1366 x58 Xeon Enthusiast overclocks club

4.2GHz is perfectly acceptable result for such an old chip on such an old mobo. 4.4GHz is a golden chip for hardwrae that old. Looking for lower temps/voltages is certainly the right direction.
 
Well I appreciate your help no matter the temptation.

I ended up NOT wrecking anything, and am working on a 4.5GHz OC.

I am very stable at 4.2, I will post my settings soon, but I am hoping that I can reach 4.5.

Sadly, I think my hold up, even if I get stable, will be temps. with just an H70, 4.2 ghz in prime95 hit 83C.

IMHO I can drop some voltages and still be stable, but we shall see :)

I just really like my ASUS R3F, and don't want to blow it up!

The R3F is a good board, don't destroy it as you will never be able to find another one again. I don't favor the low end old Corsair AIO such as the H50-H80's, a cooler such as my D14 offers better temps under load and quieter too. You can swap the fan off the H70 radiator for something better to lower the temps by few degrees.

4.2GHz is perfectly acceptable result for such an old chip on such an old mobo. 4.4GHz is a golden chip for hardwrae that old. Looking for lower temps/voltages is certainly the right direction.

I wouldn't say 4.4 is a golden chip for hardware (easily doable with any regular 1366 i7 including old D0 920, 930's) it's more like a golden chip Xeon needed to hit 4.5+.
 
doing 4.4GHz 24x7 today is golden for chips launched in Q1-2010, one can not read overclock reviews 5-6 years old and expect the same results today. X58 mobos do not age that well, so even if the Xeons have not lived a lifetime of overclock whensitting inside serv er blades, the enthusiast mobos used in this thread to OC the Xeons had no rest in this time period. shooting for 5Ghz on air today, as was stated a few posts before, is most likely looking for a fast way to kill the mobo.
 
24 x 7 high overclocks are a different story but you don't need a golden i7 back in the day to break the 4ghz + barrier. My old i7 920, 950, 965EE and 980x were purchased not long after there release dates back in the days and all of them was capable of doing 4.4+ even my old D0 920 but needed a shit ton of vcore. This was on various X58 motherboards.

As I said already you would kill the cpu before you can kill the mobo. I've done so many times since QX9650 s775 days.
 
Finally got the mounting hardware for my corsair AIO cooler. Not convinced it was a H50 like it was listed as. It looks different than the pictures. Either way I haven't seen over 55C on my X5650 :)

What's funny is I hit 3.9Ghz and had good results (besides temps) at varying frequinces on air, but now anything over 3.2Ghz I start having issues. I'd be happy with 3.2Ghz but I'm sure I'll try to push it further when I have the time
 
Finally got the mounting hardware for my corsair AIO cooler. Not convinced it was a H50 like it was listed as. It looks different than the pictures. Either way I haven't seen over 55C on my X5650 :)

What's funny is I hit 3.9Ghz and had good results (besides temps) at varying frequinces on air, but now anything over 3.2Ghz I start having issues. I'd be happy with 3.2Ghz but I'm sure I'll try to push it further when I have the time
no idea what board your using...but it sounds like you just need minor bios voltage tweaks to get what ever stable blck your going for. It might benefit you to create a sig in that regard. In any case use your highest multis available
 
no idea what board your using...but it sounds like you just need minor bios voltage tweaks to get what ever stable blck your going for. It might benefit you to create a sig in that regard. In any case use your highest multis available

Updated Sig, been meaning to do that anyways. I haven't tweaked any voltages yet, I'm sure this is what's stopping me thus far. I've never overclocked a board with this many settings / features, nor one this recent (recent for me, I'm incredibly cheap). The last was an Athlon 64 that I was just playing with to learn a bit about overclocking.

I still want to go higher with it, but I do think I'll stay somewhat conservative with it. It is a 24/7 machine. The Northbridge (IOH) is running at 55C idle even after replacing the thermal paste. With the AIO watercooler on the CPU the IOH is the highest temp in the case under load (barring the GFX card), So this is also something I'm keeping an eye on.


It's not pretty, but it's an improvement. I'm more about functionality than looks.


20161022_121259.jpg


Cable Management is awful but the drive bays and the side fan take up most of the window anyway :p

20161022_122318.jpg

Below is a pic in the old case




The Rampage III Formula board has been running like a champ (once I stopped using ram slot A1, it would shut off randomly and would boot in a loop before posting). Got as far as 3.9GHZ, but backed down to 3.3GHZ to keep temps under 70C at full load. Do you guys have any recommendations for a cheapish cooler to get 4GHZ without temps over 70C? I'm even considering an "all in one" water cooling system. Also looking to upgrade to case with better airflow.

Again I should stress that I am cheap, the Rampage board cost me $115 shipped and the Antec Truepower 650 cost me 35$.

Also if anyone is interested in the trials and tribulations necessary to get these parts so cheap read my posts in this thread

https://hardforum.com/threads/funny-craigslist-experiences.1914964/
 
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You need a 40-60mm fan on that Northbridge heatsink. They get quite hot when overclocked and since you have an AIO for your CPU you get no airflow near that NB area at all if you had a regular CPU HSF.
 
