1366 x58 Xeon Enthusiast overclocks club

[JakFrost]

After 10.5-years of running on an Intel i7-920 4C 2.6 GHz @ 3.6 GHz Air I am finally upgrading to the Intel Xeon X5690 6C 3.46 GHz and will try for the 4.2 GHz overclock that seems to be pretty standard overclock on Air after spending all of $85 USD on eBay for it.

Alright, finally an update. I replaced the old i7 920 CPU with a new one X5690 and set the BCLK to 165 from 180 and set the voltage levels in the BIOS back to Auto, which cranked up the CPU to 1.35 V from 1.2 V and the RAM from 1.5 V to 1.56 V which is a bit lot more than the old system running on manually set 1.2 V and 1.5 V but what the hell at this point in time. The new CPU X5690 from stock 3.47 GHZ is at 4.29 GHz (165 MHz x 26-Multi). I haven't run any long-term stability tests but the quick one-run CPU and GPU benchmarks run fine. I set the BCLK to 175 MHz and I get instant blue-screen so I hope that the lower 165 MHz with the higher voltages set by the BIOS Auto settings are fine. I tried running it at 170 MHz but CineBench R20 crashes quickly.

At this point in time I don't have the patience to eek out more performance on the bus clock speed since I'm very happy with 4.29 GHz on Air XigmaTek single 120mm Fan even though I would have been happy with 4.2 GHz.

Not sure if it's stable, will play some 3D games to test since the real test is 3D Gaming and all the other 2D and 3D benchmarks can go to hell for all that I care since I learned that stability is only certain in 3D games such as the old Battlefield 2 (2009) after 15-minutes of no crashes and no PunkBuster kicks.

If this works then I am done! Only things I did was CPU replacement with cleaning off old heat spread and applying new one and changing BCLK to 165 from 180 and voltages setting to Auto for CPU and DRAM. Easiest upgrade ever it seems and cheaper than an Intel Core i7 990X which is going for $250 USD right now on eBay and $120 USD for 980X also.

I played a bit with the memory DIMMs DDR3 at 1600 MHz at 1,654 MHz (2:8) at 1.8 V Auto voltage setting and then at 1,322 MHz (2:10) at 1.56 V Auto voltage and settled on the slower setting since there was no performance increase and the Auto voltage setting bumped the memory up too high in voltage since it used to run stable at 1.5 V for 10-years, and the new 24 GB at ~ 3-years or so. I'd rather have lower voltage on the memory than slightly more speed, especially since at the higher speed the Row Refresh Cycle Time (tRFC) is at 208 clocks at 1,654 MHz (2:10) versus 139 clock on the slower 1,322 (2:8) multi so the performance takes a hit at the higher speed and doesn't yield any faster results. (As we also know from testing memory speeds for decades now.)

Updated: I posted pictures and stability at BCLK 170 MHz but it wasn't stable in CineBench R20, so lowered it to 165 MHz and am testing it now. Same deal as before with this motherboard and the old 920 CPU which would run and work fine at BCLK 190 MHz but wasn't fully 3D long-term stable until I lowered it all the way to 180 MHz. I tried to get that old CPU stable at 187, 185, 183, but No-Go until 180 MHz, no matter the voltage I would push through it.

 

[kirbyrj]

^^^ Looks good to me. That's about how I ran my setup when I had it. The only difference was I had a X5660 which would run at an even 200Mhz bus speed to get 4.2Ghz (X58 Sabertooth).

 

[RickyJ]

I just built an i5-4670k machine for work from used parts, figured I'd compare it to my trusty daily 5670@4GHz. Same 1600MHz 16GB DDR3 (different brand/timings, but close enough).

5670:
Cinebench R15: 908
Cinebench R20: 1857
HyperPi 0.99 1M 19x: 22.x seconds
LinX 0.6.5 8192MB, problem size 32717: 72 GFlops (approx 6 minutes per run)

Stock 4670k:
Cinebench R15: 571
Cinebench R20: 1409
HyperPi 0.99 1M 19x: 12.x seconds
LinX 0.6.5 8192MB, problem size 32717: 173 GFlops

I wasn't expecting the little i5 to be so strong against my relic! The HyperPi and Linx throughput are still a shock to me, I figured they'd be a titch faster from IPC but not like this.

