since we all use are pcs a bit differently...

Click to expand...

Well, I'm more interested in it for trying to get faster ram as I hit a wall when UCLK gets any higher than about ~3800mhz.. Anyway, I'll find out when I get the chip I guess.

X5650 on MSI X58 Pro, Running 4.2, no Voltage tweaks needed. Love how far the 1366 motherboard series and chips have gotten us.

Jathanis said:

So is there a reason 3000-3300 is recommended? Leaving the uncore on auto in my BIOS has it at about 3380 when I'm at 4.0 GHz (191x21) - too high?

And just as an FYI, these P6T Boards are a bit lacking in multipliers when it comes to setting memory. After I set the blck, I typically only have one or two settings that are actually usable...



When I set my memory to use the X.M.S. setting in the BIOS, it automatically raises the QPI/DRAM setting to 1.35V. That ran my current memory rock stable at 200 blck for over a year now... So you're not alone going that high!

Click to expand...

Yeah,
It was recommended as a starting point. Nothing else. The uncore milage varies but 3000-3300 shouldn't be a problem. It was a safe starting point. The higher you go on your uncore, the higher the vtt volts. So, this is also the case for ram and ram speed, the higher amounts and speeds-the more vtt. The vtt voltage I listed may not be enough for large amounts/high speed ram with 175blck on top of a high uncore speed.

3000-3300 usually doesn't need much or any extra vtt volts. So that's why. Pushing a high blck and high speed ram can raise the vtt up fast all by themselves. I just wanted to give a starting point. From there, feel free to work things up or down to your liking. Actually, I suggest tweaking everything in, one piece at a time. May end up with less vcore, and a higher uncore. That's great.

WestmereEPs range in uncore capabilities. Realistically, most people end up under 4000.
3800mhz and below is popular. I run mine pretty low right now, 3325 I thin (on my phone right now). It's not a limit or restriction for any reason. The truth is, uncore does very little once your already over 2x the ram speed. Really, in the real world, the uncore rarely has a major impact going from 1.5x the ram speed to 2x. Synthetics can show a gain, but in the real world its not all that much.

But the real reason I haven't tweaked in a higher uncore.......
I am using old Samsung ram sticks. Three 2gb sticks of 1333mhz cas 9. I have them at 1400mhz but the only reason I am using them is because I had to RMA some ram. It's a temporary setup. I have some gskill on the way. It's just 4gb sticks but 1600mhz which I will overclock once they come in.

See, that's why I haven't tweaked any of that in. Cause changing the ram, changes the whole equation. The speed, the amount, the blck.....all have an impact on the uncore and the vtt.

Westmere IMC is rated at 1333mhz. Running 1600mhz is an overclock. Usually they can go up to 2000mhz just fine, but I have heard of people having issues. I have also seen people running 2400mhz ram but that's an awful lot for the old timer memory controller. But this is things you must consider, the ram uncore and blck do effect each other. You might not get past 2100mhz on the ram and the uncore speed may have an effect on how high your ram can run stable. So adjust one of those other things might help on something else.

I plan on tweaking my entire memory system after I get my new ram. I went with 12gb because I don't want the extra load of running 24gb playing a factor. I may regret it later but I don't think I will. I would rather have it fast than any larger. Currently gaming with 6gb is perfectly smooth and my performance is right where a 980 should be. This is even playin AC Unity which recommends 8gb of ram. The triple channel 6gb shows no sign of being at a disadvantage. I am quite sure 12gb will last me the rest of my x58 usefulness.

Honestly, it is amassing how far this platform has come. To be playing games with a gtx 980 and getting just as good or better frame rates as review sites using haswell CPUs, I mean, what more could we ask for. It's amassing.

The only thing I think we should be mindful of is out motherboards. They are the one thing making this such a great possibility. Used boards on eBay are high and who knows what they have been through. But as far as the CPUs, people saying running over the spec is bad or throwing up LLC and degeneration.....

..I just want to say, these westmereEPs have flooded the market. So much so the prices are driven way down to where we have seen them. But take a moment and look. You will see that the flood hasn't stopped. There are still tons of these chip pouring in.....pouring in by the thousands. There are not many boards in the used market and only so many will upgrade. But as these chips keep flooding in, it is inevitable........the prices will continue to go down. I predict and feel very strongly that the prices will drop and drop. CPU degeneration is the least of our worries. Down the road these chips will be cheaper, pay less for the chips with the highest multipliers. There is no westmereEP shortage, that's not the concern.

It our boards, that's what we should be the most concerned with.

I can't agree more with the assessment above ^

X58 IMO is really the last great unlocked/unfettered enthusiast platform before Intel started with the -K chips.
I think the flood of Westmere chips has caused a resurgence in demand the price of our boards, 5+ year old boards are changing hands at $100+ which really amazing, especially if you look at successive platforms such as P68, Z68 etc not holding value relatively speaking, I've seen X58+westmere combos sell for far more than P68+Sandy Bridge on eBay, it's really funny in a way.
I was looking to upgrade to X79 this year until I learned about the Westmere Xeons and now upgrade is probably another 2-3 years away as long as board lasts

Deals on boards are out there if you look.
I paid 60$ for my EVGA FTW3 off Craigslist, I have seen a few Asus Sabertooths go for 100-125$
I just missed a whole sys. EVGA SR-2 with a lot of ram. 1200w PSU tower case and 2 x56xx Hex for 550$, missed it by 2 hours.