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I had a small 40mm there for a bit. Never bothered mounting it. Need more airflow to justify it. I'm on the lookout for a cooling solution there
 
I had a small 40mm there for a bit. Never bothered mounting it. Need more airflow to justify it. I'm on the lookout for a cooling solution there

Your only options is to mod a fan onto it or watercooling, which I doubt you would as easily find for a kit that will that mobo nowadays as you would back then.

Unlike the Rampage 3 Extreme which had an optional heatsink with a fan to be screwed onto, the Formula did not. But still a good mobo otherwise.
 
Thanks for all the advice guys, not to mention inspiring this upgrade in the first place :p. Anyone have an overclocking guide they can recommend? I've read several, including this one, the first one to show up in google. But its kind of poorly written and talks about pitching and catching which makes me think I'm on the wrong website....

"IOH pll- Think of this like the catcher's pitching strength. The catcher (IOH) needs to catch, not pitch so much.", WTF is he trying to say here? Not to mention sports analogies will go right the fuck over my head :)

I'm looking for both technical info on all the stuff that is new to me (pll voltages, uncore the list goes on) as well as what their role in a real world overclock. I'm one of those people if you tell me to do something I won't budge until you tell me why. Same goes for changes to my computer, I have to know why before I will try it.
 
honestly you don't have to under stand it to master it......google recommended voltages....test them......if they work see about even lower settings (one at a time)....
heres mine

cpu voltage 1.35
pll voltage 1.9 (leave yours at default)
qpi/dram 1.35
dram 1.65
all spread spec disabled
dram speed 1531
qpi link 6893
overclock xmp
dram time all default
i use highest multi for me 22 (Use your max multi)
speedstep disabled
c-states all on
blck 191 (yours to 200)
 
honestly you don't have to under stand it to master it
TBH I'm more about the understanding. I don't really need the OC, but I enjoy it, and it makes me want to learn more about how architectures have changed over the years.

Thanks for sharing your settings! I was going to start playing with it again this morning, but then the wife woke up. Why couldn't I of found a chick that was into overclocking :p
 
Finally found a solution for my Chipset temps, They were always high (60C to 65C under a good load), I tried a small 40MM fan which didn't help at all. So I tried a 80MM fan supported by the GFX card and held in place by the water lines. It's not pretty but it's a huge improvement. Idle temp (Folding on light 6 cores) settled at 44C IOH and 41C ICH (y). Currently at 3.2Ghz, but I was waiting on better Chipset temps before pushing it further

I wasn't expecting this much of an improvement!

80MM Chipset crop.png

20161029_095656.jpg

Hardly noticeable in the dark
20161029_095703.jpg
 
for what its worth......I wash my fans with soap and water in the sink when they get nasty.....just saying lol......dry em off quickly and there good to go, and never any issues yet. (course im a bit OCD)..not sure about your case but a shop vac on blow cleans the hole thing out in minuets VERY CLEAN! (if thats an issue) I know slightly off topic lol;)
 
All parts are second hand (I just noticed that only thing left from before the upgrade is a 500gb hdd for storage), not really worried about looks. I do keep them clean to help with Temps and longevity. The case's window is hard to see through anyways. I don't really show it off.

If I ever get a different desk setup I'd like it off the floor and I would probably clean it up then, along with a better looking case. I would probably find a better solution than an 80mm fan sitting on the gfx card too :p

I've cleaned fans that way at work, as well as scrubbing motherboards with 409, rinsing them off, blowing them off with an air compressor and then setting them out in the sun to completely dry. That's on older filthy hardware though. Never had to do that with anything recent.

On another note I spent an hour or so trying to get a higher OC, so far no go. Tried bumping the voltage up a bit, different ram, qpi and uncore speeds and a few other things and can't get past 3.2ghz. Bluescreens or just resets, no desktop. May have more time with it tonight. But not before some more research.
 
i suspect your missing a key bios setting.....in this case maybe you should take pics of your key bios setting....all it takes is one setting missing correct voltage adjustments and thats what you end up with.
 
Hey,

I'm thinking of buying a gtx 980 ti or a gtx 1070, is my Xeon 5650 @ 4,2ghz enough or will it bottleneck?
 
Hey,

I'm thinking of buying a gtx 980 ti or a gtx 1070, is my Xeon 5650 @ 4,2ghz enough or will it bottleneck?
You'll be fine. Especially with a properly threaded game. I fold on 6 cores while playing games at 60FPS (Vsync enabled)
 
I have an

ASUS P6T6 WS Revolution mobo
12GB RAM
Xeon x5675 overclocked to 4.0GHz

I came from a i7-920 to a i7-960 then now 2 months ago went to the x5675.

the processor was so cheap I couldn't resist. But now my lack of SATA3 or other newer tech is holding me back. I guess I could just buy upgrade cards.
 