 

[FLECOM]

have you turned off the spectre/meltdown patches? those really gimp 1366 machines in certain stuff

 

[RickyJ]

My LinX score matched close enough to my GFlops from 2015 so I didn't think about it.

 

[StealthViking]

Alright, finally an update. I replaced the old i7 920 CPU with a new one X5690 and set the BCLK to 165 from 180 and set the voltage levels in the BIOS back to Auto, which cranked up the CPU to 1.35 V from 1.2 V and the RAM from 1.5 V to 1.56 V which is a bit lot more than the old system running on manually set 1.2 V and 1.5 V but what the hell at this point in time. The new CPU X5690 from stock 3.47 GHZ is at 4.29 GHz (165 MHz x 26-Multi). I haven't run any long-term stability tests but the quick one-run CPU and GPU benchmarks run fine. I set the BCLK to 175 MHz and I get instant blue-screen so I hope that the lower 165 MHz with the higher voltages set by the BIOS Auto settings are fine. I tried running it at 170 MHz but CineBench R20 crashes quickly.

At this point in time I don't have the patience to eek out more performance on the bus clock speed since I'm very happy with 4.29 GHz on Air XigmaTek single 120mm Fan even though I would have been happy with 4.2 GHz.

Not sure if it's stable, will play some 3D games to test since the real test is 3D Gaming and all the other 2D and 3D benchmarks can go to hell for all that I care since I learned that stability is only certain in 3D games such as the old Battlefield 2 (2009) after 15-minutes of no crashes and no PunkBuster kicks.

If this works then I am done! Only things I did was CPU replacement with cleaning off old heat spread and applying new one and changing BCLK to 165 from 180 and voltages setting to Auto for CPU and DRAM. Easiest upgrade ever it seems and cheaper than an Intel Core i7 990X which is going for $250 USD right now on eBay and $120 USD for 980X also.

I played a bit with the memory DIMMs DDR3 at 1600 MHz at 1,654 MHz (2:8) at 1.8 V Auto voltage setting and then at 1,322 MHz (2:10) at 1.56 V Auto voltage and settled on the slower setting since there was no performance increase and the Auto voltage setting bumped the memory up too high in voltage since it used to run stable at 1.5 V for 10-years, and the new 24 GB at ~ 3-years or so. I'd rather have lower voltage on the memory than slightly more speed, especially since at the higher speed the Row Refresh Cycle Time (tRFC) is at 208 clocks at 1,654 MHz (2:10) versus 139 clock on the slower 1,322 (2:8) multi so the performance takes a hit at the higher speed and doesn't yield any faster results. (As we also know from testing memory speeds for decades now.)

Updated: I posted pictures and stability at BCLK 170 MHz but it wasn't stable in CineBench R20, so lowered it to 165 MHz and am testing it now. Same deal as before with this motherboard and the old 920 CPU which would run and work fine at BCLK 190 MHz but wasn't fully 3D long-term stable until I lowered it all the way to 180 MHz. I tried to get that old CPU stable at 187, 185, 183, but No-Go until 180 MHz, no matter the voltage I would push through it.

I agree that 1366 X58 lives – also with Windows 10 as with Windows 7 and XP.
I thought Windows 10 was not possible on this ‘long dead’ platform, but this was not the case.
Checking things out letely, I found that drivers are available and when installing Windows 10 I experienced no problems.
I use Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC (a reduced version compared with 10 Pro, with no MSFT Store, no Edge browser and a more limited telemetry set-up). Windows 10 Ent. LTSC is available at very low prices at several sites on the Internet – no advertising here, but anyone can surely find a relevant offer.
That said, security customization is still necessary, if you are focused on a ‘safer workstation’ and have a need for Microsoft Office, as I do. I run a somewhat resource-hungry AV/FW/IDS/IPS system also, which the X58 copes with, surprisingly well. In daily office work, there is not much difference to the other workstation, an X99/i7-6950X, also mildly OC’ed – that’s a bit embarrassing in a way.

The really interesting thing is, how responsive the platform is, based on:
CPU: Core i7-990X (mildly OC’ed, One core at max 4.1 GHz, all core max at 3.965 GHz, using air cooling)
MB: Gigabyte X58A-OC (Many years since that went out of production, but still stable)
RAM: 24 GB Ballistics Elite (Only at 1565 MHz, but tight timings).

