1366 x58 Xeon Enthusiast overclocks club

 
primetime said:
pick an adapter card that would have some possible value in a new setup. Something that wont hit the parts bin as soon as i upgrade to a newer chip set. Or am i asking for something that doesn't exist?
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I assume the main bonus would be the speed boost from using the drive on pcie3 or the onboard controller on newer platforms. That said, it'll be so fast not sure you'll know it without looking st synthetics :)
 
Napoleon said:
I assume the main bonus would be the speed boost from using the drive on pcie3 or the onboard controller on newer platforms. That said, it'll be so fast not sure you'll know it without looking st synthetics :)
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It feels a little faster/snappier than my 850 Evo on sata2. But it's not Earth shattering. I was coming from a 7700k system with nvme and the x5660 felt a little laggy with the evo but this helps. Could also be I "downgraded" from Windows 10 to Windows 7 so more than one piece of the hardware/software was changed.
 
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I've owned a few 1366 hex cores and have always been a bit let down in the overclocking aspect... until now.

I snagged two W3670 CPUs for $58 shipped for the pair on eBay. From the pictures I could see one was manufactured in 2011, the other in 2012. I had read somewhere in this thread that the later chips (second digit in the batch number indicates year) overclock far better. While my sample size is limited, my findings certainly back this up.

The 2011 chip couldn't handle 4.20GHz at 1.35V - 4.10GHz was stable. I've owned several 1366 hex cores and this is about average.

My X58 board only has offset Vcore adjustment and at first I couldn't believe that the 2012 W3670 was running only 1.25V after adding +0.100V, which would have meant 1.35V on the 2011 chip. Now I'm sitting at 4.40GHz with 1.35V (+0.200V). There should be more left at this vcore since I essentially brute forced 4.40GHz by giving a big voltage increase.

TLDR: If you're looking at 1366 hex cores on eBay, I recommend trying your luck on a 2012 or newer. I've even seen 2013 chips, although they appear to be pretty uncommon.
 
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primetime said:
So were looking at $400+ to move to actual high speed storage with our boards? Assuming we dont want to mess with bullshit workarounds? Is it really practical to spend this much on 256mb of storage? Just seems a little steep for so little storage.Go ahead and put a link for the perfect m2 adapter if were spending that much lol
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I bought a Plextor 256GB M6e (PCIe version, already comes with an adapter) for like $120 off ebay a couple months ago... you can always remove it from the PCIe adapter and use it as a regular m2 SSD if you upgrade your platform to something with nvme slots
 
FLECOM said:
I bought a Plextor 256GB M6e (PCIe version, already comes with an adapter) for like $120 off ebay a couple months ago... you can always remove it from the PCIe adapter and use it as a regular m2 SSD if you upgrade your platform to something with nvme slots
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It occurred to me im really wanting a 1TB ssd even if i cant currently use it as a "boot" drive...Something i can store all my installed Games on without worrying about running out of space..

Im debating these items right now:

Samsung 960 EVO Series - 1TB PCIe NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V6E1T0BW) $435.59
StarTech.com M.2 Adapter – x4 PCIe 3.0 NVMe $21.95

I cant help but think its more forward thinking for the next build;). It would kinda serve as a permanent Games back up for fresh installs? Possibly? lol IDK since i havent tried it this way. And speed would be comparable to the 950pro you mentioned....Im way behind on studying the newer different ssds and which ones hold up better over time.
 
I don't have a 950 but if you don't want to boot off of it I think you should be able to use any nvme drive... I used the same startech adapter with a 951 and it works fine in my x58 as a non-boot drive
 
I picked up a gently used Samsung 950pro 256gb for around 100$ and it works great.
Also picked up a couple HyperX predator256 for around the same price, and they work good too.
The Samsung is the faster of the two.

