Ga-x58a-ud3r

[rmmcwh]

I put my thermal paste on by the pea sized dot in the middle of the cpu, then spread it evenly across the cpu using a plastic card (as was suggested on various other threads when I first built my Hackintosh).

 

[Richard325]

Hi all, not wanting to drag this conversation back to the beginning, but my Hack has been rock solid since I bought this board, and I'm now getting random freezes that I've never had before. It normally happens when I'm not doing anything on it - watching a video or something like that. Before I pull it to pieces and check each component in another system, is this something that othes have been experiencing since 10.10?

I'm still using Mavericks, but I started getting a lot of freezing/beach balls a few weeks ago. I tried reinstalling Combo Update/ Multibeast/reparing permissions - same problems.

I then checked all the SATA connections - I pulled out the SATA cables and reconnected them. No more beach balls!!!

 

[fruitbat04]

Just ordered one this week too, thanks for the awesome tips on this thread!

Question for you - when you applied the thermal paste, what pattern did you find works best for this CPU (i.e. center dot, vertical line, cross pattern, etc.) to maximize coverage & minimize air bubbles?

Thanks again all!

I just put a pea size Splodge in the middles and stuck the heat sink down. It's not even specific cpu compound but a tube of stuff I use in electronics on transistors and voltage regulators. Cheap as chips! The temperature reduction is because of the cpu architecture so I'm sure you'll see similar reductions.

 

[chris7418]

Hey Chris7418 - what does your logs say before the freezes? Also I think the most up to date bios version for my GA-X58A-UD3R ver. 2 is FH. I have had no freezes in 10.10, seems a little faster than 10.9.

I found the answer, and i'm amazed that I did - it was the hard drive, a Crucial M4 SATA 6GBs SSD. There is a bug that causes the drive to power down once you've used it for 5148 hours. A firmware update and I'm hoping it's fixed.

 

[justr]

Well I've got it installed but had a nightmare and managed to bend a couple of pins on the socket! I noticed when it was not recognising the correct amount of RAM and/or hanging in BIOS!

Anyway, after an hour with a USB microscope and fine pitch tweezers it's up and running.

I'm ripping some handbrake files that I benchmarked on my old CPU but it is indeed looking like a 50% increase when clocked to the same 3.8ghz I was on with the 920. I think there is more potential to clock higher as all I've done is bumped the VCore a little and whack the FSB up to 200. It's also running about 15C cooler so looking very promising. It's recognised in About My Mac as a 6 core Xeon as expected and with the CPU maxed, activity monitor shows the process as 1200% so it's obviously picking up the hyper threading as well.

I've been a way for a while.

First: I love that folks are giving their X58 systems new life with these chips. Dirt cheap-- lightning fast.

Second: Wow, bent pins! I've always had that fear in the back of my head, but figured it's not very easy to actually bend the pins since they are flat. Both my i7-950 and Xeon L5939 made the pretty normal crunching sound when locking down the CPU... which definitely spooked me. The X5650 popped in and closed with very little pressure and no crunching whatsoever.

Third: I think thermal paste application depends on the cooler and the core-layout of the chip. I have an older Hyper 212+, so first I use a little paste + credit card to fill in the gaps on the base of the cooler (poor design that the newer 212 models have fixed... and in doing so cut 1-3C temps).

Fourth: I think you can get your OC higher AND your temperatures cooler if you tinker. I'm currently running my chip at 4.10 Ghz and the max temps I can get trying to burn the thing out with Linx/IntelBurnTest are around 65c-68c. Try a higher CPU multi and a lower BLCK (essentially FSB); you'll take a little stress off some of the system, and run at a higher CPU clock, which on the whole will probably give you a good performance boost. Also, it's worth getting a decent thermal paste (MX-4 is like $5 for many applications) and a cheap air cooler if the case will take it (Hyper 212+/EVO versions retail at around $35, but are often on sale for $20 new... or you could probably pick one up for beans on eBay).