It was an experiment at first, but since it is so good, I do not need to purchase a new CPU, MB and RAM.
That is, of course, because I do not do much regarding video conversion or other large batch jobs.

So, this was my experience – I definitely agree, that 1366 x58 is far from dead. And with Windows 10 Ent. LTSC 2019 updates are secured until January 2029. . . It has now been running perfectly for a month and an Hauppauge TV tuner card (from 2012) has also been running perfectly (no scatching sound, jumping pictures or hickups). And MS-Office is fully stable as expected. It really seems fully stable.

Hope someone else can make use of my experience.

 

[jojo69]

I thought Windows 10 was not possible on this ‘long dead’ platform, but this was not the case.

why...would you think that?

10 can run on much older hardware than this


glad it's working out for you

 

[yeahman]

Testing the board now, all seems to work well. Strange thing on this board it pushes all cores on these x5670's to 3200mhz at full load while running p95 or Cinebench, so I'm quite happy about that.

Currently running single channel 2x2gb, got about 1430 in Cinebench, expecting 1500-1600 in tri-channel.
Max temps under load sits at around 58c with the bios set to "Whisper" mode, and it is very quiet, the hard drive I'm testing with is louder. I may have to set it higher when it's in a case, depending how airflow ends up.

The voltage regulators get too hot for comfort, I think I'll drop a few small heat sinks on them.
The chipset heatsink gets VERY hot without a fan, currently have a 120mm Noctua fan on there and it stays nice and cool, will probably end up with an 80mm fan once it's in a case.

Hi, I know this is old but I am using a Z8NA-D6 and the heatsink does get very very hot.... how did you manage to install a fan on it?? I don't see any "bracket" to install a fan on it.. I mean the large heatsink on the chipset.

 

[crazycrave]

I still have my x58 but I can't remember my password .. lol

anyways if you add a small water cooler then boosting to 4,5 or 4,6 is not to hard

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/19681543

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/19853098

 

[rhkcommander959]

I've been rocking LGA 1366 since it came out, I recently upgraded to a x5670 after years of slugging it out with a w3670 (man I miss that unlocked multi) and then a x5650 that wasn't a good 4+ overclocker.

I'm currently running 4.2 GHz with my x5670, 200bclk and 1.27v. I've done up to 4.6 for benches but didn't settle on a stable voltage, nor had enough time to see if I can trim more off at 4.2 GHz. I kept having to chase QPI and VTT. I'm also running DDR3-2000 CL8 3x4GB Mushkin RAM, been wanting to add 3x8 with comparable speed. We'll see. I love this platform, I wish Intel would have stuck with it a little longer, but at least they didn't do like they did with LGA 1150. Using an R9 290X, I can still play pretty much everything at higher settings on 2560x1600 resolution. I'd like to upgrade the GPU some day too, perhaps a GTX 1660 Ti.


I've been looking into adding NVME support to the bios on my Asus P6X58D-E, I think that would spruce things up nicely. I wanted to do a PCIe adapter, but unless I find a rare drive with legacy support I'll have to mod the bios or do a bootloader or something else janky. I haven't sat down long enough to see if the BIOS would be too big for the CMOS with the additional information or not. My goal is to do this over a patched BIOS for meltdown/spectre if applicable, ala https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...tre-patched-bios-for-x58-motherboards.246101/

Here is the resource I was looking at for potentially adding NVME. https://www.win-raid.com/t871f50-Gu...rt-for-all-Systems-with-an-AMI-UEFI-BIOS.html , it sounds like a no-go due to not being UEFI though. I could also go the Clover route perhaps https://www.win-raid.com/t2375f50-G...r-UEFI-BIOS-Clover-EFI-bootloader-method.html . Anyone else here played around with this stuff? I'm using a 500gb SATA SSD right now so it's not bad, but the newer rigs with NVME are insanely responsive.

 

[Ultra-m-a-n]

There is also the option of using a used Fusion-io pcie ssd. You cant boot from it, and they are a touch slower than NVME. But a huge improvement.

I think the Samsung 950 has support for legacy BIOS, pair that with a pcie card, and you will be all set.

 

[rhkcommander959]

I think the Samsung 950 has support for legacy BIOS, pair that with a pcie card, and you will be all set.

