Xeon L5639 Overclocking on X58

[menaceR32]

A buddy of mine checked out the finished build and it seems he has caught the bug too.

I found out he has been looking for a X58 used. CPU's are really not an issue but used boards are a premium.

I'm not sure of the model but we have people trying to get $400 for used ones locally...

Do any of you guys know makes/models that are decent for overclocking but also possibly a bit more obscure?

Seems finding someone on Kijiji that has no clue what they have to offer is the only way to get one cheap these days. He said eBay seems to be all premium priced for these mobos these days.

With my 27" monitor only rocking 60 Hz my rig does the job for gaming just as well as a 4790K with a GTX 970 that I have a chance to play with. The older PCIe slots are of no concern when it comes to gaming.

I'm very happy I did not bite on a 4790K this Christmas like one of my buddies did. They were $400 when I was looking and the MB I wanted was $250 to just about $300. All in with taxes that would have been $800 vs the $92 of the X5650. Not to mention I would need at least another 4 GB stick of 1600 RAM ($50+) or possibly go new and get a new 16 GB kit of 1866 CL9 ($200).

That makes for TWO GTX 970's you can buy with the savings! I have one now, thinking of another or maybe wait and snag it used if the next line is not ground breaking.

I am very disappointed with Intel's and AMD's offerings the past few years. Yet I still see people defending spending extreme amounts of money on new systems for not much in the way of gains because all they want is to game.

 

[menaceR32]

I have a question regarding IBT and LinX. When I push BCLK with the x23 multiplier, say from 205 to 207, it is completely stable, but GFlops are inconsistent.

I will get 4-5 lines of 81.5+ and all of a sudden one at 65. The next few will be 81.5 again but if I run 50 tests at very high it will have a pattern of slow lines.

I can't figure out what is causing this with the higher OC. I am about 14 C from TJ Max.

My IR temp sensor shows the chipset roasting (85+C) when I ruin the burns. That is the heat sink, so I imagine a probe to below that would show something more extreme.

Going to try a Spot Cool and report back later, but if anyone has already figured this out I would really appreciate your reply.

 

[tweakboy]

You will not notice difference,

 

[Makaveli]

I turned HT off for this try. Dropped core temps by 10 degrees and gained 10 GFlops in IBT strangely enough.

Congrats on the overclock.

What you are seeing with the Gflops is normal for that app.

Seems to handicap performance and hit some kind of bottleneck.

What are you using for a HSF on this machine?

 

[MongGrel]

A buddy of mine checked out the finished build and it seems he has caught the bug too.

I found out he has been looking for a X58 used. CPU's are really not an issue but used boards are a premium.

I'm not sure of the model but we have people trying to get $400 for used ones locally...

Do any of you guys know makes/models that are decent for overclocking but also possibly a bit more obscure?

Seems finding someone on Kijiji that has no clue what they have to offer is the only way to get one cheap these days. He said eBay seems to be all premium priced for these mobos these days.

With my 27" monitor only rocking 60 Hz my rig does the job for gaming just as well as a 4790K with a GTX 970 that I have a chance to play with. The older PCIe slots are of no concern when it comes to gaming.

I'm very happy I did not bite on a 4790K this Christmas like one of my buddies did. They were $400 when I was looking and the MB I wanted was $250 to just about $300. All in with taxes that would have been $800 vs the $92 of the X5650. Not to mention I would need at least another 4 GB stick of 1600 RAM ($50+) or possibly go new and get a new 16 GB kit of 1866 CL9 ($200).

That makes for TWO GTX 970's you can buy with the savings! I have one now, thinking of another or maybe wait and snag it used if the next line is not ground breaking.

I am very disappointed with Intel's and AMD's offerings the past few years. Yet I still see people defending spending extreme amounts of money on new systems for not much in the way of gains because all they want is to game.

It's probably just a matter of trying to snag one somewhere these days I imagine as far as MOBOs.

I grabbed a used ASUS P6T V2 off Amazon I have in the bedroom for a HTPC for about $135 a year ago that was pretty much pristine, right after I bought the L5639 and decided to build a HTPC with the I7 920.

I still haven't stuck the X5650 in that one.

Something to do this weekend maybe, haven't stuck it in there to tweak it.

Just finding an X58 board at a good price can take a lot of looking these days I imagine, but you know that obviously.

 

[menaceR32]

Congrats on the overclock.

What you are seeing with the Gflops is normal for that app.

Seems to handicap performance and hit some kind of bottleneck.

What are you using for a HSF on this machine?

Seems the throttling might actually be what I was suspecting. My IOH HS and heat pipe connected southbridge HS are always roasting with a high OC.

Today we had -20C (-4F) outside. So I went to work.

I put my box by an open window and the case actually got very cold to the touch. I was able to push clean IBT with consistent high GFlops across the board for 50 passes at very high.


