Xeon CPU Upgrade For Rampage V Extreme ?

[Bint Box]

Hi,

I am currently using an Intel-5930k 6 core CPU in my Rampage V Extreme board and wish to try out a higher core CPU. I see that there are quite a few Xeon CPU's that may be used in my board, some with quite high core counts.

Are there any Xeon CPU's that are considered as a notable option for a Rampage V Extreme? Basically, I would like to increase the core count but without drastically reducing the clock speed into the lower 2GHz range.

I would prefer not to overclock a Xeon to get it back up to my i7-5930k clock speed so something that will give close to 3GHz without overclocking would seem to be OK.

I notice that the Xeon E5-2687W v3 has 10 cores and a clock speed of 3.1GHz and the E5-2687W v4 has 12 cores with clock speed of 3.0 GHz, would these be suitable CPU's?


Lastly, my i7-5930k is a 40 lane CPU, would I be sacrificing any lanes by switching to a Xeon CPU?


Thx for any advice
Bintos

 

[Bint Box]

What do you use the PC for and do you need the 40 PCIe lanes?

I hope to convert the PC to a multi GPU CUDA server utilising the cuda cores on the GPU's for running multiple instances of a cuda program simultaneously.
As for the 40 lanes being needed, I am not sure if I need them?

 

[Bint Box]

The Xeons still have 40 lanes as well.

2687W v4 is ~£900 used - at that point a Ryzen 9 5900/5950X would likely be a better option (although you'd give up some PCI-E lanes for a big improvement in clock speed/IPC/ and more cores with 5950x).

If you definitely need (more) PCI-E lanes, then you'd need to move to a Dual Xeon machine, or a Threadripper/Epyc.

2687W v3 would be the more sensible choice of those 2, but personally I'd look at 2690 V4 (14 Core, 2.6Ghz base, 3.2Ghz all core boost, and faster memory support), and available for ~£220 (similar price to 2687W v3)

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compar...-Intel-Xeon-E5-2690-v4/2336vs2387vs2765vs2780

Wikipedia also lists all of the Turbo bins, so although some chips have a lower base clock, in reality once you factor in all-core turbo, "slower" chips may actually be a better choice (e.g. 2687w v3 is 3.1Ghz base, but only 3.2Ghz all core boost, whereas the 2690v4 is also 3.2Ghz all core, but with 4 extra cores)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...roprocessors#Xeon_E5-26xx_v3_(dual-processor)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...roprocessors#Xeon_E5-26xx_v4_(dual-processor)

Thank you for the detailed explanation and the recommendation of the Xeon E5-2690 v4, it looks a good choice, especially considering those CPU bench figures in the link you kindly provided.

Just one question about the boost clock speed, would I have to tweak the settings in my bios to get the boost by changing voltage and multipliers etc or would it be just a simple "enable boost" type of default setting?
I am clueless about CPU's and bios settings as you may have gathered.


Many thanks
Bintos

 

[Bint Box]

It should work fine "out of the box", as long as "Turbo Mode" is enabled under the CPU Configuration BIOS menu. In the case of the 2690v4, this will allow the CPU to boost +9 steps (3.5Ghz) when running a single thread or two threads, +7 steps (3.3Ghz) when running 3 threads, and +6 steps (3.2Ghz) when running any amount of threads (providing CPU Temperatures allow).

As you have a decent overclocking motherboard - it may be possible to force the CPU to work at the 3.5Ghz frequency at all times via the "Asus Multicore Enhancement" setting (found under the Extreme Tweaker BIOS menu). This then potentially would allow you to override the default boost behaviour - but not sure if this would work on a Xeon.

Reference:
Motherboard manual
https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/...1/E9550_RAMPAGE_V_EXTREME_UG_for_web_only.pdf

Many thanks once again, I am quite eager to get a 14 core Xeon purchased and installed now.
I will report back as soon as I have got some news.


Edit:
On the beg again for advice, will my existing GSkill DDR4 RAM work in the Rampage V Extreme with the Xeon ES-2690 v4 or will I have to change it to server RAM for the CPU?


Thx
Bintos