Yeah the 950 (and sm951 I think) are good to go, but getting hard to come by for a reasonable price for capacity!

I think if and when I get some spare time I'll try clover or duet so I can have a bootable nvme drive.

 

[nofearek9]

no,only 950 pro will work.

those seems that work :
Plextor M8PEY
Plextor M6e
Kingston HyperX Predator
(contact manufactarer to be sure,i have not tested them ,just found online other members use them on legacy bios)

 

[JEKYLL]

I have 48GB - 6 x (8gb DDR3-1866 Ripjaw X's) and a W3690 running at 4.0ghz without a hiccup on a Asrock X58 Extreme. Just wanted to let you know that you can probably do 48gb on your board if you wanted to max it out.. It has become my secondary computer now, but it has been a workhorse for 10+ years and going.. Longest computer I've ever had running and was a beast of a platform.. Take care..

 

[rhkcommander959]

I have 48GB - 6 x (8gb DDR3-1866 Ripjaw X's) and a W3690 running at 4.0ghz without a hiccup on a Asrock X58 Extreme. Just wanted to let you know that you can probably do 48gb on your board if you wanted to max it out.. It has become my secondary computer now, but it has been a workhorse for 10+ years and going.. Longest computer I've ever had running and was a beast of a platform.. Take care..

I've thought about doing 48, might settle for 36gb just because of budget but I really love this old platform. I just wish it had a few more features!

 

[Factum]

I've thought about doing 48, might settle for 36gb just because of budget but I really love this old platform. I just wish it had a few more features!

Intel sadly never made the same "mistake" again...I don't think any of their platforms ever had such longevity.

 

[CyrIng]

Xeon W3690 is rock stable, running Linux and overclock by CoreFreq

 

[nofearek9]

x58 x79 both will last many many years more 48gb/64gb ,6+ cores

 

[jojo69]

Intel sadly never made the same "mistake" again...I don't think any of their platforms ever had such longevity.

well...I get your point and I largely agree

but my sig really is my main rig history, and the PIII is still running 24-7 as an audio server here, long since off the internet of course, but still

It is certainly true that they have not made the same mistake since

 

[rhkcommander959]

the PIII is still running 24-7 as an audio server here, long since off the internet of course, but still

P3 was better than p4 for a long time, I often wanted to build a dual P3 tualatin setup. I have a magic slocket or whatever that lets me set voltage, with a 1ghz coppermine on an AOpen AX6BC motherboard. I still think about popping in a tualatin and having some fun. My first watercooling kit included a socket A peltier I could modify to mount to it if I really get time. This guy with duals ran crysis https://ancientelectronics.wordpress.com/2016/02/20/upgrading-my-dual-pentium-iii-tualatin-pc/

I remember when I was younger, my first slot 1 PC was from NEC. It had a real crappy 266 MHz celeron and a 66 MHz 440BX board. I used a slotkey adapter to pop in a 733 (I think) celeron, andded another 128MB of SDRAM, a crappy 2x agp card, and felt like a king lol

Xeon W3690 is rock stable, running Linux and overclock by CoreFreq

Nice! I miss the unlocked multiplier of my w3670, glad my motherboard does 200fsb easy though with a x5670 I have plenty of options!

 

[CyrIng]

...
// cyring, why not overclock in bios?

B/c you don't have to reboot. Just set the multiplier from the desktop

CPU examples:
* Usage: I'm changing clock as needed depending if I'm coding (idle) or building kernels (high)

* Settings: I keep an eye on the Processor features.
Turbo is for instance disabled when Processor is resuming from Suspend to RAM. Then I just re-enable it with shortcut [t]

* I check if the Memory Controller timings are those I left in BIOS.

 

[NamelessPFG]

I've had an X5650/12 GB DDR3-1600/MSI X58 Pro-E setup sitting around for a long while that cost me all of $100 (just wanted something cheap with SSE4 that would run games that required it), and it's only now that I put it into service since the old Q6600 build I've been trying to move the rest of the family off of had some parts I needed to carry over, mainly the custom water-cooling setup (my XSPC Raystorm blocks are the only things I have around with LGA1366 mounts) and the graphics card.

