Brag: Intel® Xeon® Processor X5660 is my poison!

One lazy day (yesterday), I was forced to have longer time to stay in the office. Not that I like it, nor do I have an option but more so because I need to. Wifey's got to attend an event and I can choose to spend my time going with her but I rather let her enjoy her time with her friends since it's a company event. Then there's also an option for me to just go at to the movie theater while waiting for her. Or I could do some loitering around the malls. None of them really interest me, so I told wifey that I'll just stay in the office and play with the hardware.

Brag: Intel® Xeon® Processor W3520 overclocked to 4GHz

I am just too itchy to get myself rolling back to the picture again. You know, my Blog, I'm trying to make it active. And what's the best way to get your Blog active? Well, post your hobbies and things that you like.

And this time around, I pushed an Intel® Xeon® Processor to a blazing fast 4GHz processor! I love how this processor overclock so easily, considering my board isn't the best overclocking board out there. Well, I almost gave up when I can't even bring Host Frequency a wee bit pass 160Mhz but nevertheless, I found what's holding me back and zoom, 4GHz is achieved!

I'll probably try and post a benchmark as well as my OC experience, but don't hold your breath for that. The keyword here is "try" =). Fanboy out!

Tech Link (Processor): Intel prepping Barcelona response

A friend sent me the link from Geek.com BLURB post about the new processor from Intel, Intel® Xeon® 3230 that overclocks well. Not that I am surpised about it, but I thought the comments are really informative. Check it out...

BLURB


Let's skip past all the niceties and just cut to the chase on this one. Intel is prepping a Barcelona response, and it looks to be amazing. The processor is a Xeon 3230, which is of the 65 nm Clovertown variety. It is officially spec'd to see 2.66GHz with a 1.066GHz FSB, up one step from the 2.4GHz Xeon 3220. However, the tester of this quad-core machine was able to get it to boot into Windows at 3.4GHz with a 1.67GHz FSB. It would POST at 3.8GHz with a 1.7GHz FSB, using memory timings of 3-3-3-5 on DDR2 800 at 2.25V. No kidding! SiSoft's Sandra saw a memory benchmark int he 8.7GB/s range.

Imagine a quad-core machine with such high overclocking potential on unreleased silicon--especially in the Xeon lineup. Quite an impressive demonstration of manufacturing prowess.

Read more and see a CPU-Z screen shot at The Inquirer, and post your thoughts below.

Source:Intel prepping Barcelona response

Tech Link (Platform): Intel V8 Eight-Core Platform Preview

It's a slow news day today so I am just sharing a preview done by XBitLabs on the "V8" platform (isn't it annoying that AMD have a "FASN8"). Anyway, XBitLabs are impressed with the performance. But if you are a regular FanBoy TechWeb visitor, you'll know that I have done a quick benching of this system for quite some time already. I first post about Clovertown 2xQuad-Core (total of 8 cores) here and posted initial benchmark here. Expand to read the article from XBitLabs...

Conclusion

Our experience with Intel V8 platform made an unforgettable impression. The obtained benchmark results are so high that we do not hesitate to call it the today’s world’s fastest system for multi-threaded work. This desktop and workstation platform with two quad-core Xeon processors demonstrates unattainable performance in all SMP optimized applications.

However, everything we have just said is true mostly because there are no other eight-core systems in the market today that could compete with Intel V8. Therefore, when the new AMD FASN8 with quad-core CPUs on K10 micro-architecture comes out, situation may change. Especially, since Intel V8 has a few disadvantages originating from its server roots.

First of all, the FB DDR2 memory subsystem in the eight-core monster from Intel is implemented in not the most optimal way. Its latency is too high, which affects the system performance in some widespread applications. Secondly, i5000X based workstation mainboards used for Intel V8 systems cannot suit enthusiasts in the best possible way. They have a lot of functions that no enthusiasts will ever use, but at the same time offer nothing for processor overclocking. And thirdly, Intel V8 platform limits the user’s ability to create a high-performance video subsystem. There are very few mainboards on i5000X chipset that offer slots for two graphics cards, but even they do not allow to use SLI and Crossfire configurations in full power, only as PCI Express x16 + PCI Express x4.