The startech adapter I have makes my sound card disappear, I had to install the os to a SSD with the soundcard installed then clone the drive to the HyperX predator.
I am now using the Asus adapter .
https://www.ebay.com/itm/ASUS-HYPER...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649
 
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I have the oppertunity to get some 2400MHz DDR3 RAM for a good price, is that "compatible" with these Xeons? Meaning can I assume overclocking will work, while also running that fast RAM? Currently running 6x 2 GB 1600 MHz RAM, with a baseclock of 200MHz (Xeon X5660, Asus P6T Deluxe v2).
 
andrvad said:
I have the oppertunity to get some 2400MHz DDR3 RAM for a good price, is that "compatible" with these Xeons? Meaning can I assume overclocking will work, while also running that fast RAM? Currently running 6x 2 GB 1600 MHz RAM, with a baseclock of 200MHz (Xeon X5660, Asus P6T Deluxe v2).
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It "Could" work.......But a lot depends on your board and that specific cpu....Xeons in general have varying results like the silicon lottery always shows
 
Finally retired my X58 system... upgraded to a Ryzen 1600 @ 4.0Ghz from my X5650 @ 4.0Ghz. I gained about 20-30 fps average while playing PUBG so that is pretty nice but the X5650 still held its own. I might try a 8700K system though since I finished putting together my brother's 8700K build today and at the same settings both on 1080 Ti he was getting another 20-30 fps higher on average vs. my Ryzen.

Last pic of my X58 setup before I pulled her out to box up and sell, owned her since 2009 or so =(

9hwt4Bv.jpg
 
Well. Something gave out on my x58 setup. I'm not sure if it's the x5660 or the motherboard. Basically, my top memory slot is dead. That decreased my available RAM from 18 to 12. Also for some reason I can't get a stable overclock anymore and stuck at 2.8.

Needless to say, this has really hurt my performance.

I'm tempted to stick my 920 back in to see if it's the processor or motherboard. Just have to find the time.

If it's motherboard, I will no longer be in the x58 club, as it is just too expensive for a replacement used board.
 
Dang, that's too bad :( I'm hoping I can get a few more years out of mine now - it might not be my main rig by then but so far I'm content :)
 
FalconSS said:
Well. Something gave out on my x58 setup. I'm not sure if it's the x5660 or the motherboard. Basically, my top memory slot is dead. That decreased my available RAM from 18 to 12. Also for some reason I can't get a stable overclock anymore and stuck at 2.8.

Needless to say, this has really hurt my performance.

I'm tempted to stick my 920 back in to see if it's the processor or motherboard. Just have to find the time.

If it's motherboard, I will no longer be in the x58 club, as it is just too expensive for a replacement used board.
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They aren't as bad as they used to be as most people are moving off them to bigger and better things (x79 / x99 mostly). I've gotten a couple for right around $100.
 
Well, it's not the memory controller on the cpu. Swapped it for a Xeon a friend of mine had. Same issue.

I have seen a couple of posts about issues with ram not being detected correctly. I have tried increasing the voltage on qpi and the ram bus. Niether works. When all my sticks are in, I see 6 gbs in the bios and windows but the full 18 in cpu-z.

The ram is mixed unfortunately (3x2gig, 3x4gig) but I didn't have an issue in the past and it was stable for years.

If I could get 3x8gig for less than $100, it would be great.
 
well I did it

got 48GB working on my R3F/970 setup...have to find a 7pro key because MS stupidity

working on a Samsung 950 deal too
 
Ok, good news!?

I went back to basics and decided to start removing things one at a time until back to basics.

First thing I removed is an older 802.11g card I have kept in my system as a backup. Lo' and behold, all 18 gigs are detected! I am now going to swap my old processor back in as as the e-seriea I was testing with is horrible for games.
 
FalconSS said:
Well. Something gave out on my x58 setup. I'm not sure if it's the x5660 or the motherboard. Basically, my top memory slot is dead. That decreased my available RAM from 18 to 12. Also for some reason I can't get a stable overclock anymore and stuck at 2.8.

Needless to say, this has really hurt my performance.

I'm tempted to stick my 920 back in to see if it's the processor or motherboard. Just have to find the time.

