So I have waited this long, a little more, or go with what I had in mind?

[ClockHound]

Umm I have a CM 690 II Plus version. Yeah, I know that number of fans don't matter and I have placed them with a little more care. One upwards, working as an exhaust unit, one facing down to bring in the outside air and all that.


By the way, when I say I don't want a hot and power hungry chip I mostly mean for IDLE conditions. I don't care how much a chip consumes when I'm gaming or watching a movie. It's the high IDLE consumption which I can't fathom, because this is my 3-in-1 system, downloading, work and then the most important one, gaming

690 can be made to breathe just fine. I have one. Not a fan of the top exhaust fans with an air cooler tho. Very easy for the CPU cooler to recycle heated air.

Want low power Idle? You got it. You have a Sabertooth which is great for offset-based overclocking. Burpo got me using that method with my Sabertooth - so my OC'd 5660 sips about 1V at idle and according to HWinfo pulls less than 5W at the socket while running 3 degrees above cooler intake temp which is 1-2 degrees above room temp. Enabled all the Intel C-states and power gating options.

You should be able to use the offset method with your 950 right now, but with a little idle higher power since it's a hotter chip.

 

[Burpo]

Lagging behind a little in single thread performance, but kickin a$$ everywhere else.. Wait for Skylake..

 

[ithehappy]

Want low power Idle? You got it. You have a Sabertooth which is great for offset-based overclocking. Burpo got me using that method with my Sabertooth - so my OC'd 5660 sips about 1V at idle and according to HWinfo pulls less than 5W at the socket while running 3 degrees above cooler intake temp which is 1-2 degrees above room temp. Enabled all the Intel C-states and power gating options.

You should be able to use the offset method with your 950 right now, but with a little idle higher power since it's a hotter chip.

Okay, please tell me how to achieve this. I'm running at XMP profile to make the RAMs work at 1600 MHz. I will post an image of my BIOS settings later. I think the QPI/DRAM voltage is set at 1.25625, because when I got the rig I tested for extended period and it'd always do the BSOD at 1.25000 V, so had to increase it one step.

I don't possess any idea about these things anyway.


@Burpo: Wait for Skylake by getting the Xeon chip or keeping mine?

 

[A.t]

Gee thanks.. I guess I give bad advice now since I was the one that suggested that he stay with what he had and maybe grab a x6575 or x5680 if he could find one for a good price. I thought that could save him some cash seeing how he already had a x58 mobo. No sense in him buying all new parts and mobo when a small upgrade could go a long way for the OP.

It is bad advice. You're simply suggesting him to spend money on a years old, inefficient, ineffective compared to the new chips in gaming CPU. The 950 is already a decent chip as-is, so there really is no point in spending any more money on that old CPU.

The OP should either stay with his current chip, or pick up a Z97, or an X99 setup.

 

[Burpo]

If yours is the i7-950 in your sig, I'd at least get a 32nm Hexcore, whether it's an i7-970 or one of the cheaper Xeons..
Your QPI volts will depend how high your bclk is. I have to run 1.3250 on my SaberTooth, and PLL of 1.92. Set CPU voltage to Offset and I use +.25volts or higher (again depends on bclk), but your X58 rig will carry you to Skylake.

X5660 for $84
http://www.ebay.com/itm/151578347685?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT#shpCntId

 

[ClockHound]

Okay, please tell me how to achieve this.

Set CPU voltage to Offset. Then set it +.20+volts - Need to test to find the sweet spot for your chip and OC.

Check Burpo's Sabertooth settings:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=36707876&postcount=1593

Exact settings won't apply for your 950, but ensure Speedstep and C-Step are Enabled. In combo with using Offset voltage method the idle power and temps will drop dramatically.

 

[MongGrel]

I forgot I had one stuck on my wish list.

If nothing else here's a X5675 for $150

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007O7T0EE...=UTF8&colid=WD3X136NXFWC&coliid=IECRQ7G80USF0

Still a bit pricey for what you can get a X5660 for.

 

[escrow4]

A X5650 (6 Cores, 2.66Ghz, 90W) is $80. A X5670 (6 Cores, 2.93Ghz, 90W) is $110. If he wants more efficiency (since he mentioned no more power hungry), a L5640 (6 Cores, 2.26Ghz, 60W) is $60. A 5930K (6 Cores, 3.5Ghz, 140W) is $580. And he'd still need a motherboard and RAM. You're going to have a hard time convincing me that's the better bargain.

I'm all for buying new computer parts. But if you want 6 cores (and why wouldn't you, lol) IMO, the price gap is far too large between Haswell-E and Westmere EP to justify X58 owners making the jump to Haswell-E.

$580 for a new architecture and huge chipset leap. Not a crappy tired old hexa at 2.66GHz that you need to fiddle with. A 5930K will run @ 3.7GHz all cores before any overclocking with a simple BIOS adjustment.

And I meant OP, 60+ FPS solid, aside from some areas there are no stutters or dips with a 5820K. That old quad will stutter randomly in places.

 

[MongGrel]

It is bad advice. You're simply suggesting him to spend money on a years old, inefficient, ineffective compared to the new chips in gaming CPU. The 950 is already a decent chip as-is, so there really is no point in spending any more money on that old CPU.

The OP should either stay with his current chip, or pick up a Z97, or an X99 setup.

He all ready has one of the best boards out there for over clocking a X58 Xeon.



Mine gets a bit hot

 

[Dave2150]

It is bad advice. You're simply suggesting him to spend money on a years old, inefficient, ineffective compared to the new chips in gaming CPU. The 950 is already a decent chip as-is, so there really is no point in spending any more money on that old CPU.