That is why before we make any final conclusions about the future of Intel V8 platform as a great eight-core solution for enthusiasts, we would like to wait a little bit until we get a chance to test the AMD FASN8 platform featuring two next-generation quad-core processors. New Phenom FX CPUs (known under Agena FX codename) are expected to arrive in Q3 2007, so there is not much waiting left. Besides, from what we know already we can say that AMD Quad FX as well as the upcoming FASN8 will be more enthusiast-friendly judging by their features.

Anyway, we will be able to dot all i’s only when we get our hands on the new competitor in this segment, and right now Intel V8 deserves the laurels of an ultimate leader.

Source:Intel V8 Eight-Core Platform Preview

Tech Link (Processor): sub-$400US quad cores emerging

I saw this posted over at XS and I figure it's worth letting you guys know as well. This Intel® Core™-based Intel® Xeon® X3200 series processors are really great quad core processors, and in my experience and testing, they are a lot better than Intel® Core™ 2 Quad in terms of voltage and temperature. If you haven't seen it yet, you may want to check out my Article: The Little Intel® Xeon® X3210 that could!. Expand to read more...

The Xeon DP X3210 s775 is emerging and available at some places for awesome prices. Remember: Q6600 price cuts aren't too far off

EU:
http://tweakers.net/pricewatch/150359/Intel-Xeon-X3210-(S775-4x-2.13GHz-8MB-1066MHz-FSB-Boxed)-prijzen.html
http://geizhals.at/eu/a238093.html
US
http://www.google.com/products?q=X3210&btnG=Search+Products&scoring=p&sa=N&start=10

Source:sub-$400US quad cores emerging

Article: The Little Intel® Xeon® X3210 that could (Part II)...

If you haven't read Part I yet, I highly urge you to check it out first to know the details of the processor, and how benchmarks are tested and data are collected. While the set of benchmarks in this article will be the same, this second part of the article will focus on overclocking. Expand to read the rest of the article...

Disclaimer: This is an ES CPU, retail may or may not have changes from this sample.

Note: Check out Part I article to know the test methodology.

Goals and Objectives: The primary goal of this overclocking experiment is to reach 50% overclock without hard modding and costly cooling requirements.

Success Indicator: There will be four(4) success indicators:

• Reaching 50% on all four cores


• Stable multi-threaded Prime95 with aircool heatsink for at least an hour


• Completion of all benchmarks


• Zero Physical Changes on the hardware (no hard mod, no lapping, etc)

Test Set Up
Processor Intel® Xeon® X3210(2.13GHz) Quad Core
Motherboard: Asus® P5B Deluxe BIOS 1004
Memory: Apacer Value DDR2-800MHz 2x1024MB(CL5-5-5-18 SPD)
Hard Drive: Seagate* Barracuda 120GB SATA RAID 0
Video Card: Asus® 7900GTX 512MB v93.74
Power Supply: Delta 670W EPS12V (server grade)
Chassis: N/A
Ambient Temperature: 32c

Heatsink/Fan: Do not expect water cooling, or phase change from this Blog article. The best I could muster is an aging Thermalright® XP-90 with a Delta® brushless fan model FFC0912DE (1.5a) and an LGA775 retention mechanism. This combo has served me well, and while they are not the best air cooling out there, I have no other heatsink available except the stock reference cooler. Thermaltake® Big Typhoon, Sunbeam® Tuniq Tower, Sycthe® Ninja Plus, Zalman® CNPS9700 or even Coolermaster® GeminII are all great heatsink, and arguably, the best right now in the market but availability and most importantly $$$ is scarce right now. But hey, I have used it in my Prescott days, so it should perform equally well (fingers crossed).

Motherboard: The motherboard Asus® P5B Deluxe is selected as the motherboard of choice, since this seems to be the most stable I have tested when it comes to high FSB overclocking. Performance, on the other hand, is not as best as their i975 brethren and manual selection of bootstrap is not possible which is a major drawback of this board, specially when hitting FSB beyond 400MHz. Another major drawback is the severe voltage drop of the vCore. Asus® almost always have this "feature" in every boards they released in the market. While I don't find the vdroop a major concern with dual core, it's proven to be a major pain with quad core. Both the performance and vdroop issue will be dealt with in order to level set the expectations from this board.