If it's motherboard, I will no longer be in the x58 club, as it is just too expensive for a replacement used board.
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damnit. so I checked this thread randomly after not being on hardforum for years. and guess what, my x58 asus board with a 980x is reporting 16gb out of 24gb and my overclocks have needed ridiculous amounts of voltage to even be unstable. so I think I'm throwing in the towel on x58.

what is the consensus on moving forward? threadripper? i9? I was using that special low latency samsung ddr3. what's the replacement for that, what ram has the best timings for ddr4? and what board is going to give the most stable overclock? I'm completely out of the loop now. I plan on using my pci-e fusion-io drives still so I'll just need a replacement for ram/motherboard/cpu. is noctua still making the best heatsinks?
 
legcramp said:
Finally retired my X58 system... upgraded to a Ryzen 1600 @ 4.0Ghz from my X5650 @ 4.0Ghz. I gained about 20-30 fps average while playing PUBG so that is pretty nice but the X5650 still held its own. I might try a 8700K system though since I finished putting together my brother's 8700K build today and at the same settings both on 1080 Ti he was getting another 20-30 fps higher on average vs. my Ryzen.

Last pic of my X58 setup before I pulled her out to box up and sell, owned her since 2009 or so =(
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Glad to hear the new systems can offer some appreciable performance gain; not that I have much to complain about, sounds like i can wait another few years provided nothing breaks :)
 
Napoleon said:
Glad to hear the new systems can offer some appreciable performance gain; not that I have much to complain about, sounds like i can wait another few years provided nothing breaks :)
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I ended up selling the Ryzen setup and switched to a 8700K setup. FPS is way higher overall and a worthy upgrade from westmere.
 
Hey guys! I just wanna say hello to all of you guys here and probably bring back a bit of "life" into this X58 owner club. :)
Who am I? I'm new here and I just subscribed and want to share my experience on X58 with you. I'm Swiss and please forgive me for my imperfect English.. but hey ;)

I've owned several X58 systems and digged deeper and deeper into it with every system I owned. My last setup had an ASUS P6X58D-E, a Xeon X5670 and tripple channel vengeance LP 1600MHz (total 12gb) memory. I got it stable at 4.2GHz (200Mhz x 21) within minutes but didn't really want to mess around with it any further. I usually try to find the sweetspot between noise and power.

In the meantime I've owned Ryzen Systems with R7 1700 or R3 1200 chips (3.8ghz) and in all honesty I just couldn't really feel much of a power upgrade from them.

So I'm now currently back on square 1 (as we would say) ^^. I decided to go into the extreme with this platform and overclock it to the max. So I ordered a water block, blocks for the vrm and a block for the northbridge. I'm gonna build a hard tube water loop dedicated to the CPU and it's power delivery.

The setup I'll have:
Fractal Meshify C (120 dollars)
Be Quiet Dark Power Pro P11 750W (I always keep this unit. So I already had it)
ASUS P6X58D-E (60 dollars, I just love it :))
Xeon W3670 (30 dollars, I heard good things of it since it's a newer revision of the X5670 kind off)
2x8GB Vengeance 1600Mhz ram (60 Dollars)
180gb Intel SSD (40 Dollars)
Water cooling parts of aliexpress (I always order my water cooling stuff from there. You just need to find the quality things there (D5 pump etc.) Water cooling is crazy expensive in Switzerland..^^ (In total maybe around 200 Dollars) Bit expensive but I'll keep this stuff anyway and in the future I'll just upgrade the platform.

I'll try to feed you with information and some pics. But it's gonna take a bit because I'll be rather busy over January and February.

Anyway, I hope we'll have a great time here!
 
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It's dead man laying in the pile of other junk in the basement man. I don't know that rampage mobo something wrong with it....moved on to z270 and 7700k anyways, huge improvement man.
waiting on the Loop EK Kit to put together..
 
Nice for you :). I just love to play around with my stuff and I feel like newer hardware is sooo predictable. You just more or less know what you can get out of it and this just kills every aspect of being a pc hardware passionate guy, at least for me ^^. But I hope you'll enjoy your setup for a long time.
 
yeah, sorry, I didn't realize you don't know the history.

EK is a horrible company.

A few years ago they had a batch of blocks with substandard nickel plating. It was peeling off the blocks and fucking up peoples loops. Instead of manning up and dealing with it they lied, bullied, threatened lawsuits, and ran some small but reputable vendors out of business.

It is a shame, there was a time when they were the best.

I will never deal with them again, hope they die in a fire.
 
jojo69 said:
yeah, sorry, I didn't realize you don't know the history.

EK is a horrible company.

