How do I Guarantee a DO stepping when I buy a 920?

Caveman

Platinum Member
Nov 18, 1999
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Assumption is that at places like Newegg I'll get DO stepping by default, right?
 

Rubycon

Madame President
Aug 10, 2005
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Buying from a high volume dealer SHOULD assure you get a D0 now. They've been in the channels for 9 months. ;)

Alternatively you can buy a W3520 Xeon which will guarantee the equivalent (often better spec) D0 stepping. :)
 

Rubycon

Madame President
Aug 10, 2005
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NCIXUS has DOs listed but at a premium. $331

That is ridiculous! If you're near a Microcenter have a handful of friends go in and buy a few 920s at $199 each and have an overclocking party. Sell the ones that don't make the cut. Good ones will D0 4.2GHz at 1.2 vcore. ;)
 

Ayah

Platinum Member
Jan 1, 2006
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That is ridiculous! If you're near a Microcenter have a handful of friends go in and buy a few 920s at $199 each and have an overclocking party. Sell the ones that don't make the cut. Good ones will D0 4.2GHz at 1.2 vcore. ;)

You damned Americans are spoiled. I had to pay 300$ CDN (price matched!) for my i7 920, and no guarantee of stepping to boot!
 

Thor86

Diamond Member
May 3, 2001
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You damned Americans are spoiled. I had to pay 300$ CDN (price matched!) for my i7 920, and no guarantee of stepping to boot!

Uhh, NCIX is from B.C., and they can guarantee you a D0, but at a premium.
 

nitromullet

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2004
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Buying from a high volume dealer SHOULD assure you get a D0 now. They've been in the channels for 9 months. ;)

Alternatively you can buy a W3520 Xeon which will guarantee the equivalent (often better spec) D0 stepping. :)

Agreed, I bought my 920 back in July from Newegg, and it's a D0. I can't imagine any high volume sellers stilling having the old ones laying around.

Has W3520 motherboard support improved? When I was shopping around, I know many boards didn't support the Xeons, and it looked like people were having mixed success in getting them to run on boards without official support.

Good ones will D0 4.2GHz at 1.2 vcore.

Sheesh, mine won't even do 4.0GHz at 1.300 vcore. I had her up to 4.0 for ten Linback loops just fine, but after almost an hour of Prime95 she BSODed on me. ...that's with HT enabled. She seems to be stable at 3.8/1600 at 1.3 vcore though. This is with a push/pull TRUE.
 

Rubycon

Madame President
Aug 10, 2005
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You damned Americans are spoiled. I had to pay 300$ CDN (price matched!) for my i7 920, and no guarantee of stepping to boot!

I'm not an American but I have lots of friends that are. ;)

Agreed, I bought my 920 back in July from Newegg, and it's a D0. I can't imagine any high volume sellers stilling having the old ones laying around.

Has W3520 motherboard support improved? When I was shopping around, I know many boards didn't support the Xeons, and it looked like people were having mixed success in getting them to run on boards without official support.



Sheesh, mine won't even do 4.0GHz at 1.300 vcore. I had her up to 4.0 for ten Linback loops just fine, but after almost an hour of Prime95 she BSODed on me. ...that's with HT enabled. She seems to be stable at 3.8/1600 at 1.3 vcore though. This is with a push/pull TRUE.

W3520 support is fine with most enthusiast boards. The CPU will work in any 1366 board but not all features for overclocking will be available. Ironically Gigabyte boards were the first to have it!

Some chips just won't make the cut and this is to be expected. All of the 3540s I had were bad overclockers compared to the 3520s. It was a disappointment because the P6T7 bios would throttle the turbo multiplier off under high load and a 22 (real) multiplier was welcome to hit higher clocks without using insane baseclocks. (I have 12GB on all systems tested)
 

nitromullet

Diamond Member
Jan 7, 2004
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W3520 support is fine with most enthusiast boards. The CPU will work in any 1366 board but not all features for overclocking will be available. Ironically Gigabyte boards were the first to have it!