I paid 100$ for my Asus Rampage3 Gene off e-bay.

Look for boards by name like FTW3 one sold for 55$ I bid 54$ and was praying for someone to outbid me. Last few seconds someone did. I really didn't need another, I have 9 systems as it is now.
Don't just look for x58 or lga1366 many times people list just by the name. Asus P6t........
The deals are out there, in the right place at the right time.

Edit
If I remember right these boards were quite expensive when they were new.

Sure, I'm not saying there's not deals to be had, I'm talking about in general par for the course price points that's impressive. If you check recent sold listings people are paying some good prices for these boards/combos which is saying something about the platform that's 6+ years old now

Yeah, the x58 boards can go for $250+, but if you keep an eye out they can go cheaper.

I got the EVGA E762 for $99, but of course it was damaged so I suppose that doesn't count (which I returned and it was refunded). But the P6T Deluxe was $150 with a 920, and the 920's still go for ~$40-60, so it was a decent deal and I was getting impatient .

And I agree about motherboard degradation. I feel like it's very important to have some kind of active cooling on higher performance boards, even when not overclocking and especially when under water or have a cooler with a side mounted fan.

ChineseStunna said:

Sure, I'm not saying there's not deals to be had, I'm talking about in general par for the course price points that's impressive. If you check recent sold listings people are paying some good prices for these boards/combos which is saying something about the platform that's 6+ years old now

Click to expand...

Oh I know and agree with you. I was just giving anyone looking for a board ideas on trying to score one cheap.
Some of the asking prices are insane.These systems are great work horses.
There are quite a few dual 1366 boards going for 100-150$ and I have picked up eec mem for cheap. 1gb sticks 5$ 2gb 10 and 4gb as low as 18$ a stick.
Can't OC them but for BOINC that is a nice cheap server if you add a couple x5650 or 60 CPUs. These systems also are really great work horses.

One of the best parts is the lower wattage used by the chipset. Using (I Think) the corsair Hydro 60 to water cool mine, it's at 4.2 on an MSI X58 pro, under fool load it never gets above 100F.
Remember old, old AMD chips that I broke the cores or pencilled trick would heat my house
in the winter, left it on with a fan that blew the heat around lol.

Bill1024 said:

Oh I know and agree with you. I was just giving anyone looking for a board ideas on trying to score one cheap.
Some of the asking prices are insane.These systems are great work horses.
There are quite a few dual 1366 boards going for 100-150$ and I have picked up eec mem for cheap. 1gb sticks 5$ 2gb 10 and 4gb as low as 18$ a stick.
Can't OC them but for BOINC that is a nice cheap server if you add a couple x5650 or 60 CPUs. These systems also are really great work horses.

Click to expand...

Exactly what I did this week, I'm actually rotating my Gigabyte X58-Extreme out of the server and into the workstation as it's a much stronger OCing board and updating my server to Dual 1366 with L5630 40W Xeons. This is my ESXi homelab and NAS box so idle power is key and I'm looking to drop it down low, going to try passive cooling with a pair of hyper 212+, maybe duct exhaust fan in back into wind tunnel...

SSimmons05 said:

One of the best parts is the lower wattage used by the chipset. Using (I Think) the corsair Hydro 60 to water cool mine, it's at 4.2 on an MSI X58 pro, under fool load it never gets above 100F.
Remember old, old AMD chips that I broke the cores or pencilled trick would heat my house
in the winter, left it on with a fan that blew the heat around lol.

Click to expand...

Those were the days... I too killed a TBird 1200 that way, I remember everytime mounting/unmounting heatsink made me sweat bullets and seeing those little silicon flakes come off always made you wonder if that was a critical piece, lol.
Those days were also some insane OCing, buddy's Duron 600 got up to 1100 with decent VCore and homebuild WC loop, back then we had to salvage car radiators Making this little $80 chip whoop other friend's $900 P3 933 chip was one of my fondest OC memories

ChineseStunna said:

I can't agree more with the assessment above ^

X58 IMO is really the last great unlocked/unfettered enthusiast platform before Intel started with the -K chips.
I think the flood of Westmere chips has caused a resurgence in demand the price of our boards, 5+ year old boards are changing hands at $100+ which really amazing, especially if you look at successive platforms such as P68, Z68 etc not holding value relatively speaking, I've seen X58+westmere combos sell for far more than P68+Sandy Bridge on eBay, it's really funny in a way.
I was looking to upgrade to X79 this year until I learned about the Westmere Xeons and now upgrade is probably another 2-3 years away as long as board lasts

Click to expand...

yeah, you put off the x79 huh. I absolutely would too
the crazy part.....

a westmereEP running over 4ghz is so fast that you would have to overclock on an x79 platform just to match it. I really wasnt expecting that and were surprised when i started comparing my benchmark scores to those on review sites. There are plenty of benchmarks around various forums for anyone to compare...