Memory: I have no plans of bringing this baby thru 500FSB, and target is a meager 400FSB. Some might think that the target is too low, but hey, this is quad core and early indication of quad core overclocking are all capped somewhere at 340MHz to 360MHz, with some hitting 390MHz. Anyway, newer BIOS and motherboard revisions has shown that they can push Kentsfield, some (*cough* eVGA) even recalled their board because of poor Kentsfield overclocking experience. Anyway, so for this round, my value RAM DDR2-800MHz 2x1GB dual-sided from Apacer® will be enough for the time being (cough *sour grape*).

Hard Drive: Two Seagate® 160GB SATA/3Gbps/8Mb will be used and configured as RAID 0 using Intel® Matrix RAID configuration with their ICH8R chipset. Not the fastest, but it's the most reliable and compatible that I have used so far. The hard drive will be partitioned in two, one will be for the OS installation, and the other partition will just be for miscellaneous data.

Video Card: I am thinking of using lowly PCI video card, but since I am not going to do magnificent score anyway, I decided that an Asus® 7900GTX/512MB is good enough. The driver is the latest (dated November 2006) downloadable for this video card at the time of testing. No tweak is done on this video card, and operated on stock.

Power Supply: A Delta® 670w model DPS-670DSB REV: S2. It's a full featured power supply and actually stable enough to run even server processors. It's an industrial grade power supply, and would be more than enough for my specifications.

Chassis: The testing will be done on an open test bed so there will be no chassis.

::Overclocking Notes::
With all the preparations done, the issue about performance with the seemingly changing and uncontrollable bootstrap on the Asus® P5B Deluxe will be ignored, and numbers coming out of them will be taken as is, without regard if there's any "linear" performance improvement or degradation. The other issue about the horrible voltage droop will be taken care of if and when needed.

I set my memory and FSB ratio to 1:1, and set the memory timing manually to CL5-5-5-15. vDIMM is set to Auto just to be sure I am on the relatively safe zone. PCIe is also set to Auto, Spread Spectrum is disabled, PCI Frequency is manually set to 33MHz. An initial test run has been done, to record the stock idle and load temperature.

Stock Screenshot (Temperature at Load)


The vCore is set to 1.25v, since when setting it at Auto, the motherboard is giving the processor a whooping 1.6v and it droops to 1.5v during load. Hitting the next bootstrap level of 333MHz (2.66GHz) is fairly easy with this processor, and it is done with just 1.25v.

Reaching 366MHz FSB (2.93GHz) shows the vDroop problem is impacting multi-threaded Prime95, but it is benchstable. Adjusting the vCore to 1.28v helped alleviate the issue with the vDroop and the system is rock stable.

The 375MHz barrier is proving to be a difficult proposition. Changing several voltage options from vCore, to vChipset is not producing any significant stability. While all the benchmark are stable, mPrime95 is producing an error after 30mins and pushing vCore only worsens the scenario. The second issue of the motherboard I mentioned earlier needs to be explored. While the loaded temperature might be an issue, a vDroop mod will be checked first if it can help boost stability. After a few googling here and there, the droop mod by hicookie will be tried. But this is a hard mod, so instead of soldering a VR in there, a pencil mod will be done. After a 3min job, it proved to be succesful and stability is reached with a meager 1.31vCore.

After a few more minutes of pushing, 399MHz which is the 50% target and goal for this experiment has been reached. The ending vCore required at this speed of 3.2GHz is 1.36v. However, a lot of fans has been used to achieve this and all fan headers of the motherboard has proved useful.

