Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

[profJim]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

Q9650 @ 4.05GHz (9 x 450MHz) Prime95 Small FFT Stress Test #2
The Prime95 Small FFT stress test ran for 12 hours and 4 minutes with no errors. very boring, sigh

A 12 hour Prime95 Large FFT test has been started.

Everything was fine with the Small FFT test.....until......the IrfanView photo editing program nuked me again while trying to put together some large screen-shots. I tried several minor bios tweaks but IrfanView is still randomly acting up with my 4.05GHz settings.

After the current Prime95 Large FFT stress test completes, I'm going to temporarily go back to my 4.005GHz settings using 445MHz FSB and see if IrfanView is still stable. I had no problems putting together my earlier screen-shots in this thread using the IrfanView program.

High operating temperatures are not an issue because my air conditioning is keeping ambient temperatures at 18^o - 19^o(C). I'm going to be running several other programs and graphics benchmark/stress tests to make sure that everything is still stable with my 9 x 445MHz settings. I'll then follow up with running the same programs and benchmarks with the 9 x 450MHz settings.

[profJim]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

Q9650 @ 4.05GHz (9 x 450MHz) Prime95 Large FFT Stress Test #3

The Prime95 Large FFT stress test ran for 24 hours and 11 minutes with no errors.

Some minor bios tweaks were applied and the IrfanView program was updated with the most recent version.

There were no problems with using IrfanView at the end of the test.

Time to run some demanding graphics stress tests and benchmarks with my overclocked MSI N460GTX Hawk video cards.

[profJim]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

Just say NO?
Naw, I don't know when to quit.

No problems with IrfanView with my 4.10GHz o/c.

Guess who is rerunning the 3 extended Prime95 stress tests again.



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[profJim]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

From Lsdme's excellent http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte...t-vs-bios.html tutorial:



ACT to ACT Delay (tRRD)________ 3-4
Rank Write to READ Delay (tWTR)_______ (4-6) 9-11 (Note Actual Value set in BIOS Vs. What system Uses will be 7+)
Write to Precharge Delay (tWR)________ 3-5 (Note Actual Value set in BIOS Vs. What system Uses will be 5+)
Refresh to ACT Delay (tRFC)___________ 38-42 (2X1GB) 52-62+ (2x2GB)
Read to Precharge Delay (tRTP)_________ 3-6 (Note Actual Value set in BIOS Vs. What system Uses will be 2+)
Static tRead Value (tRD)______________ (5/6) 7-10 (800Mhz) 7-12 (1066Mhz)
Static tRead Phase Adjust________ 1-31*


http://forums.tweaktown.com/gigabyte...ing-guide.html also has excellent information.

[profJim]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

Q9650 @ 4.10GHz (9 x 456MHz) + memory = 912MHz Prime95 Stress Test results:

1. The Prime95 Blend stress test ran for 12 hours with no errors.
2. The Prime95 Large FFT stress test had a rounding error just before the 3 hour mark.

The next 4.10GHz tests will use 1094MHz memory speed instead of 912MHz.

All secondary memory timings are set to AUTO with Performance Enhance = Extreme.

Note: The bios set tRD (aka Performance Level) = 7 and LinX completed 5 loops using all available memory successfully.

The first test will run the Prime95 Large FFT test for 12 hours.

**edit**

A rounding error occurred at 1 hour, 47 minutes, system is not stable.

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[profJim]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

Q9650 @ 4.10GHz (9 x 456MHz) + memory = 1094MHz Prime95 Stress Test results:

The Prime95 Large FFT stress test had a rounding error at 1 hour, 47 minutes.

[profJim]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

Work in progress, tweaked memory timings with better performance.

Prime95 extended stress testing in progress....

[lukevega]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

Great work profJim,

I only hope I can emulate some of your success!

For the masses out there I am still on holiday atm but am looking forward to updating the thread in the near future. Should be some exciting hardware updates to announce hopefully!

[profJim]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

As I said in post #269, HCI Memtest is not a thorough stress testing program and I've had to retest using good old Prime95 Blend, Small FFT and Large FFT tests. Several times I had some Prime95 worker threads stop running with the hated "rounding error" message.

Right now a modified version of the Large FFT test has been running without errors for 10.5 hours and I'm close to my 12 hour goal.

The Blend test alternates between large and small FFT sizes and uses all of your memory when you run a long test. The standard Inplace Large FFT test uses a limited amount of physical memory repeatedly where the FFT sizes vary from 128KB to 4096KB. I used the Custom test option where the Inplace memory option is disabled and I selected FFT sizes from 128KB to 4096KB.

