5.1 GHz Sandy Bridge beats the 5.27 GHz Gulftown!

[Ed Trice]

Sorry for the long hiatus, I have been working on overclocking the new Sandy Bridge systems (which are amazing) and making my 5.0 GHz Gulftown even faster (it is at 5.27 GHz now, for 24x7 operation).

I am hoping this is not "off topic", but as you can use such hardware to solve endgame tablebases much, much faster, I believe this should be a of some interest to the readers.

First, the results using my "checkers DB6" benchmark:



Unbelievably, the lowly i5-2500K @ 5.09 GHz was able to defeat the 5.27 GHz i7-980 extreme! The $2200 system is faster than the Single Stage Vapor Phase Change cooling solution, which is at -40 degrees at startup and never dips under -27 Celsius even during stress tests executing under all 12 cores.



This is all I am doing to cool it to, very simple setup that just about anyone could do.

And if you want to see a video of the 5.27 GHz Gulftown in operation, it is here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/LiquidNitrogenOC?feature=mhum

[Kirill Kryukov]

Hi Ed, interesting! I am also planning to build a 2600K-based system. I see that you opted for a Gigabyte board, and I can recognize the Prolima Tech cooler, but the RAM is missing. Did you have to increase the Vcore a lot? What voltages you consider safe for 24/7? If you can share more details of your build, it may be helpful to me or others.

[Ray]

Hi Ed, interesting! I am also planning to build a 2600K-based system. I see that you opted for a Gigabyte board,

ASUS is a clear winner over Gigabyte in this review
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4130/the- ... yte-at-190

Although, it seems that there are lots of reliability issues with the early ASUS boards. BIOS updates may or may not have cured them

It seems that MSI take the crown for reliability with the initial released boards and BIOS.

Of course, I would not be into extreme overclocking. I'd be more than happy with a low voltage overclock around 4.0Ghz on air cooling. That would most likely be at stock voltage.

[Ed Trice]

ASUS is a clear winner over Gigabyte in this review

ASUS is, by far, the WORSE motherboard manufacturer.

Their rate of RMA (returned merchandise) is so high, that many European resellers who also work with overclocking refused to use their equipment. You see, ASUS does not even make their own boards, they "farm out" work on different modules to companies that furnish the lowest bids.

They had a real "socket problem" with a company called Foxconn, who designed that component of their motherboards. At lower temps, they would fry.

I have been building systems of my own using nothing by GIGABYTE, and I have never had to RMA a single GIGABYTE motherboard.

I will furnish links regarding the ASUS debacle later, but until they ditch Foxconn, I will never even consider using an ASUS motherboard in any of my builds.

[Ed Trice]

Hi Ed, interesting! I am also planning to build a 2600K-based system.

That is really the way to go. I was using 2500Ks to "learn on", since they are so cheap (in case I ruined anything), but the learning curve is very flat and they are very easy to overclock (as well as the 2600K).

I see that you opted for a Gigabyte board, and I can recognize the Prolima Tech cooler, but the RAM is missing.

1600 MHz Corsair Dominator was all that was needed, even for 5.0 GHz on Sandy Bridge. I experimented with faster 2000 MHz Dominator-GT, but this was not needed.

Did you have to increase the Vcore a lot? What voltages you consider safe for 24/7? If you can share more details of your build, it may be helpful to me or others.

Here ya go:

[Ray]

ASUS is, by far, the WORSE motherboard manufacturer.

I've been using ASUS for years, I'm perfectly happy with their products. I have one Gigabyte at the moment, that is fine as well.

[Ed Trice]

I've been using ASUS for years, I'm perfectly happy with their products. I have one Gigabyte at the moment, that is fine as well.

As alluded to previously, refer to this link:

http://forums.aria.co.uk/showthread.php?t=46743

ASUS Maximus IV Extreme recall

Code: Select all

FYI...

2 members of a German forums have been warned and advised by their seller (one of the biggest online shops in Germany) not to accept the delivery if possible as they got an info of a recall for that motherboard.

The recall for that board has been caused by a melted socket of the 1155.
The retailer then warned their customers and advised to reject any delivery made for the Asus MIVE.

This has been confirmed by a member of that forums who is an official Asus Tech Support member. Asus' statement he says will be officially announced most likely tomorrow.

The Thread - unfortunately in German :/
...but try to translate the support guys postings (Doktor(Asus)) with Google translations.

I'd advise temporarily not to buy that board.


There is much more than that one post there, follow the thread. Also reported on other reputable sites, such as:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2859

[Ray]

Same thing has been reported with Gigabyte as well.

http://www.techreaction.net/2011/01/14/ ... dy-bridge/

[Ed Trice]

Same thing has been reported with Gigabyte as well.

Not even close.

The ASUS incidents involved a continent-wide recall, and your "report" was one person making post after post after post on discussion boards claiming there was a problem, which he later admitted was an isolated incident. This is even cited on the link you provided.

- My contact at Gigabyte believes this is an isolated incident.
- I’m sending the board back to their HQ for further testing.

