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Asus X79 Sabertooth | Core i7-3960x (Successful)

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Joined
Jan 9, 2011
Messages
188
Motherboard
Asus Sabertooth X79
CPU
i7-3960
Graphics
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 3GB
Mac
  1. MacBook Pro
  2. Mac Pro
mitchellk's Build: Asus X79 Sabertooth | Core i7-3960x | MSI GeForce GTX580
Here's a build using the Intel X79 chipset and LGA2011 CPU


p190b.jpg

EDIT LOG:
2012-04-27 (01) > Added Note Re: Bios ie. Use OOB Bios and don't update it.
2012-04-25 (01) > Tested Final Cut Pro 10.0.4 (Starts up in 4 seconds :D)
2012-04-24 (04) > Reapplied CPU Fix into smbios.plist (SMCpuType / 1281)
2012-04-24 (03) > Changed System Definition to MacPro5,1 using Multibeast 4.3.2
2012-04-24 (02) > Added Cinebench Scores
2012-04-24 (01) > Added UEFI Bios Screen Shots
2012-04-23 (01) > Added info re: SpeedStep and Power Management not working

Components:

Asus X79 Sabertooth
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0061XSBZG/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131801

Intel Core i7-3960x
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00603QXPW/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116491

Corsair Vengeance Low Profile Quad Channel 1600Mhz DDR-3 - (x2 - Total 32gb)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233197

Corsair H80 CPU Cooler
http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Series-Performance-Liquid-CWCH80/dp/B0051U7HMI/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835181016

Antec P190 Case
Discontinued Product

Kingston SSDNow 128Gb - OSX Boot Drive
http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-SSDNow-2-5-Inch-SVP100S2-128G/dp/B004APRLU8/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139413

MSI GeForce GTX580 1536 MB DDR5 2DVI/Mini HDMI PCI-Express Video Card N580GTX TWIN FROZR II/OC
http://www.amazon.com/MSI-PCI-Express-N580GTX-II-OC/dp/B004L9MBEY/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127567

Other existing HDD's: Seagate

Apple Wired USB Keyboard
http://www.amazon.com/Apple-Aluminum-Wired-Keyboard-MB110LL/dp/B000V07N9U/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823101012

Logitech G500 Mouse
http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-G500-Programmable-Gaming-Mouse/dp/B002J9GDXI/
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826104318

OS X Lion Download
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/os-x-lion/id444303913?mt=12

OS X Lion USB Thumb Drive
http://store.apple.com/us/searchresult?p=MD256Z/A&ra=2&r=/us/product/MD256Z/A&t=lion


Comments

asusx79sabertoothintelc.jpg

antecp190casecoolingcon.jpg


Had to mount the Big Boy fan on the outside of the case due to the size of the Corsair H80 liquid cooler.

antecp190bigboy200mmfan.jpg

antecp190cooling.jpg


CPU Running at Stock of 3.3 Ghz
Memory Running with XMP Profile 1 (8-8-8-24 1.5 V)


Using Out of Box Bios - Avoid updating Bios unless absolutely essential.


Installation
- Created USB Install Disc with Unibeast 1.2 and OSX Lion 10.7.0
> Boot from USB
> Choose Lion Install Language
> Open Disk Utility & Partition SSD (1 Partition, OSX HFS+ Journaled)
> Install Lion to SSD
> Reboot from USB > Boot to SSD Drive
> Install Multibeast 4.3.2 as below

multibeastinstall1osx86.jpg


> Remove USB Thumb Drive
> Reboot > Boots from SSD
> Install OSX combo Update 10.7.3
> Reinstall Multibeast as below (Note: same as above except for OpenCL Nvidia Enabler)

multibeastinstall2osx86.jpg


> Reboot
> System boots perfectly
> Installed Nvidia CUDA Driver and Rebooted
> Edited smbios.plist and added the following
Code:
<key>SMcputype</key>
<string>1281</string>
This now shows the CPU as:
osxsysinfo.png


> I Installed (using Kextbeast) a modified version of AppleAHCIPort.kext posted by Kurtface - this shows the SATA controller as:

asussatacontroller.png


> All devices detected and working
> including USB 3.0
> including Extra 2 Sata Ports on the Marvell® PCIe 9128 controller (they run as normal SATA-2 as far as I can tell - will test speed to make 100% sure - they show as Unknown AHCI Standard Controller)
> including ASMedia® ASM1061 controller which controls the 1 x Power eSATA 6Gb/s port(s), green and 1 x eSATA 6Gb/s port(s), red
> Speedstep and Power Management not working - to me this is not a major issue but I will seek a solution in the weeks ahead and will update here if I have any success. Thanks @Stork for reminding me to mention this.

> Some users with X79 boards report sleep problems, I do not ever put a pc to sleep, it's either on or off so I have not tested sleep.

> Display sleep works and wakes from sleep

> Some users report restart and shut down problems, this system of mine shuts down and restarts perfectly.

