neilhart - What is this? Old Guard EX58-UD3R into a Prodigy (mini-ITX) case?

[neilhart]

Very impressed with this system!

Here is my current thermal stress test run at 3.72GHz. I have changed the CPU cooler pump power to the three pin PSU fan connector after seeing that the PCI fan connector was not speed controlled.

Running Prime95 Torture Test with 12 threads, Geekbench 3 64bit Stress Test and VLC playing AVATAR is amazing. The video and audio are perfect (no lag) and the system is still responsive.
This maybe the most competent system that I own.

With all of this running, I can still open a session to another OS X system over my LAN and move files around without experiencing noticeable delay.

Good modding,
neil

 

[neilhart]

4.15 GHz under full load... and under 70C.

Good modding,
neil

 

[neilhart]

Final - Project Complete

This is a wrap. This old motherboard in this configuration is a breath of fresh air!

Good modding,
neil

 

[CubedOptimism]

Hi. Cool build!

Does the W3690 have an unlocked multiplier? There is conflicting info on that on other forums.

I've got a X5650 already and am thinking about upgrading if it's unlocked.

 

[neilhart]

Hi. Cool build!

Does the W3690 have an unlocked multiplier? There is conflicting info on that on other forums.

I've got a X5650 already and am thinking about upgrading if it's unlocked.

Yes with these older CPUs the term "unlocked" was not used in the Intel specs. However, with my motherboard I can change the multiplier and it is survives reboot without issue. With the powermanagement, the CPU switches cores between the idle x12 (1.72 GHz) to x29 (4.15 GHz) under an offered load.

And the feel of the system is great. Almost no lag can be detected; things happen almost before you keypress is completed.

My current setting is CPU Clock Ratio of 28 and the system sets BCLK Frequency (MHz) is 143 which is 4.0 GHz.

I do not have much experience OC'ing and have not pushed on it. I suspect that there is much more to be had given some fine tuning.

Good modding,
neil

 

[InsaneCultist]

Incredible work as always, neilhart. Always impressed with your mods. Perhaps I will make the jump to W3680s or 90s in my two X58 towers - looks like it's quite worth it.

-IC

 

[neilhart]

Incredible work as always, neilhart. Always impressed with your mods. Perhaps I will make the jump to W3680s or 90s in my two X58 towers - looks like it's quite worth it.

-IC

Thanks for the good words.

Please be aware. While my Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD3R does accept the Xeon CPU, I could not get it to even boot in the MSI X58M motherboard. Meaning that there is some risk in attempting this CPU upgrade.

Good modding,
neil

 

[neilhart]

An update note:

I have been running this system with the two port ORICO PFU3-2P USB3.0 card with ATX power.

Late last year I had upgraded the OS on the SSD to El Capitan and moved on to the next system to update without spending much time with this system (there are about 15 systems in my collection and most have Mavericks, Yosemite and El Cap installed).

Yesterday I fired the system up and experienced boot issues with El Capitan 10.11.1 but not with Yosemite 10.10.4. I could get into El Capitan randomly and it was laggey once up.

After a few checks I saw that the system was throwing USB errors in the logs and the kernel task was running about 99% CPU. So I updated to 10.11.3 and also updated Clover to r3346 but still had the issues.

My immediate solution was to pull the ORICO card out of the system. This resolved the boot problem and laggey performance.

I guess that I should get busy and read up on the USB fixes for El Capitan.

Good modding,
neil

 

[yuanjie1853]

Very impressed with this system!

Here is my current thermal stress test run at 3.72GHz. I have changed the CPU cooler pump power to the three pin PSU fan connector after seeing that the PCI fan connector was not speed controlled.

Running Prime95 Torture Test with 12 threads, Geekbench 3 64bit Stress Test and VLC playing AVATAR is amazing. The video and audio are perfect (no lag) and the system is still responsive.
This maybe the most competent system that I own.

With all of this running, I can still open a session to another OS X system over my LAN and move files around without experiencing noticeable delay.

Good modding,
neil

You did a GREAT job!

 

[neilhart]

You did a GREAT job!

And a small note:

I installed one of these cards:

“dodocool PCI-E Express Card with USB 3.1 and Type-C Ports 15-Pin ConnectorSuperSpeed Gen II (10 Gbps) for Windows 7 / 8 / 8.1 / 10 Linux Kernal”

Purchased from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01C59TB0I/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

The speed of the Type C port is really good however on this old system, old BIOS the card is not fully initialized until the OS is up and running; meaning I could not boot an SSD that was attached via SATA to Type C adapter. Where as on current UEFI tech system the same SSD set up was bootable and the speed was very good.



Good modding,

neil