Overclock Screenshot (Temperature at Load)


Considering the clock speed, performance, and temperature at load, this is an impressive overclock. With just a minor modification needed, which is the pencil mod which is a very quick job, a stable overclock with a steady vCore holding during load produces an excellent results. To recap, I have reached the goals and objective of this experiement thru:

• Reaching 50% on all four cores - checked


• Stable multi-threaded Prime95 with aircool heatsink for at least an hour - checked


• Completion of all benchmarks - checked


• Zero Physical Changes on the hardware (no hard mod, no lapping, etc) - crossed

The pencil mod is not a full blown hard mod, but in a sense, it is still a mod. I have two choices, get a better heatsink and bump the vCore higher to make up for the vDroop or do a pencil mod. I chose the pencil mod, failing one of my criteria, than spend hard earned money for a better heatsink. But hey, you can pitch in your idea whether my experiment is a success or failure in this regard.

::More Exploration::
Since the overclock is done relatively easy, I decided to try and push forward with the overclock. Note that going beyond 400MHz means I am not just overclocking the processor and chipset, but also the memory as well. Due to the time limitation, and my determination (or lack of), I am able to push the system up to 436MHz with 1.44v, resulting to 3.48GHz. I did not try to find the max FSB via lowering multi, since I always doubt my memory can go beyond 900MHz anyway and doing such might result to changing the northbridge heatsink, or worst, replacing my RAM.

Overclock Screenshot (Temperature at Load)


At 3.48GHz with 1.44vCore, Core Temp is showing 80c tops at full load for all cores using mPrime95. While it is almost impossible to load all four cores at 100% for a prolonged time, it's still important to see how stable the system is. All the fans are working at full speed to keep the system cool, and I have to add FET cooling all over the board. At this stage, I have achieved a 63% overclock, with mere air coolers and a measly 1.44vCore, and 3.48GHz is not too bad for a quad core too with 32c ambient room temperature.

CPU-Z Validation (Click on the image)


The following benchmark will be based on this final overclock. Enjoy...

::Benchmarks::
Gaming:
Doom3: Low Quality-640x480


3DMark Benchmarks:
3DMark01: Overall


3DMark03: CPU


3DMark05: CPU


3DMark06: CPU


Aquamark03: CPU


Multimedia/Multitasking/Multithreading Benchmarks:
Cinebench: Render Score


Cinebench: Render Time


PCMark05: Overall


SANDRA: CPU


SANDRA: Multimedia


wPrime: 32M


SuperPi: 1M


Memory Benchmarks:
SANDRA: RAM Bandwidth


Others:
WinRAR


Temperature


::Closing Thoughts:: I can not stress hard enough how this processor is truly a wonder in all aspects. It can overclock well, with a good cooler and measly 1.35v, and it can also work well with all the four cores working at full speed with voltage as low as 1.175v and silent fan. If you can not afford the Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme QX6700 or Intel® Core™ 2 Quad Q6600, then try to consider this one and give a good, solid and hard look.

Since this processor has a low clock multiplier, it is possible to really push that FSB high up in the air, and still achieve 50% overclock with good air cooling without a need for fire extinguisher. And for those who have better RAM and cooler, I am sure that they can achieve more than my max overclock of 63%. I am looking forward to extreme overclockers to achive a first ever 100% OC on quad core (if there's someone who hit it already, just let me know.

That is all for the day, it's been a busy day, FanBoy out...

Article: The Little Intel® Xeon® X3210 that could (Part I)...

The Little Intel® Xeon® X3210 that could (Part I)
The processor has been out for quite some time already, but save for the the few and really elite forum postings, I haven't seen much action, review or otherwise, coming from this processor. It is not very surprising, since most of the focus has been on the Intel® Core™ 2 Duo and Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme brand of processors. Most people I spoke with, looked at these processors from a "dual core" point of view, and have relegated their thoughts that quad core is solely for the Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme QX6700 and the Clovertown (Intel® Xeon® X5300 series) processor.

The Clovertown (Intel® Xeon® X5300 series) being based on LGA771, dwindles down the interests of PC users with the "Xeon" name, and this is why many of those I have spoken with are unaware of a quad core solution based on LGA775. This is our youngest quad core Intel® Xeon® X3210 (2.13GHz/2x4MB L2/1066MHz) on the test bench, and it will go head to head against an upcoming Intel® Core™ 2 E6420 (2.13GHz/4MB L2/1066MHz).

In this Part I, a quick look at the stock benchmark will be explored, and on Part II, overclocking will be done. Expand to check out the benchmark...

