Back into Overclocking!!

Killjoy128 · 28 Oct 2019 at 16:06

Hi, just wanted to introduce myself onto the forums, been a long time since I used to have a custom W/C loop using an enhiemn aquarium pump and black ice radiator, at least 15 years ago, maybe even longer!
Recently got given an old xeon e5 2687w v2 8/16 and not really knowing much about old server equipment I did a usual scoot about on the interweb and discovered I would need an x79 motherboard. I thought about getting one of those new Chinese x79 boards with the randomised chipsets, but better judgement led me to purchase a second hand gigabyte ga-x79 ud3 rev1.1 board, which has so far been quite reliable. I also picked up 32Gb of corsair vengeance ddr3 1600 and sapphire rx580 8gb SE stuck it all inside one of those weird corsair carbide 600c with the inverted layout, now I know this is all old time gear and knowing these xeons are multiplier locked, I thought I would share my current overclock using a combination of bios settings and bclk adjustments. Currently I'm running 3.78 all cores and boost to 4.1 single core. im running a noctua nh-u14s with 2 fans and have included a screenshot of my prime 95 run as typing this post. I hope you can spare some overclocking love for this old timer and I hope to post back with some more pictures as time and wife/family permit.

snips86x · 28 Oct 2019 at 16:07

ga-x79 ud3 rev1.1

Solid boards they are, great reliability.

MartinPrince · 29 Oct 2019 at 13:23

snips86x said:
Solid boards they are, great reliability.

In my experience Gigabyte made the worse X79 motherboards and I had a few of them. They were so bad that that the X79 UD3 rev1.0 would catch on fire when overclocking was attempted due to the poor VRM's.
https://www.guru3d.com/news-story/gigabyte-fixes-problems-defective-x79-motherboards.html

also mentioned in an old thread here. https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/threads/gigabyte-x79-ud3.18587980/

They had to release the rev 1.1 because the rev 1.0 was so bad. Yet still they were the worsts boards for any kind of overclocking. I also had the top of the range G1 Assassin and it was a very poor motherboard. The only decent X79 Gigabyte released was the UP range like the UP5.

@Killjoy128, you are limited to BCLK overclocking which can give you a little boost though you do need to be mindful as it overclocks the whole subsystem not just the CPU. Saying that I did run a pair of Xeon E5 2697's at 113Mhz on the BLCK for over a year with no issues; that was until I was upgrading the memory and forgot to set everything back to stock. I ended up bricking both CPU's and motherboard. Ouch.

MartinPrince · 29 Oct 2019 at 13:24

Killjoy128 · 29 Oct 2019 at 16:42

Yeah I have read a lot of people having problems getting a stable bclk past 105 on any x79 board. Not that many x79 boards about ga x79 ud3 seems to be the most common, perhaps because because they are trying to get rid. However I have the rev 1.1 board and it seems quite stable up to 105Mhz. There is a ga x79 up4 up on ebay at the moment which seems virtually identical to the ud3 except for the 8 dim slots instead of 4. Do you know if the capacitors are a different type on the up4 the whole board looks like it has the same components as the ud3.

I just noticed the ga-x79 up4 is a rev 1.1 board so it might well have had the same problems as x79 ud3 rev 1.0

MartinPrince · 29 Oct 2019 at 17:46

Killjoy128 said:
Yeah I have read a lot of people having problems getting a stable bclk past 105 on any x79 board. Not that many x79 boards about ga x79 ud3 seems to be the most common, perhaps because because they are trying to get rid. However I have the rev 1.1 board and it seems quite stable up to 105Mhz. There is a ga x79 up4 up on ebay at the moment which seems virtually identical to the ud3 except for the 8 dim slots instead of 4. Do you know if the capacitors are a different type on the up4 the whole board looks like it has the same components as the ud3.

The UP4 is way and above the UD3. The Phase power design and mosfets were actually very good and right up there with the best ones released on the X79 platform.

It would only be worth it if you're going for a good overclock (~4.7Ghz) of an unlocked CPU like the 3930's, 4930's or Xeon E5 1680 V2. If you're doing BLCK clocking of a locked Xeon then best to stick with what you have.