> Intel High Definition Audio
intelhighdefaudioasusx7.png


> MSI GeForce 580GTX
msigeforce580gtx.png

msigeforce580gtx2.png


> USB Ports
asusx79usb.png


> Ethernet
asusx79ethernet.png


>Here's a screen grab of the system running Prime95 with all 12-cores (6 physical + 6 virtual - Hyperthreading) clocked at 100% and CPU temp (maxed) at 54 Deg C thanks to the H80 cooler. While it was all clocked out at 100% I could still open other apps like there was nothing running in the background. This also shows Intel i7 hyperthreading functioning correctly.

prime95osx86x79i73960xs.jpg


> Screen grab showing USB 3.0 copying speeds. This was between a Seagate USB 3.0 GoFlex External and a Seagate SATA-2 3Gb/s Internal Drive. Does not detect my Vantec External USB 3.0 Drive Bays probably due to Vantec locking it to their card. So USB 3.0 seems temperamental as far as devices goes.
usb3osx86lionx79asus.jpg


> Lastly here is a screengrab showing 12 cores in use by Adobe Lightroom, showing that hyperthreading is working perfectly for applications that are able to make use of it.
inteli73960xosx86lionhy.jpg


> Geekbench Score running CPU at stock of 3.3 Ghz.
geekbenchasusx79intelco.jpg


> Cinebench Scores
x79sabertoothcinebench1.jpg

x79sabertoothcinebench2.jpg


> Asus Sabertooh UEFI Bios Screen Shots
asusx79sabertoothbios00.jpg

asusx79sabertoothbios00.jpg

asusx79sabertoothbios00.jpg

asusx79sabertoothbios00.jpg

asusx79sabertoothbios00.jpg

asusx79sabertoothbios00.jpg

asusx79sabertoothbios00.jpg

asusx79sabertoothbios00.jpg

asusx79sabertoothbios00.jpg

asusx79sabertoothbios01.jpg

asusx79sabertoothbios01.jpg

asusx79sabertoothbios01.jpg

asusx79sabertoothbios01.jpg


EDIT LOG:
2012-04-27 (01) > Added Note Re: Bios ie. Use OOB Bios and don't update it.
2012-04-25 (01) > Tested Final Cut Pro 10.0.4 (Starts up in 4 seconds :D)
2012-04-24 (04) > Reapplied CPU Fix into smbios.plist (SMCpuType / 1281)
2012-04-24 (03) > Changed System Definition to MacPro5,1 using Multibeast 4.3.2
2012-04-24 (02) > Added Cinebench Scores
2012-04-24 (01) > Added UEFI Bios Screen Shots
2012-04-23 (01) > Added info re: SpeedStep and Power Management not working
 
I'm in love with your build!!!!!!!!!

I bought the 3930k, X79 Sabertooth casing them in a Cosmos II case, I could not justify getting the 3960x (£800!!!!) hopefully the 3930k behaves similar to it when installing.

:clap: Well done man! This deserves to be a GOLDEN BUILD.

=)
 
c0nartiste said:
I'm in love with your build!!!!!!!!!

I bought the 3930k, X79 Sabertooth casing them in a Cosmos II case, I could not justify getting the 3960x (£800!!!!) hopefully the 3930k behaves similar to it when installing.

:clap: Well done man! This deserves to be a GOLDEN BUILD.

=)

Thanks c0nartiste ;) much appreciated.
Chuffed it made it to Golden Builds :D
 
This is no less than masterfully setup and what a beast!

The only thing I would caution to others building a socket 2011 system is that there is no power management on these things yet, so no speedstepping, but other than that, they run at full bore :D
 
Gordo74 said:
This is no less than masterfully setup and what a beast!

The only thing I would caution to others building a socket 2011 system is that there is no power management on these things yet, so no speedstepping, but other than that, they run at full bore :D

Thanks Gordo :D I updated the original post above to reflect the information regarding Speedstepping not working. Also added an Edit Log to the bottom of the post.

What is interesting to note is that by using the Corsair H80 CPU Cooler, it has its own built in Fan speed management so it bypasses the mobo. This takes care of the CPU Fan Management at least.

I wonder if using a case like this with it's own built in fan controls would help some users thinking of a build like this to get past the fan management issue? I know c0nartiste is going for this case so I think we'll have some feedback from him in a few weeks.
 
Very nice progress but only 16k geekbench score?

I can get that on my sandy bridge i7-2600k with 16GB RAM.

Assume when/if speed stepper works on this board that score will jump up
 
I'm imagining that GeekBench will increase significantly when you get everything sorted, that's only slightly higher than my 1.5 year old build with an i7-970 (see signature.)
 
Thanks @tom.humphrey and @beebeach

I agree Geekbench scores could be a lot better and once I get to tweaking this little beast I'm sure I could improve those. I'm only getting to tweaking stuff so we'll see what transpires in the next few weeks.

As I said in an earlier post on the X79 chipset topic, while Geekbench and Cinebench are a good reflection of the system, I always look at real world usage of the system and how it performs with my workflow and daily usage.

If I weigh up this build against my previous build (Intel DX58SO m/b + i7-965xe + 12 GB Kingston DDR-3) this new build leaves the previous one in the dust. The screen grabs I showed of Lightroom using all 12 cores is the kind of stuff that makes a vast difference in my life. On previous build and processor Lightroom did not take advantage of all cores like this newer LGA2011 processor. So even while Bench scores are not as high as they could be, usage wise this machine does not leave me waiting or wanting for more (not yet anyway :D)

I am looking forward however to some tinkering and perfecting of this build and will post progress and updates in the original post above :) Going to play a little later with updated versions of FakeSMC + Plugins to see what can be improved. Would also like to spend some time to see if I can extract a DSDT from this mobo, so far none exist for the Asus X79 boards.
 
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