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Just noticed I never posted an overclock update. Ended up using this guide to overclock my X5650 (the guide is for i7 CPU's but still has a lot of relevant information). I like the methodology of isolating components and settings one at a time. A few hours later I was going higher and higher with the BLCK but had to go WAY up on the QPI voltage and a slight bump on other voltages. If it had gone smoother I would have ended up with a decent OC. In the end I just went back to 160 BLCK at stock voltage since it's a daily driver. What's messed up is I got a bluescreen when I wasn't home at the before rock solid 160 BLCK, So I dropped it to 150 for 3Ghz.

I'm not worthy to post in this thread anymore :p

the processor was so cheap I couldn't resist. But now my lack of SATA3 or other newer tech is holding me back. I guess I could just buy upgrade cards.

QFT, my board has onboard SATA 3 but it's a crappy Marvell controller. Looking to upgrade to a PCI-E controller at some point to speed things up.
 
PCI-e M.2 adapters will work with some of the NVME SSD's. Samsung 950 Pro works for sure...probably my favorite upgrade. Boots in 15 seconds and allowed me to disable the crappy Marvell SATA 3 controller.
 
PCI-e M.2 adapters will work with some of the NVME SSD's. Samsung 950 Pro works for sure...probably my favorite upgrade. Boots in 15 seconds and allowed me to disable the crappy Marvell SATA 3 controller.
which adapter are you using? does your bios let you select it to boot off off?
 
which adapter are you using? does your bios let you select it to boot off off?

Just a cheap one from eBay. It was like $5. You may need to enable option roms in your BIOS, although I didn't have to do anything on my Rampage III Gene. Showed up on boot and I did a clean install of Windows 10 with no problems. Hopefully Samsung kept the legacy BIOS compatibility in the 960 series.
 
PCI-e M.2 adapters will work with some of the NVME SSD's. Samsung 950 Pro works for sure...probably my favorite upgrade. Boots in 15 seconds and allowed me to disable the crappy Marvell SATA 3 controller.

So you are able to BOOT to that PCIE M.2 NVME SSD drive? CAn you tell me what adapter you used?

EDIT: NVM, saw the link. I'll give those the old college try.
 
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Saving up to get my X58 system to upgrade from my Q9550. I think you guys have convinced me to go single CPU with a motherboard that supports overclocking. I mostly use older software that would prefer the higher clock speed anyway. Any good places to find motherboards? I've been watching on Ebay but even non working boards seem to start at $150 :eek:. I've repaired lots of motherboards in my day but don't want to spend hours trying to bend 100's of pins back in to place


X58 mobos are still expensive. Good thing I spent good money on my P6T6 WS Revolution back in the day.
 
X58 mobos are still expensive. Good thing I spent good money on my P6T6 WS Revolution back in the day.
Ended up getting an untested ASUS Rampage iii Formula for $115 shipped. with a little patience a good board can be found, best purchase of my life
 
The Asus P6T Deluxe boards have a chipset heatsink with sweeping fins. Asus desgined the fins to take advantage of the down flow air from the stock Intel cooler. Asus did include plastic standoffs for 40mm fan.
 
Longshot: I have a Dell T3500 with an X5560. Has anybody successfully replaced the motherboard in a T3500 with a more modern version, one that would support Sata 3, USB 3, etc?
 
There are some pretty cheap hexcore xeons on ebay right now. E5645 for 29$
E5649 for 39$ I did score mine for 35$ It is a lot of CPU for 35$ Some years ago I bought two E5620 for 287$ each for the first dual 1366 I built. The hexcores were crazy expensive back then.

The E5649 has a 22 top multiplier. I have it on an Asus RampageIII Gene. I could not get 22 stable as of yet.
I am running it at 19 x 203 = 3857 AIO H110 running BOINC WCG it is in the low to mid 40c and primegrid (like prime95) it is in the low 50c room temp 70f or so, I am at 1.28v I maybe able to go lower.
My Ram, G.skill Sniper 1866 is at 16XX 8-9-8-24, I maybe able to tighten that up some. 2 x 8gb, dual channel. The middle red ram socket is bad, my fault, I killed it, so dual channel dual rank memory is good enough.
Not a bad little chip for under 40$
I plan on buying another and throwing them in a dual socket board I have running E5620 quads.

Think I will get one of the E5645 for 29$ and see what it will do, I am thinking I can use the 21 multiplier. For some reason, even multipliers do not work out so well for me. Maybe I can get it to 4.2ghz
 
whats the story on the E5649? Thats the same multi my x5670 uses lol......whats the big differences?
 
The E5649 is 80watt with the temp limit a couple deg C lower.
I have it crunching away an it is doing great.

I did order an e5645 for 29$ last night. I will swap them out and see what it can do.
 
I wanted to add there's no bottleneck playing BF1 MP @ 2560x1440 with any settings.
 
My 29$ E5645 hexcore came today. A bit let down, it has the highest multiplier I can get on all cores is 19.
It overclocks well I have it at 19 x 203 for 1863 I think, 100% load BOINV WCG at 1.29v it is in the low 40c with a H110 AIO water cooler.
So I guess I'll find a cheap x5660 or 75 and drop this in my dual socket with the E5649. They will run WCG at each CPUs rated speed. 1 core to 1 work unit.
If I do some work like SMP, all cores on one work unit, the cores will run at the slowest CPUs top speed. I am OK with that for now.
 
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