WestmereEP overclocked is a beast. It doesnt even have to be extreme, just get it over 4ghz and your faster than than the more modern 6 cores at stock. There might be a random outlier but the case is clear cut. You would have to overclock your x79 chip to meet or exceed the performance of a +4ghz westmereEP.

Holy smokes,

Can't believe the deal I just got,

http://www.ebay.com/itm/I7-920-giga...DyOGHuYhPbNABtq705WB4%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

920 + udr3 + 8gb of ram.........

81$

That is crazy.
The guy listed it terribly. Only people looking up i7 920s would get to see it. That or a generic search for gigabyte, which it would be lost in a pile of thousands of listings.

I was actually looking up i7 920s to see how they are moving on eBay. Came across this 2days ago and bookmarked it. I thought, no way...someone is gonna ramp it up during the last few minutes. Nope.....

this is a crazy deal. Now I have to decide what I am gonna do with it. Think I will keep a close watch till I can snag a killer deal on another westmere. That is, if the board checks out and all

Ocre said:

Holy smokes,

Can't believe the deal I just got,

http://www.ebay.com/itm/I7-920-giga...DyOGHuYhPbNABtq705WB4%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

920 + udr3 + 8gb of ram.........

81$

That is crazy.
The guy listed it terribly. Only people looking up i7 920s would get to see it. That or a generic search for gigabyte, which it would be lost in a pile of thousands of listings.

I was actually looking up i7 920s to see how they are moving on eBay. Came across this 2days ago and bookmarked it. I thought, no way...someone is gonna ramp it up during the last few minutes. Nope.....

this is a crazy deal. Now I have to decide what I am gonna do with it. Think I will keep a close watch till I can snag a killer deal on another westmere. That is, if the board checks out and all

Click to expand...

Sick deal! Gotta be one of the worst titles I've ever seen, I just sold my old q6600/p35-ds3l without ram for more than that.

Check the bottom for damaged/missing caps/resistors when you get it, I've had to return a few boards (the classified included) because of someone carelessly removing it from their case and probably bumping the standoffs.

thanks for the advice.

I am not one the brag but i do like to share my experiences and thoughts. i am still shocked by the deal i got. I was just talking about how we should really be more concerned about our motherboards over damaging or degrading our CPUs. There really is no shortage of westmereEPs in the used market. They keep coming and coming, The boards are much more rare.

I fully expect the top of the line 1366 xeons to steadily come down in price. Its already happening,

http://www.ebay.com/itm/QTY-1x-INTE...122?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1e95d8282a

Ebay says they are trending at less than 170.

But, the way i see it........
they have no choice but to come down. If you look, it wont take to see that there is a massive flood of these higher multiplier chips. It looks to be even larger than the cheap westmeres. I just dont think that there are that many people who will buy them. The prices will come down, i predict that.

I also found out that the x5690 has an unlocked multiplier. I havent seen it first hand but a buddy of mine swears it does. I know the w3690 does to. And these are now slightly over 200.

But they too will have to come down in price. I am quite sure about it.

does anyone know about the w3680? does it have an unlocked multiplier?
x5680?

I think i am interested in the newer revision. The 2011 models (5675, 5679, 5690, w3690) Not sure if there will be any real difference, but it would be nice to snag one just because.

Ocre said:

Holy smokes,

Can't believe the deal I just got,

http://www.ebay.com/itm/I7-920-giga...DyOGHuYhPbNABtq705WB4%3D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc

920 + udr3 + 8gb of ram.........

81$

That is crazy.
The guy listed it terribly. Only people looking up i7 920s would get to see it. That or a generic search for gigabyte, which it would be lost in a pile of thousands of listings.

I was actually looking up i7 920s to see how they are moving on eBay. Came across this 2days ago and bookmarked it. I thought, no way...someone is gonna ramp it up during the last few minutes. Nope.....

this is a crazy deal. Now I have to decide what I am gonna do with it. Think I will keep a close watch till I can snag a killer deal on another westmere. That is, if the board checks out and all

Click to expand...

You lucky SOB. When I was looking for an X58 mobo, everyone wanted $150+ for them. I ended up in a shady part of town to pick up an EX58-UD3R from a women's shelter for $60. It was with some lady who knew nothing about it except it was a motherboard.

Hazard said:

You lucky SOB. When I was looking for an X58 mobo, everyone wanted $150+ for them. I ended up in a shady part of town to pick up an EX58-UD3R from a women's shelter for $60. It was with some lady who knew nothing about it except it was a motherboard.

Click to expand...

did it turn out alright?


