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Asus Dual Socket 2011 board

colinstu

2[H]4U
Joined
Oct 11, 2007
Messages
3,563
http://vr-zone.com/articles/asus-s-dual-socket-2011-workstation-motherboard--z9pe-d8-ws/14488.html

nEO_IMG_ws_1.jpg.jpeg


Figured this would be fun to take a gander at. Sure it won't be a cheap solution compared to 4p (or have as many physical cores), but once Intel releases some respectable processors for this board it should prove interesting to see how high they clock!

EDIT: EVGA is showing off their dual socket 2011 offering too.

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1824/1/

evga-lga2011-srx-1.jpg
 
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Oooooooooooooooooooooooooh.....

Shiney!
 
Unless Intel officially sanctions DP overclocking like they did with Skulltrail, I doubt this board will be overclockable :(
 
Sweet, it has 10 SATA ports.
whats that Molex connector above the right CPU for? Extra 12v for the processors even though there are already 2 8pin connectors?
 
i would assume so, thats alot of power that sucker needs, could also be for the PCIe slots...?
 
It sure is purdy.... I will give it that.

Agreed, I am particularly smitten with the lack of 4 letter, all caps, vowel sandwiched, branding on the board... ;)
Socket 1366 Xeons didn't have locked BCLK's like the SB Xeons do.
BLK is not locked, there seems to be issues using the higher straps on many boards but some sites have had success using the 1.25x/1.65x blk overclock.

e.g
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5276/intel-core-i7-3820-review-285-quadcore-sandy-bridge-e
 
So as a FYI (will cover this soon in 1P Xeon piece) E5-2600 generally is BCLK and E5-1600 is BCLK and strap... unless Intel adds a new CPU for these boards.
 
Unless Intel officially sanctions DP overclocking like they did with Skulltrail, I doubt this board will be overclockable :(

Intel never really sanctioned it and what they really did was release an uber-expensive unlocked processor that was 50% more expensive than your typical Extreme Editions were. Regular Xeon's could not be overclocked on the D5400XS unless they were 333MHz FSB parts. This was only because the board supported upwards of a 400MHz FSB. So as a result, you had some wiggle room, but I'm not sure how good the results are with the poor voltage adjustment options, etc. that the D5400XS had. Overclocking the Core 2 Extreme Edition QX9775 typically topped out around 3.6GHz-4.0GHz if you were lucky. Most of us got 3.8GHz to 4.0GHz out of them. I think some reached 4.2GHz on water, but that was about it. And again, those CPUs were $1,550 each. A pair of those set you back the cost of a nice PC with a QX9770 included.
 
Do the SB-E Xeons have fully adjustable BCLK's like Nehalem did or is it only a predetermined strap?
 
Do the SB-E Xeons have fully adjustable BCLK's like Nehalem did or is it only a predetermined strap?

No Sandy Bridge processor has a fully adjustable base clock. Sandy Bridge is effectively locked to 100MHz BCLK. Sandy Bridge-E only allows adjustments via strap settings of 100MHz, 125MHz, 166MHz and 250MHz. Assuming you can actually make it work. I've heard of some spotty reports of 125MHz working on some setups, but to my knowledge no one has ever made any of the other settings work. On three different X79 boards, I've never been able to make anything but 100MHz BCLK work. You can still technically perform manual adjustments of the BCLK on both Sandy Bridge and Sandy Bridge-E, but a 5-7MHz increase is about all you'll typically see if you are lucky. I usually see 3-5MHz improvements if I'm lucky. That's increase is regardless of strap setting. So theoretically you could have strap settings of 107MHz, 132MHz, 173MHz, and 257MHz.
 
No Sandy Bridge processor has a fully adjustable base clock. Sandy Bridge is effectively locked to 100MHz BCLK. Sandy Bridge-E only allows adjustments via strap settings of 100MHz, 125MHz, 166MHz and 250MHz. Assuming you can actually make it work. I've heard of some spotty reports of 125MHz working on some setups, but to my knowledge no one has ever made any of the other settings work. On three different X79 boards, I've never been able to make anything but 100MHz BCLK work. You can still technically perform manual adjustments of the BCLK on both Sandy Bridge and Sandy Bridge-E, but a 5-7MHz increase is about all you'll typically see if you are lucky. I usually see 3-5MHz improvements if I'm lucky. That's increase is regardless of strap setting. So theoretically you could have strap settings of 107MHz, 132MHz, 173MHz, and 257MHz.

this is my 3930k running at 150 blck on and asrock extreme 4 waht i find instreting is my chip needs a little less vcore at the same frequency then on the 100 or 125 strap but any thing over 30x wont boot for whers on the 125 and 100 strap i can fold stably at 5ghz

 
But if anyone read the link,:

Performance zealots will remember the ASUS Z7S WS which went head on with then Intel 'Skulltrail' D5400XS Xeon luxury gaming platform (using dual unlocked QX9775 chips), but since then ASUS has done nothing of that sort, leaving EVGA with the iconic SR-2 to mop up things in the Xeon 55xx/56xx era. This is about to change with the imminent launch of the Sandy Bridge-EP Xeon E5 platform, and the ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS may well be the followup that power hungry gamers and high frequency traders are looking for.

Read more: http://vr-zone.com/articles/asus-s-...herboard--z9pe-d8-ws/14488.html#ixzz1j5tpYUVP

Its overclockable
 
I wouldn't say the ASUS board went head to head with the Intel D5400XS. It didn't support SLI because they didn't include nForce 100 or 200 series MCP's. I also understand their reliability as being far more questionable. But yeah, I get the point. I wondered why they didn't challenge the EVGA SR-2 to a degree, but chalked it up to the poor sales and reception of Skulltrail and anything like it at the time.
 