As far as HSF, I have a Kraken x61 on the CPU. I think the AIO water cooling setup is part responsible for the high chipset temps. The CPU air cooler had a lot of air moving those. I would have gone with a Noctua column had I known this but at least the x61 will be good for my Skylake build... if that is worthy of dethroning my new baby.

Going to add an Antec Spot Cool over the north/south bridges as sitting with an open window in winter for a 210 BCLK @ x23 is just not worth it.

 

[menaceR32]

It's probably just a matter of trying to snag one somewhere these days I imagine as far as MOBOs.

I grabbed a used ASUS P6T V2 off Amazon I have in the bedroom for a HTPC for about $135 a year ago that was pretty much pristine, right after I bought the L5639 and decided to build a HTPC with the I7 920.

I still haven't stuck the X5650 in that one.

Something to do this weekend maybe, haven't stuck it in there to tweak it.

Just finding an X58 board at a good price can take a lot of looking these days I imagine, but you know that obviously.

I was lucky since I had a 930 in this MB. It literally cost me the eBay price and the Kraken x61, which is really overkill considering everything around the CPU is roasting long before I hit 80C on any core.

Might be worth pulling the north and south bridge heatsinks on these boards and cleaning off the adhesive before putting them back with some good thermal compound. Going to do the lazy Antec Spot Cool route since I already did the unthinkable and removed the moduvents on my R5.

 

[Trinamo]

I apologize in advance being that just my processor fits this thread/forum but this has been by far the most helpful thread/write up I have found for OCing my 5650.

I'm hoping that you don't mind looking this over for me. If so, I greatly appreciate it!!! And if you need more info, I can get it.

I've visited and read quite a bit in the Xeon OC thread, the 72 page one. I've looked over a lot of settings, especially your screen shots of BIOS and have tried to translate over to my BIOS as best as I could, or some of your methods at the least. My confession is that I don't have the type of MB that those in the thread have. I have an Alienware Area-51 that I swapped out the i7-920 for a Xeon 5650. I'm trying to run 4.4 stable but temperatures are bothering me. Peaking up to 83C water cooled.

It being an Alienware, the BIOS limits what I can do some. I'm sitting at 4.4 now, not entirely sure if it is completely stable though. Runs CPU performance test in the PerformanceTest program without a hiccup and blazes through Cinebench Open GL but CB locks/freezes on CPU. just the program, not the whole pc.

Right now its sitting at 20x220Bclk and core voltage in CPU-Z hits about 1.39. I have Spread Spectrum disabled and Turbo mode disabled.

Thanks!!!!

 

[Trinamo]

BIOS Screenshots

 

[Trinamo]

Dropped back to 204 and turned turbo on. Runs 10C cooler but Vcor bounces off 1.46

 

[menaceR32]

My temps were up with a higher BCLK too.

I mainly game on this so I went with some settings that allowed the turbo multiplier x23.

BCLK of 205 with the right options in the BIOS allows me to put on speed step and turbo with all the c states enabled.

In wondows 7 it's easy to lock the CPU at 100% power min/max which will keep you at x23 for gaming and x20+ but not x23 for multi core.

This gives me 4.71 for gaming and 4.1 for putting together movies.

V core is 1.375

 

[menaceR32]

Dropped back to 204 and turned turbo on. Runs 10C cooler but Vcor bounces off 1.46

When I was isolating my max BCLK it was 230 and on the Asus it was all "QPI/DRAM Core Volt" setting.

You might be able to drop this with the lower 204 BCLK which might drop your temps a bit. Not sure what it is called on your board. Some boards call this the VTT. I'm sure google will help you find the Alienware equivalent.

 

[Trinamo]

Is that you Vcore at x20 or full turbo? my Vcore is about 1.35 @ x20, it bounces off of 1.46 when it turbos up.

 

[menaceR32]

Is that you Vcore at x20 or full turbo? my Vcore is about 1.35 @ x20, it bounces off of 1.46 when it turbos up.

Both. I manually set my Vcore at 1.375 for stable IBT, LinX and AIDA64 testing.

IBT and LinX I set to hit all of the threads and CPU-Z shows x20 when all cores are being burned.

AIDA will go through x20-23.

Games sit pegged at x23.

Have not tried Arma 2 or 3 or Day Z (stand alone is ruined so might not again). Those might hit more cores so would be x20.

 

[Trinamo]

Gotchya. I don't think my BIOS will let me limit the total Vcore. being that its not there 24/7 I'm hoping it will be fine unless i can tinker it down some more. I submitted BIOS screen shots but since I'm a new member, they have to be approved.

 

[menaceR32]

Well if its working you might not want to mess with it because you know what they say about if it's not broken?

Considering you might introduce new issues or specifically challenges to research; a BIOS update might give you new options as far as settings.

Might be less stable completely. If you can download your existing one great. If not make sure you back it up first.