Are you still running that socket 939 in your sig? Those were the days. I had an opteron 180 mine. I just didnt want to let go and couldnt believe that AM2 crap AMD was trying to pull. I remember being pretty frustrated thinking what the crap was up when my stock operon 180 benchmarks were matching up to the 65nm AM2 x2 5000+, it was certainly faster than the AM2 4800+ which it really shouldnt have been. See the opteron 180 is the same thing as the 4800+ x2 for socket 939. I did have some of the best DDR at the time but the point was, how could AMD release a new socket and new CPUs that were really no faster than their old ones? And this was really the case when AM2 launched. But then the terrible 2nd punch.......
The 65nm die shrink. These CPUs were not the least bit exciting. After all those years of AMD killing it, they completely stalled out. These new 65nm had less cache i think but the worse part is that the shrink to 65nm started off with chips that were embarrassing. This was at a time when Intel already had core 2 on the market. And it snowballed and snowballed till where we are today. What a shame

Anyhow, i kept that opteron 180 forever. I overclocked it (3ghz daily driver) and ran right through AM2 and all the way up to the phenom 2 and AM3. I had a few other systems but my special attachment to the old AMD had me favoring my S939 opteron180 system for many many years. It was one of my favorite PCs of all time. I mean, the phenom2 was merely acceptable not even close to exceptional.


Socket 939 and my opteron 180 are forever a special platform for me,
All these years later.....it still stands as a high water mark. I have had many computers and many platforms. But S939 was the last AMD platform i actually felt very proud to own. And i held on to it, used it far longer than made sense just because i had this attachment.

All these years later, its still one of my all time favorites. But now i have a new favorite and its this x58 from intel. 6 yrs later and we can pop in a 6 core, overclock it and keep on trucking. Easily we are keeping pace with the haswell 4c/8t and that really an amassing accomplishment when talking about PC HW. i dont know if there ever was a platform with such longevity. Not only still useful but even able to put out very respectable performance that meets or exceeds intels modern chips. That is why i love this platform........

It has got to be very quickly becoming one of my all time favorites. this one and the socket 939. But see, although i made do with the opteron 180. it wasnt actually able to keep up with the modern chips like this westmereEPs can. But i was able to make do with whatever sacrifice in performance

I think i am interested in the newer revision. The 2011 models (5675, 5679, 5690, w3690) Not sure if there will be any real difference, but it would be nice to snag one just because.

Click to expand...

well the w3680 has a multi of 26 not counting turbo but only has one qpi link not that it matters and it seems exactly same as 5690 multi wise. I suspect the lower end ones lust use slightly lower multi's but my money says the w3690/x5690 would get the highest stable clocks do to its almost unlocked like multi since its so high to begin with, and facts prove the lower the blck, the easier the overclock And it pains me to admit i spent almost the same price on my 5670, but it no surprise prices are coming down on the higher end models

since you already saved a shit load on the board i wouldn't blame you a bit to splurge on the cpu

Ocre said:

did it turn out alright?

Click to expand...

Yep. It's in my sig as my server. Been serving up files and crunching video when needed.

Ocre said:

Are you still running that socket 939 in your sig? Those were the days. I had an opteron 180 mine. I just didnt want to let go and couldnt believe that AM2 crap AMD was trying to pull. I remember being pretty frustrated thinking what the crap was up when my stock operon 180 benchmarks were matching up to the 65nm AM2 x2 5000+, it was certainly faster than the AM2 4800+ which it really shouldnt have been. See the opteron 180 is the same thing as the 4800+ x2 for socket 939. I did have some of the best DDR at the time but the point was, how could AMD release a new socket and new CPUs that were really no faster than their old ones? And this was really the case when AM2 launched. But then the terrible 2nd punch.......
The 65nm die shrink. These CPUs were not the least bit exciting. After all those years of AMD killing it, they completely stalled out. These new 65nm had less cache i think but the worse part is that the shrink to 65nm started off with chips that were embarrassing. This was at a time when Intel already had core 2 on the market. And it snowballed and snowballed till where we are today. What a shame

Anyhow, i kept that opteron 180 forever. I overclocked it (3ghz daily driver) and ran right through AM2 and all the way up to the phenom 2 and AM3. I had a few other systems but my special attachment to the old AMD had me favoring my S939 opteron180 system for many many years. It was one of my favorite PCs of all time. I mean, the phenom2 was merely acceptable not even close to exceptional.


Socket 939 and my opteron 180 are forever a special platform for me,
All these years later.....it still stands as a high water mark. I have had many computers and many platforms. But S939 was the last AMD platform i actually felt very proud to own. And i held on to it, used it far longer than made sense just because i had this attachment.

All these years later, its still one of my all time favorites. But now i have a new favorite and its this x58 from intel. 6 yrs later and we can pop in a 6 core, overclock it and keep on trucking. Easily we are keeping pace with the haswell 4c/8t and that really an amassing accomplishment when talking about PC HW. i dont know if there ever was a platform with such longevity. Not only still useful but even able to put out very respectable performance that meets or exceeds intels modern chips. That is why i love this platform........

It has got to be very quickly becoming one of my all time favorites. this one and the socket 939. But see, although i made do with the opteron 180. it wasnt actually able to keep up with the modern chips like this westmereEPs can. But i was able to make do with whatever sacrifice in performance

Click to expand...

I should probably remove it from my sig as that Shuttle 939 system died a couple of months ago. Just shut down one day and I rebooted. Worked for 10 minutes and died for good. It's not the PSU so I'm guessing the mobo is toast.

I still have an X2 3800+ 939 with an Asus A8V Deluxe sitting in the basement collecting dust. That was the original server and had an Opteron 144 to start its life as my main rig. Many years of solid service.

