Upgrade from i7 950 to Xeon W3690?

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

@ E. C. Yian When you overclock the BCLK it creates 2 variables of instability. 1st cultprit could be the RAM not being stable because the BLCK takes the RAM out of specs via the BLCK. 2nd culprit could be the instability of the BLCK bus that's why the VTT is raised. There is less to trouble shoot when you just use your multiplier.

@ burpo Intel spec has nothing to do with why Turbo should be on unless you have another explanation ? Is there something with the Gigabyte boards that improves stability when Turbo is on? 1 core at 4GHz is not an overclock, all 6 cores at 4GHz is a true overclock

 

[E. C. Yian]

28 is the Max multiplier according to intel. Forget 30 and stick to specs. Best overclock will be achieved using 26 or 27 multi and then increase bclk. 26X167 = 4.3Ghz. If you get it there and it's stable, your cinebench scores will reflect that.

It will not boot at 27 3.78 (140x27)
bclk 140

It will not boot at 26
bclk 150

27 3.78 (140x27)
bclk 136
Cinebench 8.77, 8.84
rebooted to BIOS and got the red notice

 

[Burpo]

Then set it to stock and be done. Isn't that why you paid for the higher clocking CPU? You said you weren't going to be overclocking. I recommended the cheaper X56xx series Westmere because I know they overclock well. I have never been impressed with Gulftown. It has a lower tCase temp thresh hold and doesn't overclock as well.

Here watch this video,, The first part will at least show you about your board and overclocking..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJNOd2-vPKk

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Is your Heatsink and Fan tightened down to the board?

 

[E. C. Yian]

Is your Heatsink and Fan tightened down to the board?

The screws are pretty tight on the heat sink.
The cooler fan is running.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Then set it to stock and be done. Isn't that why you paid for the higher clocking CPU? You said you weren't going to be overclocking. I recommended the cheaper X56xx series Westmere because I know they overclock well. I have never been impressed with Gulftown. It has a lower tCase temp thresh hold and doesn't overclock as well.

Here watch this video,, The first part will at least show you about your board and overclocking..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJNOd2-vPKk

Just a reminder burpo. The member didn't want to get into complicated overclocking since he's very new to it. If I recall correctly he doesn't even have the latest bios. Is that true E. C. Yian? My thoughts were to help the member with simple overclocking, not seeing if E. C. Yian's chip could overclock to 4.67GHz off the bat with BLCK included overclocking

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

The screws are pretty tight on the heat sink.
The cooler fan is running.

:hmm: These are good chips. Mine is doing 4.4GHz @ 1.35v, 1.25vtt, 1.35vDIMM, 170x26. Finished IBT with the hottest core of 68*c in 70*F ambient

 

[E. C. Yian]

I played around with settings and found that likely disabling XMP
and Turbo Boost Tech helps OC.

It seems that the best CPU clock ratio is at 27x.
4.05 GHz (150x27)\BCLK 150.
when BCLK 152 it is unstable

Yes I have the latest BIOS.

The Cinebench 10.02 pts, 10.16 pts
A bit disappointing number?

Shall we try to improve the performance?

How will I know that it is stable?

 

[E. C. Yian]

XMP and Turbo Boost Tech are disabled.

It seems that the best CPU clock ratio is at 26x.
4.05 GHz (156x26)
BCLK 156.
BCLk 158 unstable

All Advance Voltage Settings are on Auto

The Cinebench 10.20 pts, 10.20 pts
A tiny bit better than the previous test.

 

[E. C. Yian]

:hmm: These are good chips. Mine is doing 4.4GHz @ 1.35v, 1.25vtt, 1.35vDIMM, 170x26. Finished IBT with the hottest core of 68*c in 70*F ambient

Congrats on your 4.4 GHz! I would be very happy to get that performance if it did not consume too much time and mental expenditure to achieve it.

As you can see I have made some progress. Should we stop here or go for more GHZ?

Please critique my recent posts.

 

[E. C. Yian]

Then set it to stock and be done. Isn't that why you paid for the higher clocking CPU? You said you weren't going to be overclocking. I recommended the cheaper X56xx series Westmere because I know they overclock well. I have never been impressed with Gulftown. It has a lower tCase temp thresh hold and doesn't overclock as well.

Here watch this video,, The first part will at least show you about your board and overclocking..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJNOd2-vPKk

Nice video. I might have been better off staying with i7 950 and OC that.

The X56xx series Westmere is not included in the list of processor for the GA-X58A-UD3R.

 

[Burpo]

As I've already told you, the Westmere CPU's do work with your board. They came out after the board was made, but work fine. Anyway, looks like you're got it working better. There's no reason not to enable turbo, by the way.

No way you'd have been better off with the i7 950. It scores 5.38 in Cinebench 11.5. You're already faster than an i7 970..

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Congrats on your 4.4 GHz! I would be very happy to get that performance if it did not consume too much time and mental expenditure to achieve it.

As you can see I have made some progress. Should we stop here or go for more GHZ?

Please critique my recent posts.

If I were you I would shoot for 4.2GHz. What do you think?

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

EDIT: It's possible that your X58 chipset is an early chipset and is having issues going above the 26 multi. I've been told that about my board but I still think with my board it partially has something to do with the Turbo. Why don't you stick with the 26 multi and go from there. Sound good?