Well, I've been let down big time, because it seems like a lot of people can hit 200 BCLK with ease on just 1.3V QPI, but this X58 Pro-E is just not having it past 180 BCLK, which cripples the X5650's ability to hit a steady 4.0-4.2 GHz - even at the max 1.35V QPI that's considered the limit for safe 24/7 voltages on Westmere.

There's a YouTube video of someone using the same board, but pumping a whopping 1.47V QPI to hit 200 BCLK, which seems like a great way to kill a 32nm Westmere CPU through electromigration. Maybe if I were overclocking for sport, I'd do it, but I can't risk it on a system that needs to last a while longer for other family members until the 4770K build can be the new hand-me-down in a year or two.

Do these X58 Pro-E boards just suck hard by comparison to most X58 boards or something? Everything I've found about 1st-gen i7/Xeon overclocking hinges on being able to hit at least 200 BCLK stably, like any system should be able to pull it off. It's going past that that should be the hard part.

I'm pretty good on thermal headroom, too; the CPU doesn't even exceed 50C under Cinebench R20 load. IOH runs a bit toasty, but that's apparently normal on these.

 

[UltraTaco]

It might be the CPU actually. My i7 920 could not do anything above 191bclk no matter the voltages, but my x5670 can do 218.

 

[D-EJ915]

I remember people complaining that X58 boards were really hit or miss as to whether they could hit 200 and go over or not at least for the first gen parts but like UltraTaco said the CPU is also a limiting factor there as well. I've got a few X58 boards now but to be honest I've not compared them all to see which ones can and can't hit 200+.

Another thing is if you have 6 sticks that also could be why.

 

[freeagentt]

I just moved back to my X58 and gave the kids my Z77. I still cant believe how smooth this thing is given that I've had it since like 2009.

 

[NamelessPFG]

Another thing is if you have 6 sticks that also could be why.

Six 2 GB sticks for 12 GB total, you're right on that. It's partly why the whole CPU/mobo/RAM combo was so cheap, since denser DIMMs hold their value much better.

Higher-density DIMMs would be preferred, but hey, it was part of a $100 bundle and saved me from having to pull RAM from my 4770K build, currently maxed at 32 GB (four 8 GB sticks of DDR3-2400).

I was offered slightly faster Xeons that could have overclocked much better just for having higher multipliers, but at the time I had bought it, even $100 was a lot to spend, especially on such an old platform.

At any rate, I just wanted a gauge on what the silicon lottery was like on Nehalem/Westmere and X58. I know it was all over the place on Haswell, having lost hard with my initial 4670K and returning it for a 4770K under the guise of wanting HT, but really just wanting something that overclocked decently instead of "barely hits 4.2 GHz on custom water cooling with a sizeable bump up in voltage".

 

[freeagentt]

That's how my old 970 was, it did 4200 with 1.525v. It was a total pig. 1.525 with this one gets me 4600. It used to do all clocks with lower voltage, it seems all of these specter/meltdown mitigations have taken their toll.

 

[UltraTaco]

My x5670 does 4.2ghz(200x21) at 1.35vcore Cooled by single 120mm AIO and can run prime95 overnight without overheating(under 80s if I remember correctly).

 

[70 Polara]

Reading this thread makes me miss my Dell Precision T3500 i sold long ago.......long live X58!

 

[freeagentt]

My x5670 does 4.2ghz(200x21) at 1.35vcore Cooled by single 120mm AIO and can run prime95 overnight without overheating(under 80s if I remember correctly).

Nice!

 

[gpitpitan]

I'll be joining the club in a few days! Going from an i7 930 to a X5675. Hoping I get a good one to get me to 4.6ghz!

 

[UltraTaco]

Most excellent, dear comrade.

 

[vietkangta]

View attachment 147544 View attachment 147545 BIOS Screens

Couldn’t you just up your dram frequency in the setting to as close to 1600 as possible

 

[UltraTaco]

Well it's been a while since he posted that, maybe he figured it out.

Vietkangta, in order to 'up dram frequency' to as close as possible to 1600, he would have to increase bclk to 200(he mentioned that) and drop cpu multiplier to 21x in order to maintain same cpu frequency and have that 1600 ram speed.

Theoretically, there should be no problems and voltages don't need any tweaking. In fact, he might even be able to lower them just a tad, because odd multipliers require a little bit less voltage than even. I have witnessed it myself when trying to achieve stable overclock.