Okay, so here's an update on my P6T Deluxe & X5670:

- First, to understand the weird voltages, know that the P6T works on increments of 0.00625V...
- 4.0 (21x191) was just fine at 1.2875, 4.2 (21x200) ran just fine with a small bump to 1.29375.
- Tried 4.4 (22x200) @ 1.3V, got a frozen system 30 minutes into Prime 95.
- Another bump in voltage to 1.30625, and got a freeze/auto reboot, followed by a brief forced scandisk...
- Dropped to 4.3 (22x195) @ 1.30625V, and everything's been running smooth for 24 hours.

At 4.3, I'm getting one core at almost 80*C and two more at 77*C in Prime 95, and right now at 100% load in BOINC I'm peaking at between 65*C and 70*C. Thinking about trying one more voltage bump to 1.3125 to hit 4.4, but after that I'm afraid I'll be at the end of my Hyper 212's ability... And I was really hoping for 4.5!

Jathanis said:

Okay, so here's an update on my P6T Deluxe & X5670:

- First, to understand the weird voltages, know that the P6T works on increments of 0.00625V...
- 4.0 (21x191) was just fine at 1.2875, 4.2 (21x200) ran just fine with a small bump to 1.29375.
- Tried 4.4 (22x200) @ 1.3V, got a frozen system 30 minutes into Prime 95.
- Another bump in voltage to 1.30625, and got a freeze/auto reboot, followed by a brief forced scandisk...
- Dropped to 4.3 (22x195) @ 1.30625V, and everything's been running smooth for 24 hours.

At 4.3, I'm getting one core at almost 80*C and two more at 77*C in Prime 95, and right now at 100% load in BOINC I'm peaking at between 65*C and 70*C. Thinking about trying one more voltage bump to 1.3125 to hit 4.4, but after that I'm afraid I'll be at the end of my Hyper 212's ability... And I was really hoping for 4.5!

Click to expand...

Sounds pretty good to me. I'm pretty surprised at how well that 212 is doing. I'm getting similar temps in IBT with my noctua and [email protected] at similar voltages.

My x5670 will be coming in tomorrow, I'm excited to see how it'll do, I'll post the batch # and results when I get it. There's always a chance it'll be a dud.

Jathanis said:

Okay, so here's an update on my P6T Deluxe & X5670:

- First, to understand the weird voltages, know that the P6T works on increments of 0.00625V...
- 4.0 (21x191) was just fine at 1.2875, 4.2 (21x200) ran just fine with a small bump to 1.29375.
- Tried 4.4 (22x200) @ 1.3V, got a frozen system 30 minutes into Prime 95.
- Another bump in voltage to 1.30625, and got a freeze/auto reboot, followed by a brief forced scandisk...
- Dropped to 4.3 (22x195) @ 1.30625V, and everything's been running smooth for 24 hours.

At 4.3, I'm getting one core at almost 80*C and two more at 77*C in Prime 95, and right now at 100% load in BOINC I'm peaking at between 65*C and 70*C. Thinking about trying one more voltage bump to 1.3125 to hit 4.4, but after that I'm afraid I'll be at the end of my Hyper 212's ability... And I was really hoping for 4.5!

Click to expand...

Your volts are really similar to mine.

To get 4.4ghz stable with all cores and threads....
It takes something like 1.34 to 1.35v. This is the reason I am at 4.2 with 4.4 turbo. Because it takes a lot more volts once you start climbing 4.4 and beyond. See, from there it gets worse and worse. 4.8ghz wasn't fully stable with 1.45v. Then there is the temps to worry about.

The old memory I am using keeps me at 4.2-4.4ghz turbo. I have to drop the ram multiplier to go any higher. I am just not willing to do that just to run 100mhz faster. I would be running at 4.4ghz all cores if I didn't have to add so many more volts. It is just out too the sweet spot, not where I want to be for my daily driver OC. But when my ram comes in, I probably will go ahead and push my clocks up to 4.3ghz all cores with a 4.5 turbo single core apps. That is if I can have fully stable results with all power savings features and down clocking with dynamic voltage. Oh, and turbo for single threaded loads is a must too.

Right now my setup is rock solid and I really really enjoy that.

But, yeah....
My x5670 is very similar to yours in the voltages you listed. If you want to run 4.4ghz, try at least 1.34v and work up or down from there.

tbob22 said:

Sounds pretty good to me. I'm pretty surprised at how well that 212 is doing. I'm getting similar temps in IBT with my noctua and [email protected] at similar voltages.

Click to expand...

Me too - best $25 heatsink I've ever had!

Ocre said:

If you want to run 4.4ghz, try at least 1.34v and work up or down from there.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I think that's what I'll do tomorrow. Although for the voltages, I may just back it down to 4.2 and run it there - like a lot of others on here, I'm not sure that much extra voltage & heat is worth and extra 100 - 200MHz... But I have to try it at least once! Just for the screenshot, if nothing else.

Strangely enough, my board is running the 22x multiplier just fine, and will let me enter 24x in the BIOS, but won't let me use 23x! (Not that I appear to need it...)