A few years ago they had a batch of blocks with substandard nickel plating. It was peeling off the blocks and fucking up peoples loops. Instead of manning up and dealing with it they lied, bullied, threatened lawsuits, and ran some small but reputable vendors out of business.

It is a shame, there was a time when they were the best.

I will never deal with them again, hope they die in a fire.
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Well that is rather unfortunate, maybe nickel plated stuff needs left to air or something....I thought it was always like copper/brass, but aluminum is fine...maybe not the best heat conductor but it's very resistive to corrosion and oxidation, copper can't say that look at all those old blocks been ran awhile, they are oxidized real bad or galvanice mixing metals corrosion.
 
Hey guys, what a great thread! I am new to block overclocking. I have an Asus Rampage III formula with a Xeon 5670. I can set the multiplier to 24, but I obviously need to raise the base clock, but I have no experience doing this. I see a lot of you are doing great overclocking these CPUs. Does someone have a guide or example of how to get the cpu to 4.2Ghz or so? This thread is so long, it would take me hours to go through every post.

So, looking to hit 4.2Ghz or better. Just need a guide that explains the settings and what they do, etc. Thanks!
 
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Xa3phod said:
Hey guys, what a great thread! I am new to block overclocking. I have an Asus Rampage III formula with a Xeon 5670. I can set the multiplier to 24, but I obviously need to raise the base clock, but I have no experience doing this. I see a lot of you are doing great overclocking these CPUs. Does someone have a guide or example of how to get the cpu to 2.4Ghz or so? This thread is so long, it would take me hours to go through every post.

So, looking to hit 4.2Ghz or better. Just need a guide that explains the settings and what they do, etc. Thanks!
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Its simple division really....My board only runs at 22x so 191blck gives my very easy 4.2ghz...I think yours holds a higher multi than mine if i recall do to being a rampage board. Bump your vcore up to 1.3ish and see how it does. Anyways as a rule of thumb, the lower the blck used the less voltage needed and easier to achieve.
 
Since I am upping the blck, doesn't that also up the PCIe and other things that then need to be lowered manually?
 
I went straight for the gusto and 200 BCLK (X5660 in my case). No problems on air cooling at 4.2Ghz. I had to disable turbo boost though because it would boost to 4.6Ghz which the chip wouldn't handle. Speedstep worked great and the multiplier went from 12 to 21 without issues.

The only thing you have to adjust after your BCLK overclock is your RAM speed and maybe your QPI link. At 200mhz it is pretty easy to get a pretty stock RAM speed with the RAM dividers. My QPI was running at 6.4, and I didn't have any issues.
 
Xa3phod said:
Hey guys, what a great thread! I am new to block overclocking. I have an Asus Rampage III formula with a Xeon 5670. I can set the multiplier to 24, but I obviously need to raise the base clock, but I have no experience doing this. I see a lot of you are doing great overclocking these CPUs. Does someone have a guide or example of how to get the cpu to 4.2Ghz or so? This thread is so long, it would take me hours to go through every post.

So, looking to hit 4.2Ghz or better. Just need a guide that explains the settings and what they do, etc. Thanks!
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Hey, I had and will have another P6X58D-E which has very similar overclocking settings and an equaly good power delivery and northbridge. I also had the X5670 CPU.
I used to following settings, but bare in mind that it will always depend on your configuration (specially memory, the more sticks you have the higher the QPI voltage must be):

BLCK Frequency: 200
Multiplier: 21
Vcore: 1.275 (I think, I'm not 100% sure anymore)
CPU PLL: 1.81V
QPI: 1.36 (Because I had all 6 memory slots in use)
I also disabled CPU and PCI Spread spectrum
Enabled Loadline calibration
Had the C-states enabled (I like cool and quiet systems...^^)
I think the rest was at stock settings. But you'll have to play around with your settings anyway.

One thing I want to mention is that it's really worth playing around with your QPI, IOH, ICH voltages since it will help you lowering the Vcore.
And you really want to change the thermal compound on your northbridge in order to keep it stable (most of them turned into chewing gum over the years)

Cheers!
 
Today I actually got some work done! :) Now I'm just waiting for all the other stuff but that's gonna take a while...
IMG_2289.JPG
IMG_2293.JPG
 
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