I wouldn't say the ASUS board went head to head with the Intel D5400XS. It didn't support SLI because they didn't include nForce 100 or 200 series MCP's. I also understand their reliability as being far more questionable. But yeah, I get the point. I wondered why they didn't challenge the EVGA SR-2 to a degree, but chalked it up to the poor sales and reception of Skulltrail and anything like it at the time.

Yeah,the Z7S WS had the tendancy to just die, which is why I stuck with my DSEB-DG and it's still kicking, even if it doesn't have any OCing options.

Supposedly Intel is working on Skulltrail successor this go round as well.
 
The SR-X board has been talked about quite a bit on EVGA site. Definitely has a lot of potential :)
 
i still think the ASUS board looks better.. EVGA board just looks like a mess. but it could be due to that insanely oversized heatsink.
 
i still think the ASUS board looks better.. EVGA board just looks like a mess. but it could be due to that insanely oversized heatsink.

The black and red is pretty nice looking, but I agree, the big messy heatsink doesn't do anything for me, and the function-over-form un-balanced # of memory slots isn't helping.
 
anyone else wonder what it takes to design a mobo?
 
The blue looks nice but you won't see it once you put in the RAM and CPUs :/ oh well haha.
 
The black and red is pretty nice looking, but I agree, the big messy heatsink doesn't do anything for me, and the function-over-form un-balanced # of memory slots isn't helping.

the red is nice but i would of rather seen the PCI-E slots to not be all red. would of liked to see it red and black like the ram is. its just to much red right next to that giant black heatsinks.
 
i still think the ASUS board looks better.. EVGA board just looks like a mess. but it could be due to that insanely oversized heatsink.

I tend to agree. Partly because the memory slot configuration of the EVGA seems odd. I don't think I like it as much as the ASUS configuration. I also think the power phases look better on the ASUS board. Though until I get both of them in my hands, I'll never really know which is better. Hopefully I get to review one or both of them. :D
 
I tend to agree. Partly because the memory slot configuration of the EVGA seems odd.
It seems to me that they wanted to keep at least as many memory slots as it's predecessor but they simply couldn't find the room for a full 16 memory slots without sacrificing a PCIe slot.
 
It seems to me that they wanted to keep at least as many memory slots as it's predecessor but they simply couldn't find the room for a full 16 memory slots without sacrificing a PCIe slot.

no, they ran out of space to fit the stupid SLI logo on the board so the extra ram slots had to go, lol. seriously though look at it, that that stupid logo takes up all the space that could of been used by the extra ram slots.
 
The odd memory arrangement is so you can take existing memory out of an SR-2 and onto the SR-X as an "upgrade path".
 
The odd memory arrangement is so you can take existing memory out of an SR-2 and onto the SR-X as an "upgrade path".

And thank God they did, as there is nothing SR-2 users are more concerned about than the $40 value of the two sticks of ram they would otherwise have to abandon during the upgrade...

/sarcasm :p
 
Any ETA on when these will be out?

Asus has been pretty reliable for me in the past. Still have my P2B-D with dual 1 ghz p3s then a PC-DL with 2.0 ghz xeons oced to 3 ghz and they still work.

Dunno what I will go with for my upgrade to lga2011. Want something reliable more so then the overclockable. How reliable is EVGA SR-2?

I was looking at supermicro and tyan boards which they have info on here
http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?t=98291
Those don't overclock though.
 
Any ETA on when these will be out?

Asus has been pretty reliable for me in the past. Still have my P2B-D with dual 1 ghz p3s then a PC-DL with 2.0 ghz xeons oced to 3 ghz and they still work.

Dunno what I will go with for my upgrade to lga2011. Want something reliable more so then the overclockable. How reliable is EVGA SR-2?

I was looking at supermicro and tyan boards which they have info on here
http://forums.2cpu.com/showthread.php?t=98291
Those don't overclock though.

eta given it was on CES probably within 6-8 months given how long it took for the SR-2 to come out.

the EVGA SR-2 is a reliable board even with all its quirks when it comes to overclocking.
 
And the result of marketing directing engineering if that is true.
Marketing always directs engineering to some extent. It's marketings job to decide what they think customers want and engineering's job to figure out if it can be done.

Is it really unreasonable for marketing to say that the new flagship board must be as good or better than the previous flagship in every category?

As I said looking at how cramped the board is I strongly suspect they wanted to go for 16 slots but couldn't find the space without sacrificing a PCIe slot so settled for 12.

And thank God they did, as there is nothing SR-2 users are more concerned about than the $40 value of the two sticks of ram they would otherwise have to abandon during the upgrade...
Umm those figures make no sense to me.

Replacing 8x4GB with 4x8GB so you can move from a 12 ram slot board to an 8 ram slot board without reducing your total ram would cost arround $250. Still fairly small compared to the overall cost of a dual socket setup but not exactly pocket change either (and EVGA probablly specced out the board some time ago when 8GB sticks were even more expensive).
 
Umm those figures make no sense to me.

Replacing 8x4GB with 4x8GB so you can move from a 12 ram slot board to an 8 ram slot board without reducing your total ram would cost arround $250. Still fairly small compared to the overall cost of a dual socket setup but not exactly pocket change either (and EVGA probablly specced out the board some time ago when 8GB sticks were even more expensive).


hence why it says "/sarcasm" at the end of his post.
 
Look how much "empty space" the EVGA board has compared to the Asus. I'm not a fan of the Asus boards coloring, but their layout looks much better.
 
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