I`m using an old workstation computer with a X5690 so i cant do OC with this board, such a shame cuz i`m seeing the result you guys are getting and i`m really envious

(cant find a decent board for sell anywhere , will just have to upgrade to a new rig sometime this year)

I had my X5650 passing stability tests in IBT and Prime95 at 200x20 and 191x22/23 but I was getting crashes in games even when dropping down to 182x20. So I did a full BIOS reset and it seems stable at stock. It's been a while since I've started an X58 overclock from scratch so what's the best way to push the chip into 4+ GHz whilst maintaining stability? Is there a better benchmark that will test stability in games better than IBT/Prime95?

Are you running IBT on maximum? Usually it finds issues within the first 5 loops.

That's the thing about overclocking, you can't ever be sure of stability even with the best stress test apps. They are usually good enough t get you started, a rough cut.
but the real world apps you run are the only true way to find out if your OC is stable enough for your needs. This is what I call rock solid. Not only passes stability test I ran but also runs 24/7 without crashing. Still though, Its hard to say any PC that is overclocked is 100% stable and 100% fine. There always could be that random app or random crash. My i7 920 was extremely stable for me all the way up to 4.2ghz. It would run everything I would throw at it, no problem. But I remember at least 2 times I blue screened running my daily driver 3.8ghz overclock. This was 2 blue screens years apart. Both times I rebooted and ran a ton of stability test and games that should crash the computer if my overclock had become unstable, I ran everything I had but it seemed 100% fine. I just chalked it up as one of those things, but you just have to know that there is always that risk when overclocking.
But heck, in my case those random blue screens may not have had anything to do with my OC at all. It just might have been one if those things....

Anyway, I would run make sure the ram and IMC was stable. Run memtest overnight with your overclocks that crashed. Also, what vtt voltage are you running? How bout the uncore speed?
You could try bumping up the vtt just for extra stability. Perhaps try bumping up some other voltages one at a time, like IOH core or PLLs.

Anyway, having a chip with a low multiplier means you will need higher blck speeds to achieve a 4ghz and beyond overclock. Running higher blck speeds has its own set of challenges. Your board plays a factor in this just as much as the chip. But, regardless I am pretty sure you can get your chip stable enough. Just need to start looking in other places for stability. Try different things till you get the overclock dialed in,

Got my x5670 installed. 1.5x memory works fine for the UCLK, running at 2200mhz on the ram and 3300mhz UCLK right now.

But here's the strange part...

~220mhz BCLK is required for 2200mhz ram. No post at anything significantly lower. For 2000mhz ram, ~200mhz BCLK is required.

As a test I set the BCLK to 100mhz, 133mhz, 166mhz, etc and set the ram to 1866mhz, no post at the same voltages as 220/2200mhz.. Around ~180 BCLK is needed for 1866mhz to even post.

So to get my ram up to 2400mhz I'd need a 240mhz BCLK, and I'm not willing to push the QPI voltage past 1.35, but 220mhz works fine at this voltage. This might stress the board a bit and I might just end up at 200mhz see how low I can get the timings, or even stick go for 1600mhz at 7-7-7-21 which was working fine on the w3520.

At stock speeds right now and with IBT the coolest core is 39c, but the hottest is 55c. I know ~5c is normal but 16c difference is pushing it. I will try and re-apply the thermal paste. There is a small dent in the IHS, so that may be part of it.

The IMC, uncore, and ram can be tricky. Anything over 1333mhz is an overclock. There are many options for trying to tweak out a balance.

I notice most people are running less that 2000mhz ram. I already ran into issues with corsair ram but it ended up being defective after all.

Your case is very unique though. Does it start acting weird at 1866mhz? Is it fine at 1600, where you don't need a specific blck?

Sometimes I think that the 45nm chips had a much more robust IMC. It was rated for 1066mhz ram but seemed to be able to handle 2000+ ram speeds. I guess whatever works. You might try running the uncore faster than 1.5x with a lower ram speed to compare with 2200mhz ram with 1.5x uncore. Some people claim that the uncore makes a difference on memory apps.

In the end just find the best balance with the least strain.

Btw, those CPU temps seem very low. What clock speed is the CPU?

Ocre said:

The IMC, uncore, and ram can be tricky. Anything over 1333mhz is an overclock. There are many options for trying to tweak out a balance.

I notice most people are running less that 2000mhz ram. I already ran into issues with corsair ram but it ended up being defective after all.

Your case is very unique though. Does it start acting weird at 1866mhz? Is it fine at 1600, where you don't need a specific blck?

Sometimes I think that the 45nm chips had a much more robust IMC. It was rated for 1066mhz ram but seemed to be able to handle 2000+ ram speeds. I guess whatever works. You might try running the uncore faster than 1.5x with a lower ram speed to compare with 2200mhz ram with 1.5x uncore. Some people claim that the uncore makes a difference on memory apps.

In the end just find the best balance with the least strain.

Btw, those CPU temps seem very low. What clock speed is the CPU?

Click to expand...

Cpu is at stock speeds while I test the ram speeds, etc. The U14S is a very good cooler and 32nm is cooler than the old 45nm. The hottest core other than the outlier is 45c which seems about right for the stock 1.088v.