Also, regarding his 1600 ram, on regular i7, his uncore would have needed 3200 speed, and that might need little VTT increase, But exons can run as low as 1.5x ram frequency when it comes to uncore vs requiring it be at least 2x like regular i7, so he might even be able to keep that uncore speed as well, no need to change it.

Perhaps he might chime in if he still uses that cpu and configuration.



// PS- he changed his setup, it's on the next page.

 

[vietkangta]

After 10.5-years of running on an Intel i7-920 4C 2.6 GHz @ 3.6 GHz Air I am finally upgrading to the Intel Xeon X5690 6C 3.46 GHz and will try for the 4.2 GHz overclock that seems to be pretty standard overclock on Air after spending all of $85 USD on eBay for it.

Getting 2 extra Cores and ~600 MHz more per core seems like a good gain for such a cheap price. I could have gotten an Intel Xeon X5680 6C 3.33 GHz for $40 USD, half price but $40 USD is not a huge difference and perhaps the binning on the X5690 will be better?

I've had problems overclocking that 920 and could only get fully stable 3.6 GHz at only 1.2V (more voltage didn't help). I was able to get 2D stable at 3.8 GHz and 3.7 GHz but never reach the 3.8-4.0 that other people were getting on 920's since I would not reach full 3D video game stability and would get memory corruption and PunkBuster kicked from Battlefield 2 games of that era on anything higher than 3.6. Even 3.65 didn't work for 3D game stability.

PS: Thanks to Dillon from this weekend's party for telling me about the cheap eBay prices on CPUs now for the LGA 1366 on Intel X58 chipset and compatibility between the Intel Core i7-9xx series and Xeon X56xx series.

PPS: This is my first post in 8-years since I've been using the same machine with video card upgrades for STALKER, Oblivion, and Skyrim, SSD and HDD upgrades throughout, and recently a 12 to 24 GB memory upgrade for Fallout 4 high texture pack requirements. This Intel Core i7-920 @ 3.6 GHz X58 chipset and LGA 1366 rig has been rock solid and going strong and this X5690 hopefully will make it better and keep it going. Frankly this one is perfect and quick enough for me that I don't want to build a new rig!!!

bro. I have did the same upgrade month

had my i7 920 max oc at 3.6 and ran ran at below stock speed. and couldn’t get it higher. Upgraded to the x5690 andcurrently running at 3.8 at stick speeds. I haven’t pushed it further because I’m running it at least 15 c cooler than when i has the i7 920. Works much better in a lot of things too

 

[vietkangta]

Well it's been a while since he posted that, maybe he figured it out.

Vietkangta, in order to 'up dram frequency' to as close as possible to 1600, he would have to increase bclk to 200(he mentioned that) and drop cpu multiplier to 21x in order to maintain same cpu frequency and have that 1600 ram speed.

Theoretically, there should be no problems and voltages don't need any tweaking. In fact, he might even be able to lower them just a tad, because odd multipliers require a little bit less voltage than even. I have witnessed it myself when trying to achieve stable overclock.

Also, regarding his 1600 ram, on regular i7, his uncore would have needed 3200 speed, and that might need little VTT increase, But exons can run as low as 1.5x ram frequency when it comes to uncore vs requiring it be at least 2x like regular i7, so he might even be able to keep that uncore speed as well, no need to change it.

Perhaps he might chime in if he still uses that cpu and configuration.



// PS- he changed his setup, it's on the next page.

I was asking that because I’m currently running the x5690. With bclk of 165 with my multiplier at 23 for cpu to get 3.8ghz

in my ram setting in bios. I was able to set the dram frequency to 1650 (instead of 1320). as one of the dram frequency options on the menu. It was like the 2nd ram option under dram frequency.

Am i doing this wrong? I just hopped on the Xeon crew and somewhat new to ocing

 

[UltraTaco]

X5690 has higher multiplier range, so it's easier to fine tune exact frequencies you like. You're not doing anything wrong at all. You might actually bring that CPU frequency higher and still be able to work out similar dram speed. Also, you dont **have to** use highest available multi if you can't get wanted speeds. You can drop multipliers and bring everything back up using bclk.