Some chips just won't make the cut and this is to be expected. All of the 3540s I had were bad overclockers compared to the 3520s. It was a disappointment because the P6T7 bios would throttle the turbo multiplier off under high load and a 22 (real) multiplier was welcome to hit higher clocks without using insane baseclocks. (I have 12GB on all systems tested)

Yeah, I was looking mostly at Asus because I like their layout of the PCIe X16 slots. I think the P6T WS Pro was the only board in the price range of the P6T Deluxe V2 that supported the Xeons.

Either way, I'm actually very happy with the mobo and CPU (coming from 780i/Q9450), even if my i7 isn't the highest OCing rocket. Although, I have to admit there is something more 'magical' about 4GHz then 3.8, and after the Linpack run I thought that Prime 95 was just a formality. ...I guess not.
 

Rubycon

Madame President
Aug 10, 2005
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Yeah, I was looking mostly at Asus because I like their layout of the PCIe X16 slots. I think the P6T WS Pro was the only board in the price range of the P6T Deluxe V2 that supported the Xeons.

Either way, I'm actually very happy with the mobo and CPU (coming from 780i/Q9450), even if my i7 isn't the highest OCing rocket. Although, I have to admit there is something more 'magical' about 4GHz then 3.8, and after the Linpack run I thought that Prime 95 was just a formality. ...I guess not.

FWIW I have the P6T WS Pro running at 212 bclk flawlessly. Ram at 7-7-7-18 1T (6X2GB!) No complaints. The Classified was fussy about ram at these speeds and timings.
 

Ayah

Platinum Member
Jan 1, 2006
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Uhh, NCIX is from B.C., and they can guarantee you a D0, but at a premium.

NCIXUS is their US side. The prices on NCIXUS are in USD.
To guarantee a D0 stepping would have been 30$ CDN more, which is ridiculous.
 

Majic 7

Senior member
Mar 27, 2008
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Since the OP was asking for a guarantee I will give another one. TankGuys for $305. Me personally, I wouldn't trust Newegg to send anything other than the first thing that comes to hand nor anyone else for that matter. It's not like 920s fly off the shelves. Rubycon's advice was the best if the OP has a Microcenter nearby. Maybe someone who has bought one recently can confirm what stepping they received from one of the other retailers. Edit: Looked over some reviews at the egg and found four from the last fifteen days that said they received a DO, so maybe it is worth a try, but it is only $15 cheaper than TankGuys. That was forty reviews or there abouts, don't know if the other 36 people even knew what DO is, it is Newegg reviews.
 
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ChorniyVolk

Senior member
Sep 1, 2009
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Don't know why no one has said this yet, but I believe that if the S-spec code one the box is SLBEJ, it means it's a D0. Google it.
 

aamsel

Senior member
Jan 24, 2000
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FWIW I have the P6T WS Pro running at 212 bclk flawlessly. Ram at 7-7-7-18 1T (6X2GB!) No complaints. The Classified was fussy about ram at these speeds and timings.

Considered the P6X58D Premium. Do you consider it too "Mickey Mouse" in its early
adoption of SATA 6.0/USB 3.0? I just wanted the best overall ASUS design for stability
while overclocking. Single video card only. Do you prefer the P6T WS Pro, and if so why?
 

thatsright

Diamond Member
May 1, 2001
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That is ridiculous! If you're near a Microcenter have a handful of friends go in and buy a few 920s at $199 each and have an overclocking party. Sell the ones that don't make the cut. Good ones will D0 4.2GHz at 1.2 vcore. ;)

Another vote for Microcenter!! I got a retail box i7-920 D0 stepping for $199 here in Boston. I haven't tried O/Cing it yet, but will in a week or two.
 

Rubycon

Madame President
Aug 10, 2005
17,768
485
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Considered the P6X58D Premium. Do you consider it too "Mickey Mouse" in its early
adoption of SATA 6.0/USB 3.0? I just wanted the best overall ASUS design for stability
while overclocking. Single video card only. Do you prefer the P6T WS Pro, and if so why?

I have a need for PCI-X 133 and this board works perfectly. Server boards are not o/c friendly. The high BCLK ability is an added bonus! :)