It is quite strange, at 133mhz only 1333mhz and below works properly, 1600mhz won't even post at any UCLK (tried all the way up to ~3600mhz). At 166mhz 1600mhz works fine. It seems to be consistent at least.
I didn't have problems like that with the w3520/920.. 1600mhz worked fine at 133mhz

At 1.5x and the ram at 2000mhz 9-10-9-24 memory performance seems about right.
I'm only in dual channel right now, but in aida64 it isn't all that far off what I was getting on my P55 @ 2400mhz 11-13-13-31. Once I get another stick it should equal it and then some.

For whatever reason maxxmem2 causes the computer run really slow, can't close it from task manager and then eventually freezes the system. I'll be running memtest overnight to make sure the ram isn't producing errors at this speed.

Edit: maxxmem also freezes with everything stock and ram at 1333mhz/auto. Maybe it doesn't like the CPU or something.

The CPU I got is not looking too great. For 4.2 I'm needing 1.35v to run prime95 without crashing, of course I don't know if it's stable yet.

I reapplied the thermal paste and temps are still all over the place..

After running for about 10min:
62c - 67c - 51c - 55c - 77c - 68c

Yea that sounds like uneven IHS possibly? What cooler are you using? What's ambient?

ChineseStunna said:

Yea that sounds like uneven IHS possibly? What cooler are you using? What's ambient?

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About 21c. I'm using a Noctua NH-U14s. I'll probably just run at stock for now and grab another. It works fine at stock, so whatever.

This CPU is pretty terrible, even at 4ghz (which needs 1.3v) I can't keep that one core under 70c.

Yea that really sounds like IHS issue then, you have a really nice cooler, even my CoolerMaster Hyper 212+ keeps my chip < 60C all cores @ 4.2ghz 1.24v

tbob22 said:

The CPU I got is not looking too great. For 4.2 I'm needing 1.35v to run prime95 without crashing, of course I don't know if it's stable yet.

I reapplied the thermal paste and temps are still all over the place..

After running for about 10min:
62c - 67c - 51c - 55c - 77c - 68c

Click to expand...

That seems to be normal for these CPUs. I am running 3 x58 boards and 1 dual x5660 and all 5 CPUs the temps can have a 10c difference.

I have seen countless people ask if this is normal since theirs are doing it too.

If you use real temp GT you can calibrate the sensor reading.
I found on their webpage the way to do it is:
Boot to the bios and in hardware monitor under temps see what temp the CPU is after sitting idle a couple min. Or of your board has a temp read out display like my EVGA FTW3 has.
Boot into windows and fire up realtemp GT and let it sit a min. Under options there is a place to calibrate the sensors, you plug in -2 -3 or +2 or 3 what ever the number you need to make them unified.
Is it perfect??? I am not sure, I did it like they said and at 100% load all cores they are now 1 or 2 deg off, not 10 anymore.

Bill1024 said:

That seems to be normal for these CPUs. I am running 3 x58 boards and 1 dual x5660 and all 5 CPUs the temps can have a 10c difference.

I have seen countless people ask if this is normal since theirs are doing it too.

If you use real temp GT you can calibrate the sensor reading.
I found on their webpage the way to do it is:
Boot to the bios and in hardware monitor under temps see what temp the CPU is after sitting idle a couple min. Or of your board has a temp read out display like my EVGA FTW3 has.
Boot into windows and fire up realtemp GT and let it sit a min. Under options there is a place to calibrate the sensors, you plug in -2 -3 or +2 or 3 what ever the number you need to make them unified.
Is it perfect??? I am not sure, I did it like they said and at 100% load all cores they are now 1 or 2 deg off, not 10 anymore.

Click to expand...

That could be or it could be the IHS not quite right. Either way this cpu requires too much voltage for my taste.

Edit:
I was able to get 4ghz to work ok at 1.275v and got the QPI down to 1.25v at 200mhz bclk, 2000mhz ram, 3200mhz UCLK. Temps are now as follows:
58 - 60 - 48 - 51 - 69 - 60

I'm ok with that for now.

Edit2: Aaand it crashed. The hot core decided to jump up to about 75c after a while as well. I'm going to say it's a lost cause, at 3ghz/1.1v now.

Sorry to hear man, you just landed on the wrong side of the OC bell curve with that chip

ChineseStunna said:

Sorry to hear man, you just landed on the wrong side of the OC bell curve with that chip

Click to expand...

There's always that chance.
Luckily I can just resell it and won't lose but a few bucks.

My first 860 was similar, 3.8ghz required something like 1.45v, and the core temps were all over the place

Ocre said:

Your volts are really similar to mine.

To get 4.4ghz stable with all cores and threads....
It takes something like 1.34 to 1.35v. This is the reason I am at 4.2 with 4.4 turbo. Because it takes a lot more volts once you start climbing 4.4 and beyond. See, from there it gets worse and worse. 4.8ghz wasn't fully stable with 1.45v. Then there is the temps to worry about.

The old memory I am using keeps me at 4.2-4.4ghz turbo. I have to drop the ram multiplier to go any higher. I am just not willing to do that just to run 100mhz faster. I would be running at 4.4ghz all cores if I didn't have to add so many more volts. It is just out too the sweet spot, not where I want to be for my daily driver OC. But when my ram comes in, I probably will go ahead and push my clocks up to 4.3ghz all cores with a 4.5 turbo single core apps. That is if I can have fully stable results with all power savings features and down clocking with dynamic voltage. Oh, and turbo for single threaded loads is a must too.