The OP should either stay with his current chip, or pick up a Z97, or an X99 setup.

Agree, it's a fool's game to invest more money into x58 at this stage, unless all you're gonna use the rig for is distributed computing.

The vast majority of gamers or editors/content creators demand faster speeds than SATA2/PCI-E v2 can offer, plus USB2 is rather long in the tooth in this day and age.

Far better to invest in X99, or wait for Skylake if you have no need for the extra PCI-E lanes.

 

[MongGrel]

Agree, it's a fool's game to invest more money into x58 at this stage, unless all you're gonna use the rig for is distributed computing.

The vast majority of gamers or editors/content creators demand faster speeds than SATA2/PCI-E v2 can offer, plus USB2 is rather long in the tooth in this day and age.

Far better to invest in X99, or wait for Skylake if you have no need for the extra PCI-E lanes.

 

[ithehappy]

Hmm.

Anyway, these are me BIOS settings, let me know what could I change here to make IDLE consumption lower, if possible. As I said, the only things I changed there are changing the profile to XMP and making (decreasing) the QPI/DRAM voltage to 1.25625 from Auto, any lower than that setting would cause a BSOD. I didn't touch any other setting at all.

 

[Burpo]

What CPU do you have? Change CPU Ratio to 22, Frequency to 167 (for starters) CPU Voltage Control to Offset, then set CPU Voltage to .20, raise QPI/Dram Core voltage to 1.30 and set PLL Volts to 1.90 for a stable overclock up to 180bclk or so. SpeedStep will still allow it to idle at 12X..

 

[ithehappy]

I have the i7 950, as my siggy says. But right now I am with stock freq, I only OC when I game.

Thanks a lot for the settings, I will try and report back.

 

[ithehappy]

I applied your settings but if I see things right then this has overclocked the CPU to 3.6 GHz, and quite normally the power draw has increased, while I was looking to decrease it actually

Or maybe I am missing something!

PS: Oh and I had to decrease the RAM's frequency, by default it was 1800 MHz or something, but my modules don't support that.

 

[XavierMace]

$580 for a new architecture and huge chipset leap. Not a crappy tired old hexa at 2.66GHz that you need to fiddle with. A 5930K will run @ 3.7GHz all cores before any overclocking with a simple BIOS adjustment.

And I meant OP, 60+ FPS solid, aside from some areas there are no stutters or dips with a 5820K. That old quad will stutter randomly in places.

Plus another $200-$400 for motherboard and RAM. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Haswell-E isn't faster. But if OP can't or doesn't want to spend $1,000 on a new computer, spending $100 to make his current one faster is perfectly reasonable.

 

[Burpo]

Of course when you raise bclk you're increasing ram speed, and have to dial it back. As far as the mild overclock, yes it uses more power under load, but idle shouldn't be much different. Also remember your CPU is a 45nm 130 watt part. The Xeon I & others recommended is a newer, more expensive 32nm 95 watt part. Even tho it's 6 cores instead of 4, it's more efficient.

i7-950, 8mb cache, 4.8 GT/s, 24 Gb max ram & no AES instructions.
http://ark.intel.com/products/37150/Intel-Core-i7-950-Processor-8M-Cache-3_06-GHz-4_80-GTs-Intel-QPI
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7+950+@+3.07GHz

X5660 12mb cache, 6.4 GT/s, 288 Gb max ram, AES
http://ark.intel.com/products/47921/Intel-Xeon-Processor-X5660-12M-Cache-2_80-GHz-6_40-GTs-Intel-QPI
Notice CPU Mark & Value..
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+X5660+@+2.80GHz

 

[ithehappy]

Hmm, I think a misunderstanding is going on here. I wasn't looking to OC at all. I was looking to lower the power consumption of the system when it's on IDLE, that's all.

Anyway thanks.

 

[Burpo]

The 45nm i7-950 isn't very efficient. You could set to stock bclk (or lower) & try & under-volt it. The Xeon uses less power.

 

[ithehappy]

The 45nm i7-950 isn't very efficient. You could set to stock bclk (or lower) & try & under-volt it. The Xeon uses less power.

Yeah I know that it isn't very efficient. Do you have any idea how low could I go? I mean when I'll be using the system for downloading only I wouldn't really care about speed and all that.

 

[Burpo]

The only way to know is try. I'd start at 100bclk , multiplier 20 and 1.0 volt. See how it goes from there. Increase if needed.

 

[ithehappy]

The only way to know is try. I'd start at 100bclk , multiplier 20 and 1.0 volt. See how it goes from there. Increase if needed.

Set 100 bclk. But I don't know what's Multiplayer 20 and which is one is 1 volt?

I'm an idiot about these things as I said.

PS: Mods should move this topic to required section in case its creating a clutter here.

 

[Burpo]

CPU Ratio=Multiplier
CPU Voltage Control=Manual
CPU Voltage=1.0 or 1.1 (type it in manually)
Adjust DRAM frequency to <1600.

 

[Ajay]

Lagging behind a little in single thread performance, but kickin a$$ everywhere else.. Wait for Skylake..

Dang, really annoyed now that I spent ~$400 on an i7-970 that'll only do 4.2 GHz (load temps are only in the 60C range, but it BSODs any higher after much tweaking). Those Xeon Westmere-EP's are awesome!

 

[ithehappy]

CPU Ratio=Multiplier
CPU Voltage Control=Manual
CPU Voltage=1.0 or 1.1 (type it in manually)
Adjust DRAM frequency to <1600.

Okay, thanks. See if these are all right or not.

PS: I noticed that Intel C step thing is off, shall I turn it on?