Three voltages needed minor increases to make the system stable when running 4.05GHz (9 x 450) with 1080MHz memory speed (2.40 x 450) with somewhat tighter memory sub-timings and 5-5-5-15 timings. Next up is to run the Blend and Small FFT Prime95 tests for 12 hours each and finally repeat all three of these tests with my 4.10GHz setup (9 x 456) with 1094MHz memory speed (2.40 x 456) with 5-5-5-15 timings.

I booted into windows one time with 4.10GHz and 1140MHz memory speed (2.5 x 456).
LinX completed one test loop (1 entry) and ended with an error for the first entry.
I would have been really surprised if the 1140MHz setting would have worked without having done any other tweaks.

Update:

1. The modified Prime95 Large FFT test completed its 12 hour run with no errors.
2. Prime95 Blend test ran for 12 hours with no errors.
3. Prime95 Small FFT test ran for 12 hours with no errors.

All 3 tests were run with 2 x 2GB of HyperX T1 PC2-8500 memory running at 1080MHz.

For additional Prime95 information, click on the Prime95 tutorial link in my signature.

[profJim]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

I found an interesting setup on ebay:
Asus P5Q Pro Turbo Motherboard with Intel Xeon x5460 processor 3.16ghz - $150 or make offer

Let's see, I can remain on the sidelines giving advice or I can jump into the quicksand.
I thought about this for a very brief moment and decided that I'll stay right where I am on solid ground.

I've started my Prime95 3 test marathon again, hopefully for the last time with my current setup.

Note how the LinX stress test/benchmark GFlop scores increase as you test with larger amounts of memory.



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[lukevega]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

Aww would've been good to have you onboard with the Xeon mod! I'm sure your advice without first-hand experience of the mod will be more than sufficient.

Loving those LinX scores - the kind of thing I can only dream of atm!

Did the Prime tests run stable?

[profJim]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

The 4.10GHz + 912MHz setup easily passed all 3 Prime95 tests.
The 4.10GHz + 1094MHz configuration isn't quite stable yet.

Since you've been on vacation, this thread's view count has increased by over 2000 more viewers!!

[SmOgER]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

Hey all, just ordered this Xeon X5460 beast myself for some serious overclocking :p

I read several pages but the highest OC I've seen is 4.1Ghz, anyone got it any higher?
I'am pretty sure the upper limit for theoretical max overclock is something like 500FSB x 9.5 = 4.75Ghz (not talking about world records here ofc), while more realistic (24/7) one is something like 470FSB x 9.5 = 4.46Ghz ~ 4.5Ghz, hope to get it to at least 4.25Ghz (in fact as high as it will go without risking to destroy my motherboard or fry the chip) when I'll get my hands on it :p<style id="pageBrightnessCustomCSS">body{zoom:106%!import ant;}</style>

btw, for those interested in LGA771 chips:
List of Intel LGA 771 Xeon Processors + Current Prices

prices are a bit optimistic I should say, but if you find a good deal you could snatch one for close to that, especially with X5460.

[lukevega]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

Hi SmOgER, welcome to the thread. I have seen you on the overclockers forum - are you currently running an Asus motherboard? I can't say that the prof doesn't have much experience with Asus but this is the Gigabyte section of the forum and profJim is a Gigabyte expert IMHO but I'm sure he'll help you out if he can.

I'm not sure what the max overclock achievable is but we're on the long and usually (in my case) slow journey to find out the most stable overclock our systems are capable of.

We've determined a few things so far and profJim is still taking me through the basics of overclocking so if you are more advanced than me, feel free to make your own thread, whilst continuing to read and contribute here whenever you like!

[SmOgER]

Re: Socket 771 Mod Xeon X5460 GA-P35-DS3L Overclock

Ah ok, sorry for intrusion hehe, given the amount of replies I thought this thread became more about the X5460 itself and it's overclocking results. I do have an ASUS motherboard tho (P5QC) :P

Well, the 500FSB is usually the limit for quads on consumer motherboards and 9.5 is obviously the maximum possible multiplier for X5460, give it a bit more room for stability and margin of error and we have 470FSB. So that's where those numbers came from. Of course every chip is different and it's down to luck partly, but I would imagine with most decent P35/P45 motherboards you should be able to get close to that, it's mainly a matter of vcore and temperatures range you are willing to go most of the time. For me, anything till 80C TJunction would be considered OK for this chip, as it's about the point when the TCase reaches it's max, and many many chips, especially laptops, reach their Tcase specification temps quite often and nothing happens to them in several years time. But that's me, many people would freak out seeing temps even above 60C :D<style id="pageBrightnessCustomCSS">body{zoom:106%!import ant;}</style>