Right now my setup is rock solid and I really really enjoy that.

But, yeah....
My x5670 is very similar to yours in the voltages you listed. If you want to run 4.4ghz, try at least 1.34v and work up or down from there.

Click to expand...

Well, I gave it a good try, but all the way to 1.35V, and I couldn't get more than 45 minutes of Prime 95 without getting at least one error or a freeze/reboot. So going to stick with the 4.3GHz @1.30625V for now - good Voltage, low enough temps, and solid sounds like a good combo to me, and still far better than the 3.8GHz my 950 gave me for the same (or higher) temps!

Thanks everyone for the guidance - looking forward to adding a second 1366 machine later this year. Now, if I could find a SR-2 for less than a small fortune!

The strangest thing I noticed on this CPU is that at idle, even at 4.3, Core Temp says my two coldest cores are at 19*-20*C - in a room that's about 21.5*C ambient... Ooops...

Ocre said:

Yeah,
It was recommended as a starting point. Nothing else. The uncore milage varies but 3000-3300 shouldn't be a problem. It was a safe starting point. The higher you go on your uncore, the higher the vtt volts. So, this is also the case for ram and ram speed, the higher amounts and speeds-the more vtt. The vtt voltage I listed may not be enough for large amounts/high speed ram with 175blck on top of a high uncore speed.

3000-3300 usually doesn't need much or any extra vtt volts. So that's why. Pushing a high blck and high speed ram can raise the vtt up fast all by themselves. I just wanted to give a starting point. From there, feel free to work things up or down to your liking. Actually, I suggest tweaking everything in, one piece at a time. May end up with less vcore, and a higher uncore. That's great.

WestmereEPs range in uncore capabilities. Realistically, most people end up under 4000.
3800mhz and below is popular. I run mine pretty low right now, 3325 I thin (on my phone right now). It's not a limit or restriction for any reason. The truth is, uncore does very little once your already over 2x the ram speed. Really, in the real world, the uncore rarely has a major impact going from 1.5x the ram speed to 2x. Synthetics can show a gain, but in the real world its not all that much.

But the real reason I haven't tweaked in a higher uncore.......
I am using old Samsung ram sticks. Three 2gb sticks of 1333mhz cas 9. I have them at 1400mhz but the only reason I am using them is because I had to RMA some ram. It's a temporary setup. I have some gskill on the way. It's just 4gb sticks but 1600mhz which I will overclock once they come in.

See, that's why I haven't tweaked any of that in. Cause changing the ram, changes the whole equation. The speed, the amount, the blck.....all have an impact on the uncore and the vtt.

Westmere IMC is rated at 1333mhz. Running 1600mhz is an overclock. Usually they can go up to 2000mhz just fine, but I have heard of people having issues. I have also seen people running 2400mhz ram but that's an awful lot for the old timer memory controller. But this is things you must consider, the ram uncore and blck do effect each other. You might not get past 2100mhz on the ram and the uncore speed may have an effect on how high your ram can run stable. So adjust one of those other things might help on something else.

I plan on tweaking my entire memory system after I get my new ram. I went with 12gb because I don't want the extra load of running 24gb playing a factor. I may regret it later but I don't think I will. I would rather have it fast than any larger. Currently gaming with 6gb is perfectly smooth and my performance is right where a 980 should be. This is even playin AC Unity which recommends 8gb of ram. The triple channel 6gb shows no sign of being at a disadvantage. I am quite sure 12gb will last me the rest of my x58 usefulness.

Honestly, it is amassing how far this platform has come. To be playing games with a gtx 980 and getting just as good or better frame rates as review sites using haswell CPUs, I mean, what more could we ask for. It's amassing.

The only thing I think we should be mindful of is out motherboards. They are the one thing making this such a great possibility. Used boards on eBay are high and who knows what they have been through. But as far as the CPUs, people saying running over the spec is bad or throwing up LLC and degeneration.....

..I just want to say, these westmereEPs have flooded the market. So much so the prices are driven way down to where we have seen them. But take a moment and look. You will see that the flood hasn't stopped. There are still tons of these chip pouring in.....pouring in by the thousands. There are not many boards in the used market and only so many will upgrade. But as these chips keep flooding in, it is inevitable........the prices will continue to go down. I predict and feel very strongly that the prices will drop and drop. CPU degeneration is the least of our worries. Down the road these chips will be cheaper, pay less for the chips with the highest multipliers. There is no westmereEP shortage, that's not the concern.

It our boards, that's what we should be the most concerned with.

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That is correct Economics. This is what will happen 100%. Don't worry about screwing your chip up, chances are you'll find another used one of the same model for 20 bucks less than your previous purchase

Hazard said:

You lucky SOB. When I was looking for an X58 mobo, everyone wanted $150+ for them. I ended up in a shady part of town to pick up an EX58-UD3R from a women's shelter for $60. It was with some lady who knew nothing about it except it was a motherboard.

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omg ROFL that's HILARIOUS