 

[vietkangta]

Alright, finally an update. I replaced the old i7 920 CPU with a new one X5690 and set the BCLK to 165 from 180 and set the voltage levels in the BIOS back to Auto, which cranked up the CPU to 1.35 V from 1.2 V and the RAM from 1.5 V to 1.56 V which is a bit lot more than the old system running on manually set 1.2 V and 1.5 V but what the hell at this point in time. The new CPU X5690 from stock 3.47 GHZ is at 4.29 GHz (165 MHz x 26-Multi). I haven't run any long-term stability tests but the quick one-run CPU and GPU benchmarks run fine. I set the BCLK to 175 MHz and I get instant blue-screen so I hope that the lower 165 MHz with the higher voltages set by the BIOS Auto settings are fine. I tried running it at 170 MHz but CineBench R20 crashes quickly.

At this point in time I don't have the patience to eek out more performance on the bus clock speed since I'm very happy with 4.29 GHz on Air XigmaTek single 120mm Fan even though I would have been happy with 4.2 GHz.

Not sure if it's stable, will play some 3D games to test since the real test is 3D Gaming and all the other 2D and 3D benchmarks can go to hell for all that I care since I learned that stability is only certain in 3D games such as the old Battlefield 2 (2009) after 15-minutes of no crashes and no PunkBuster kicks.

If this works then I am done! Only things I did was CPU replacement with cleaning off old heat spread and applying new one and changing BCLK to 165 from 180 and voltages setting to Auto for CPU and DRAM. Easiest upgrade ever it seems and cheaper than an Intel Core i7 990X which is going for $250 USD right now on eBay and $120 USD for 980X also.

I played a bit with the memory DIMMs DDR3 at 1600 MHz at 1,654 MHz (2:8) at 1.8 V Auto voltage setting and then at 1,322 MHz (2:10) at 1.56 V Auto voltage and settled on the slower setting since there was no performance increase and the Auto voltage setting bumped the memory up too high in voltage since it used to run stable at 1.5 V for 10-years, and the new 24 GB at ~ 3-years or so. I'd rather have lower voltage on the memory than slightly more speed, especially since at the higher speed the Row Refresh Cycle Time (tRFC) is at 208 clocks at 1,654 MHz (2:10) versus 139 clock on the slower 1,322 (2:8) multi so the performance takes a hit at the higher speed and doesn't yield any faster results. (As we also know from testing memory speeds for decades now.)

Updated: I posted pictures and stability at BCLK 170 MHz but it wasn't stable in CineBench R20, so lowered it to 165 MHz and am testing it now. Same deal as before with this motherboard and the old 920 CPU which would run and work fine at BCLK 190 MHz but wasn't fully 3D long-term stable until I lowered it all the way to 180 MHz. I tried to get that old CPU stable at 187, 185, 183, but No-Go until 180 MHz, no matter the voltage I would push through it.

I did the same ram setting and settled for the higher 1650

memory benchmark shows higher score and also on gta v i get higher fps. I ran the tests multiple times so I’m not imagining it

 

[UltraTaco]

Well that's great! Certain games benefit greatly from higher ram speed! What I'd do is save those specs and try to work out higher cpu frequency, using the same ram speed.

1650/10multi=165 bclk
If you do 1650/8multi,you will get 206 bclk.

With 206 bclk, you can do 20x multi and see how much voltage you need to gain stability. It equals to about 4.1ghz. That is about 300mhz over your current clocks. If voltages are decent, you could try even more optimal 21x multiplier. That will do you 4.3ghz.

At that point you might be hitting thermal wall, or voltage wall, depending on your chip.

With mine it's 200x21=4.2ghz. I'm using 1.35vcore to feed her, and that gives me 1600 ram. Yours might be better because it's a higher binned model.

 

[vietkangta]

X5690 has higher multiplier range, so it's easier to fine tune exact frequencies you like. You're not doing anything wrong at all. You might actually bring that CPU frequency higher and still be able to work out similar dram speed. Also, you dont **have to** use highest available multi if you can't get wanted speeds. You can drop multipliers and bring everything back up using bclk.

Ok cool. I’m just using this pc and waiting for a worthy upgrade when new cpu are much better lol

been eying every new generation of cpu but the increases in performance just wasn’t enough to warrant a full system upgrade when my system could still chug along well.