Disclaimer: This is an ES CPU, retail may or may not have changes from this sample.

::Processor Specifications::

The Intel® Xeon® X3210 has the following specifications:

• sSpec: ES^


• Frequency: 2128 MHz (2.13GHz)


• Core: Kentsfield


• Process: 65nm


• Package: LGA775


• Core Voltage: 1.19v


• Bus Speed: 266MHz


• L2 Cache: 2x4096KB^


• Multiplier: 8


• Stepping: B3-7


• Thermal Specification: 62.0°C


• Thermal Guideline: 105.0W


• Platform Compatibility: ??


• EM64T: Yes


• Execute Disable: Yes


• Hyperthreading Technology: No


• Virtualization: Yes


• Core per Package: 2x2


• L2 Cache per Core: Shared 2x4096KB^

::Test Set Up::
Processor(Reference Stock Cooler):
Intel® Xeon® X3210(2.13GHz) Quad Core
Intel® Core™ 2 E6420(2.13GHz) Dual Core

Motherboard: Asus® P5B Deluxe BIOS 1004
Memory: Apacer Value DDR2-800MHz 2x1024MB(CL5-5-5-18 SPD)
Hard Drive: Seagate* Barracuda 120GB SATA RAID 0
Video Card: nVidia* 7900GTX 512MB
Power Supply: Delta 650W EPS12V (server grade)
Chassis: N/A

::Benchmark Methodology::
For benchmarking, at least three (3) runs will be made for each benchmark. From the scores, the lowest and highest score will be discarded, reducing the random spike in results and ensuring better consistency of results. Note that more than three (3) benchmark runs can be executed to validate any inconsistency or abnormality that may arise.

For temperature gathering, Core Temp Beta 0.95 will be used along with SpeedFan v1.32 and the motherboard's own software. From the readings of all three software, assuming they all worked, an analysis will be done to derive the most accurate temperature reading. An external temperature reader, Coolermaster Aerogate II, will be used as well for additional reference. For multicore system, the temperature reading for both idle and load will be based on the highest reported temperature of all the cores.

::Stock Benchmarks::
Gaming:
Doom3: Low Quality-640x480


3DMark Benchmarks:
3DMark01: Overall


3DMark03: Overall and CPU


3DMark05: Overall and CPU


3DMark06: Overall and CPU


Aquamark03: Overall and CPU


::Multimedia/Multitasking/Multithreading Benchmarks::
Cinebench: Render Score


Cinebench: Render Time


PCMark05: Overall


SANDRA: CPU


SANDRA: Multimedia


wPrime: 32M


SuperPi: 1M


::Memory Benchmark::
SANDRA: RAM Bandwidth


::Others/IO::
WinRAR


Temperature


::Closing Thoughts::As can be seen by the benchmark, the quad core server-class processor is faster and better in most, if not all, of the benchmarks. It is interesting that older FutureMark 3D benchmarks 3Dmark01, and 3DMark03 favors the dual core Conroe than the quad core Kenstsfield. I have repeated several tests and rechecked all settings, from the memory timing to other setting sin the BIOS and can't find any difference between the dual core and quad core test set up. 3DMark05 is pretty interesting, as the overall score for the Intel® Xeon® X3210 processor is lower than Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E6420, and the same goes for Aquamark03. However, the difference is not very significant. I'll check this more later, as the chipset i965P may not be optimized for the processor and number of cores.

SANDRA's RAM bandwidth may explain the difference, but I don't have enough data to conclude anything solid. In applications that take advantage of quad core, the server processor flexes its muscle and shows who's the boss. Take for example, the the Cinbench Multi-CPU score and render time. wPrime 32M is also solidly handled by the processor.

The procesor is superb, working smoothly with even just the stock cooler. The processor can work even at a low voltage of 1.175. This can be a very able workhorse, consuming reasonable wattage to deliver its performance. Overall, the Intel® Xeon® X3210 is a very capable processor that can work even with a mainstream desktop chipset based on i965P, truly, an unsung processor that "can" perform!

In the next article, I will be overclocking the processor and see how far I can go. That is all for today, FanBoy out...