I remember debating between our X58 platform (LGA 1366) and the LGA 1156 platforms... we had to pay a lot more for our CPUs/Mobos, but now it's paying off mightily!

 

[contax]

I now have Core i7-970, and read here that Xeon 5650 i best buy upgrade for X58A UD3 MB.
Does anyone have an idea how much real realworld difference would be upgrading from Core i7-970 to Xeon 5650?
Price for used i7-970 is much higher than Xeon 5650, so it is a little confusing.
I am also looking for fast SSD, but this SATA3 controller on EX58A-UD3 is bottleneck, not great performance with regular SATA SSD.
Does anyone have experience with PCIX SSDs, maybe using "Edge memory Boost Express PCIe 3.0" (great performance on paper, but no first hand expirience)? Anyone? I can see that PCIe x16 3.0 port is required, but will work also with PCIe x16 1.0, but how fast?

 

[justr]

I now have Core i7-970, and read here that Xeon 5650 i best buy upgrade for X58A UD3 MB.
Does anyone have an idea how much real realworld difference would be upgrading from Core i7-970 to Xeon 5650?
Price for used i7-970 is much higher than Xeon 5650, so it is a little confusing.
I am also looking for fast SSD, but this SATA3 controller on EX58A-UD3 is bottleneck, not great performance with regular SATA SSD.
Does anyone have experience with PCIX SSDs, maybe using "Edge memory Boost Express PCIe 3.0" (great performance on paper, but no first hand expirience)? Anyone? I can see that PCIe x16 3.0 port is required, but will work also with PCIe x16 1.0, but how fast?

There's almost no reason to upgrade from i7-970 (6-core, 32nm process, Gulftown) to Xeon 5650 (6-core, 32nm, Westmere) if you're after performance. They are almost identical processes, with the same cores, and the same general range of overclocking ability. If you're lucky, you'll get a slightly higher OC (just as you might if you simply buy another i7-970 and hit the OC jackpot)-- and if you're unlucky you might get a lower OC.

The only potential advantages are these:

1. The Xeon is a 95W CPU, so it should run a bit cooler, consume less energy, and take lower voltages than your 135W i7-970.

2. The Xeon can be used in 2-CPU motherboards like the SR-2. But unless you have one of these boards around-- and the time to mess around with what is by all accounts a really, really finicky BIOS-- these dual-CPU boards are huge, $$$, and a PIA.

3. If you can sell the 970 for more than the cost of the Xeon, you could fold that $$$ back into something else. But the caveats exist: What if you get unlucky and get a bad overclocker? What if you bend a pin installing the chip (really unlikely, but we have proof it happens!). Is it really worth the hassle for no performance boost?

Short version: No, it's almost definitely not worth upgrading from an i7-970 to a Xeon 5650 if you're after performance. It's a killer upgrade from the 4-core, 45nm X58 cpus because you get a huge performance boost and lower temps.

 

[chris7418]

I'm a fool, didn't read it properly, sorry to fill the forum with nonsense.

 

[contax]

Thank you for a a detailed information about possible upgrade to Xeon 5650 form i7-970, really appreciedet and now I know I do not need to upgrade.
And since I am original owner of the i7-970, no need to worry about possible problems with used Cpu.
I don't have experience with overlocking i7-970, didn't need it for now, but would try now for maximum performance.
What GHz can I expect and what would be the optimal settings for overclocking?
BIOS pictures with proper settings would be most welcome.
I have 1600MHz C9 Memory, 12GB Kit.

tnx

 

[tstorm2002]

Alright, got my x5650 at 4Ghz and stable. Thanks for the suggestion justr. Now I just need to get yosemite working. It keeps freezing after about a minute. I went the dsdt free route as I always have, now I'm trying with a dsdt. Do I need to do anything with ssdt tables or whatever? It's probably just a matter of changing one kext or something...this yosemite update has kind of been a headache for me.