 

[Burpo]

He has a Rev 2 board with 8 power stages, Ultra Durable 3 (2 oz copper between layers) and USB 3 & Sata3. I've owned over a dozen, and still have a Gigabyte board for HTPC. I won't belabor the facts of clocking his board, but rest assured, the only thing stopping him from using a higher multi or bclk is his lack of knowledge about the settings.

 

[E. C. Yian]

As I've already told you, the Westmere CPU's do work with your board. They came out after the board was made, but work fine. Anyway, looks like you're got it working better. There's no reason not to enable turbo, by the way.

No way you'd have been better off with the i7 950. It scores 5.38 in Cinebench 11.5. You're already faster than an i7 970..

I enabled Turbo and it crashed Cinebench. Same when I set Turbo on auto. So went bad and disabled Turbo and it no longer crashes Cinebench. BTW I also ran Photoshop and did some time consuming rendering without a glitch while Turbo was disabled. Perhaps some other setting also needs to be changed?

Somewhere 12 pts score on Cinebench was mentioned and that is why I was not happy with 10.20 pts. Perhaps I should be?

The 950 video showed it easily going up to 4.10 MHz. If I remember correctly. This is why I said that I may have been better off staying with the 950.


EDIT: ooops. I forgot that I got 4 more cores in the W3960. So yes I am glad I made the upgrade.

 

[E. C. Yian]

He has a Rev 2 board with 8 power stages, Ultra Durable 3 (2 oz copper between layers) and USB 3 & Sata3. I've owned over a dozen, and still have a Gigabyte board for HTPC. I won't belabor the facts of clocking his board, but rest assured, the only thing stopping him from using a higher multi or bclk is his lack of knowledge about the settings.

Very true.
Without you and BTRY B 529th FA BN I would be lost in the OC heaven.

 

[E. C. Yian]

EDIT: It's possible that your X58 chipset is an early chipset and is having issues going above the 26 multi. I've been told that about my board but I still think with my board it partially has something to do with the Turbo. Why don't you stick with the 26 multi and go from there. Sound good?

I did as well at 27 multi. Earlier at 28 stable but did not do well on MHz.

I am ready to shoot for 4.2 MHz.
If you are. Just le me know what to do.

 

[E. C. Yian]

Do you have an SSD? If not, you can expect that your hard page faults (paging memory in from disk) are going to take a long time.

Running LatencyMon 6.5 for over one hour and it looks great!
Reported Total hard pagefault count 261
Highest reported hard pagefalt resolution time (μs) 7.838264
Barely a little green bar is visible on the chart.

But just as I was ready to post I got a large red spike of 83287.391519. Last week:
Reported Total Hard Pagefault Count: 210979
Highest reported hard pagefault resolution time (μs) 530865.080103
The bar looks very red and very bad!

Did not change the hard drive. I flashed the BIOS and reset the CMOS. The default BIOS settings are in effect except for a couple of settings used to OC the processor. Still running Windows 7.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

If you are crashing with 1.32vcore, and 1.25vtt at 4GHz something is wrong. Those are the only two voltage settings that I've manually adjusted to overclock. It might be your RAM, or you just may have a bad performing chip. My X5660 was not stable @ 4.3GHz at max Intel Vcore and Vtt specs

 

[E. C. Yian]

If you are crashing with 1.32vcore, and 1.25vtt at 4GHz something is wrong. Those are the only two voltage settings that I've manually adjusted to overclock. It might be your RAM, or you just may have a bad performing chip. My X5660 was not stable @ 4.3GHz at max Intel Vcore and Vtt specs

XMP and Turbo Boost Tech are disabled.

It seems that the best CPU clock ratio is at 26x.
4.05 GHz (156x26)
BCLK 156.
BCLk 158 unstable

All Advance Voltage Settings are on Auto

The Cinebench 10.20 pts, 10.20 pts
A tiny bit better than the previous test.

I am doing fine at 4.05 MHz.
Waiting to see if we can go to 4.2. I just hope that we do not encounter too many problems.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

You need to test with IntelBurnTest aka IBT, and Prime 95

IBT

Prime95

Memtest HCI

Check your RAM while you are at it. AND WATCH those temps, and voltages

HWmonitor

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Why are you using the BCLK clock to overclock your system when there is no need to? If you take out the BCLK part of the equation you have less stability variables to worry about like your RAM which means messing with the timings, the memory divider, the voltages, etc.

 

[E. C. Yian]

I tried several OC BIOS settings and had issues. Tried several tests on the best BIOS setup and they all failed one test or another.

Reset the CMOS and loaded the optimized BIOS settings. Did all the test and passed. So at least now I know that the default settings are good.

I was however able to get my ram modules to work at 1600 on the BIOS. Do they actually run at 1600? The W3690 specs do not go up to 1600 thou the motherboard 1600 is ok. Cinebench runs at 9.05 pts at 1333 whereas 8.70 pts at 1600. Is this odd?

I have spent a lot of time trying to OC. Looks like I am not cut out for this sort of endeavor. It’s time for me to call it quits on trying to OC my computer.

The three issues still remain.
the RAM 1333/1600
When Install Windows 10 must set the HDD to AHCI. But there are many more HDD settings in the BIOS and not sure how to handle that.
The GPU how to get top preference.

Thanks to all for all that time you devoted to helping me.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Just purchased a Gigabyte UD7 Rev 2.0 board. It will be here by next week if you still want to fiddle around..

GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD7 LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX (REV 2.0)