 

[Trinamo]

My BIOS is the latest. I had to update it so it would accept the Xeon. On the plus side you gave me a few ideas and I did some further tinkering and I've gotten it down to 1.41 at full turbo. Temps are god so I think I can live with it unless someone else can chime in as a don't do it. That being said. Thanks for your responses! They have me and my machine sitting a little more comfortable and cooler!

 

[Trinamo]

And it smoothly ran cinebench. I'll take it!

 

[menaceR32]

... On the plus side you gave me a few ideas and I did some further tinkering and I've gotten it down to 1.41 at full turbo. Temps are god so I think I can live with it unless someone else can chime in as a don't do it. That being said. Thanks for your responses! They have me and my machine sitting a little more comfortable and cooler!

You're welcome! I personally had mine up a couple of notches above 1.41 when I was over 5.0 GHz with a 229 BCLK. This was for a few days so I was concerned and came across a handful of posts with people saying that they run their X5650 at 1.41 24.7. One claimed to have had his up for 2 years. It is off forums so I always take those with a grain of salt.

And it smoothly ran cinebench. I'll take it!

This usually had no issues testing with this one. 3DMark, Heaven Benchmark and just about any game that I play would all crash if there was something off with the tune. Adobe Premiere Pro and the usual would also fail on me. This was after IBT or LinX AND AIDA64 ran smooth for longer than most people bother. As well as CineBench 15 looking promising. 3DMark and Heaven are both available as demos and seem to be closer to most new games in terms of showing issues.

 

[Trinamo]

This usually had no issues testing with this one. 3DMark, Heaven Benchmark and just about any game that I play would all crash if there was something off with the tune.

Yeah, I thought that all was good but this is what I'm experiencing now. IBT passed maximum but Battlefield 4 crashes within a minute or two. It was the other way around when I was at the settings I originally posted. No benchmark or test would run at all but bf4 would run flawlessly but at over 83°C. I read somewhere its a good ideas to reinstall graphics drivers after a bunch of tuning. I'll try it this evening. It looks like it may be a RAM issue/setting now since the crash involves sound loop/buzz or a standard freeze.

 

[menaceR32]

I added some North/South bridge cooling and it just keeps going! No throttling in IBT or LinX, all lines consistent.

I was able to settle on a nice round number of 210 BCLK with the Auto multiplier settings so using x20 for hexacore and x23 for most games.

IMPORTANT detail that I should note, PCIe is now 102.

Everything you see below was fine, until I tried 3DMark and some games. They would crash within a minute like the issue you are having with PCIe at 101.

After all that I was able to pull these off and since it has been stable looks like I will end my OC tuning until the next platform.

A second GTX 970 could easily drive a 1440p panel @ 144 Hz with those new gsync modules from nVidia.

 

[Faljukin]

Your qpi link speed is too high thats why it crashes in games. When you only stress the cpu it wont cause instability.

Its been a long time since i played with the system but qpi too far above 3600 will cause instabillity unless you use something like 1.5v-1.7v for qpi.
Try and play with uncore and qpi multipliers a bit.

 

[menaceR32]

After playing Wolfenstein since my I fist posted this I really need to edit it. It finally crashed.

It passed everything I threw at it synthetic benchmark and stress test wise up to BCLK 229 and did gaming up to BLCK 210, but I won't deal with a crash every couple of hours. So back to 4.0 on hex and 4.6 for most gaming.

I had no issues doing a 16 hour marathon of Far Cry 4 with this tune at BCLK 200 which is QPI 3600. You were absolutely right.

I run this with Vcore 1.35 and QPI/DRAM 1.35 too. Drop the DRAM Voltage from the screenshot to 1.6 since it's just over spec speed now. PCIe is at 100 now.

I spend a good 100 hours messing around and this is the best I will do. At least my fans are all running slower. Too cold in the garage to mess with the Skyline anyways so I guess it's not all bad.

 

[Trinamo]

Menace, do you have HWmonitor? If so, what is your package powers reading? I could have sworn mine always said 95 max but now its showing 109... Am I in trouble here?

 

[Makaveli]

After playing Wolfenstein since my I fist posted this I really need to edit it. It finally crashed.

It passed everything I threw at it synthetic benchmark and stress test wise up to BCLK 229 and did gaming up to BLCK 210, but I won't deal with a crash every couple of hours. So back to 4.0 on hex and 4.6 for most gaming.

I had no issues doing a 16 hour marathon of Far Cry 4 with this tune at BCLK 200 which is QPI 3600. You were absolutely right.

I run this with Vcore 1.35 and QPI/DRAM 1.35 too. Drop the DRAM Voltage from the screenshot to 1.6 since it's just over spec speed now. PCIe is at 100 now.

I spend a good 100 hours messing around and this is the best I will do. At least my fans are all running slower. Too cold in the garage to mess with the Skyline anyways so I guess it's not all bad.

What were you using to stress test this overclock and for how long did you run the testing?