- Joined
- Jan 25, 2011
- Messages
- 722
- Motherboard
- GA-X58A-UD3R
- CPU
- X5650
- Graphics
- R9 290
- Mac
- Mobile Phone
Hi folks, I've been here for a long time, but recently I've been pretty quiet. This is just a quick heads up thread for any of you still hanging on to x58/LGA 1366 platform systems (i7-9xx): many of these systems can take a Xeon L5639, which is a 6 core low wattage server chip, with few or no changes. It is a stock 2.13ghz part... But overclocks like a champ. Best part? They can be found on eBay for $80 pulled from non over clocked systems.
Case in point is my current system. Until two days ago I was running an i7-950 at 3.93ghz (ht on, turbo off; 171 x 23), which delivered Geekbench 2 64bit score of ~12,500 and Cinebench 11.5 scores of ~6.90. That's still competitive with contemporary chips, if not OC'd.
I dropped in an L5639 two days ago, did a very basic OC to 3.6ghz on all cores and 4ghz on up to 2 cores w turbo (ht and turbo on; 200 x 18)-- and I'm getting Geekbench 2 64bit scores of ~16,200 and Cinebench 11.5 scores of ~9.30!
In all of this I'm running even lower voltages to achieve this... And I haven't really tried to find either the lowest stable voltages (I just turned it down a few clicks from the 950) or the highest bclk (205 or 210 should be relatively easy). And even at full load in Intel burn test my temps are under 60c, mostly like 50 to 55c... Because this is a 60 watt chip, unlike the i7-9xx at 135 watts.
There are a few caveats. Some early x58 boards may not support the chip. The max multiple for all cores is x18, meaning to be able to get a high OC requires a high bclk (but these are very, very high binned chips); with turbo and c states on the chip will let two cores go to x20 though, so you still get fast single thread operations.
There are numerous reports of two chips working in the SR-2 board for 12 cores/24 threads... But lower OC (~2.96) so not necessarily worth it for most tasks..
The chip worked by dropping it into my system and going to BIOS to set the multi and bclk. No special tricks. Only issues so far:
- iStat Menu doesn't seem to pick up temps. But HWMonitor does pick up temps on all cores, so no biggie.
- About this Mac shows 6-core 3.4 ghz Xeon even though HWMonitor shows all 6 cores hitting 3.6 simultaneously (or x18) under load, and Cinebench under both Win7 and Mavericks confirms 3.6 across all cores. It may just be that x16 is the standard clock, and turbo enables x18 on all cores... Though I have x18 set in BIOS. This is just cosmetic.
- I'm not sure I'm getting the x20 multi on 2 cores in Mavericks. I am getting that multi in Win7. I think my single core test in Win7 beats my single core test in Mavericks-- but I get the same 9.30 in both OS's using all cores.
If you have already moved on to some other platform, it is hard to justify picking up an x58 board to get this chip. But if you have an x58 board already... This is 6 cores with tons of OC and heat headroom for under $100... Or free when you consider what you can sell your i7 for on EBay. I can't see myself upgrading until something major dies or I can get 6 or 8 core chips for the current price of 4 core enthusiast systems.
I will update this thread when I get a chance to push the OC a little higher and/or voltages a little lower. I may also start a Mavericks build thread for this as a guide.
In the meantime I'd love to hear other experiences with this chip if anyone picks one up on EBay to play with (I got mine from a seller in Texas who recently had hundreds available from a server farm being liquidated).
Case in point is my current system. Until two days ago I was running an i7-950 at 3.93ghz (ht on, turbo off; 171 x 23), which delivered Geekbench 2 64bit score of ~12,500 and Cinebench 11.5 scores of ~6.90. That's still competitive with contemporary chips, if not OC'd.
I dropped in an L5639 two days ago, did a very basic OC to 3.6ghz on all cores and 4ghz on up to 2 cores w turbo (ht and turbo on; 200 x 18)-- and I'm getting Geekbench 2 64bit scores of ~16,200 and Cinebench 11.5 scores of ~9.30!
In all of this I'm running even lower voltages to achieve this... And I haven't really tried to find either the lowest stable voltages (I just turned it down a few clicks from the 950) or the highest bclk (205 or 210 should be relatively easy). And even at full load in Intel burn test my temps are under 60c, mostly like 50 to 55c... Because this is a 60 watt chip, unlike the i7-9xx at 135 watts.
There are a few caveats. Some early x58 boards may not support the chip. The max multiple for all cores is x18, meaning to be able to get a high OC requires a high bclk (but these are very, very high binned chips); with turbo and c states on the chip will let two cores go to x20 though, so you still get fast single thread operations.
There are numerous reports of two chips working in the SR-2 board for 12 cores/24 threads... But lower OC (~2.96) so not necessarily worth it for most tasks..
The chip worked by dropping it into my system and going to BIOS to set the multi and bclk. No special tricks. Only issues so far:
- iStat Menu doesn't seem to pick up temps. But HWMonitor does pick up temps on all cores, so no biggie.
- About this Mac shows 6-core 3.4 ghz Xeon even though HWMonitor shows all 6 cores hitting 3.6 simultaneously (or x18) under load, and Cinebench under both Win7 and Mavericks confirms 3.6 across all cores. It may just be that x16 is the standard clock, and turbo enables x18 on all cores... Though I have x18 set in BIOS. This is just cosmetic.
- I'm not sure I'm getting the x20 multi on 2 cores in Mavericks. I am getting that multi in Win7. I think my single core test in Win7 beats my single core test in Mavericks-- but I get the same 9.30 in both OS's using all cores.
If you have already moved on to some other platform, it is hard to justify picking up an x58 board to get this chip. But if you have an x58 board already... This is 6 cores with tons of OC and heat headroom for under $100... Or free when you consider what you can sell your i7 for on EBay. I can't see myself upgrading until something major dies or I can get 6 or 8 core chips for the current price of 4 core enthusiast systems.
I will update this thread when I get a chance to push the OC a little higher and/or voltages a little lower. I may also start a Mavericks build thread for this as a guide.
In the meantime I'd love to hear other experiences with this chip if anyone picks one up on EBay to play with (I got mine from a seller in Texas who recently had hundreds available from a server farm being liquidated).