Note use of the words my and I'm -- one person.

[Ray]

Whatever. Every motherboard manufacturer has had problems at some point over the years. I'd still happily buy ASUS if after investigating the specs and prices it best suited my needs. I'm not in the market for a new machine, but if I was I would not buy *any* Sandybridge motherboard until all the manufacturers sort out their issues.

[ernest]

Unbelievably, the lowly i5-2500K @ 5.09 GHz was able to defeat the 5.27 GHz i7-980 extreme!

And how do you explain that?...
4 cores better than 6 (at approx. the same GHz)???

[Ed Trice]

Unbelievably, the lowly i5-2500K @ 5.09 GHz was able to defeat the 5.27 GHz i7-980 extreme!

And how do you explain that?...
4 cores better than 6 (at approx. the same GHz)???

The application runs on a single core and does absolutely no parallel processing.

That means the one core it ran on while on the i5 was faster than the one core it ran on while on the Gulftown.

We can infer that each of the cores of the i5 are a little faster then each of the cores of the Gulftown.

But, in terms of parallel processing, the Gulftown is still faster.

Compare the Cinebench scores, for example:

Gulftown (and I don't know why it displays 4.25 GHz on the screen when it is clearly 5.27 GHz)



i5-2500K

[ernest]

The application runs on a single core and does absolutely no parallel processing.

Fair enough!

[Kirill Kryukov]

Now with chipset recall those who haven't got Sandy Bridge system yet will probably have to wait till March (or April). I got my MB just a day before recall (Gigabyte pulled all their boards from retail channels), so I am lucky perhaps. I'll probably send it for replacement later. Unfortunately 2600K are sold out overhere, so I'm stuck waiting for a CPU.

[Ray]

Lucky or unlucky ?

Building a machine, and then having to remove the motherboard and send it off for repalcement it is a huge pain. I wouldn't do it. This will hit Intel very badly

[Kirill Kryukov]

Lucky or unlucky ?

Building a machine, and then having to remove the motherboard and send it off for repalcement it is a huge pain. I wouldn't do it. This will hit Intel very badly

I'm not planning to use more than the two SATA ports, so for the meantime I should be safe. I'm not even sure yet if I'll request a replacement MB or not. But in general I agree, a huge pain, especially for Intel and motherboard manufacturers.

[Ray]

Yes, as long as you don't need all the SATA ports then no need to RMA it if you don't want to

[Ed Trice]

Now with chipset recall those who haven't got Sandy Bridge system yet will probably have to wait till March (or April). I got my MB just a day before recall (Gigabyte pulled all their boards from retail channels), so I am lucky perhaps. I'll probably send it for replacement later. Unfortunately 2600K are sold out overhere, so I'm stuck waiting for a CPU.

I have solved the SATA II problem with their motherboard and have made a worldwide announcement. Liquid Nitrogen Overclocking, Inc., is the only company selling fully-guaranteed Sandy Bridge systems that will not suffer from any SATA II problems, allowing access to all SATA II and SATA III ports.

[Kirill Kryukov]

I have solved the SATA II problem with their motherboard and have made a worldwide announcement. Liquid Nitrogen Overclocking, Inc., is the only company selling fully-guaranteed Sandy Bridge systems that will not suffer from any SATA II problems, allowing access to all SATA II and SATA III ports.

Hi Ed. Can you provide further details? Without added details I have to say I'm extremely suspicious about your claims. Intel is not shipping the fixed systems yet, but you do? Intel is predicting the up to 15% of the affected systems may see SATA port failures after 3 years (IIRC). Are you equipped to perform accelerated aging tests on a significantly large sample of chips to support your claims? Also, most (or all?) motherboard manufacturers will probably offer a free replacement of all affected boards anyway. If your solution is just adding a SATA controller card, then it's not something you should advertize as a fix to the problem. Honestly I almost feel that you use this forum for a fraud, so unless you clarify your solution, I'll probably delete the message.

[Ed Trice]

Hi Ed. Can you provide further details? Without added details I have to say I'm extremely suspicious about your claims.

Wow. The solution was so simple, I am surprised.

It's called a PCI card with SATA II ports. Plug it in, bypass the SATA II on the motherboard entirely. I've already communicated the solution to someone who works for Intel. They ordered an i7-2600K from me with my fix in place that I am building right now.

[Ed Trice]

On second thought, I wish you the best of luck on your forum. Goodbye.

[Kirill Kryukov]

Well I interpreted "allowing access to all SATA II and SATA III ports" as talking about the ports already present on motherboard, because there are both SATA II and III there, and because otherwise why would you say "all". As fixing those ports is most probably not possible without swapping the chipset, I was under the impression you are doing something really strange, claiming a fix for those ports. Adding a SATA controller is a so obvious solution that it did not occur to me that someone would think about making a "worldwide announcement" about it, or to take any pride in being able to make such system. Had you said something like "I add a SATA card", there would have been no misunderstanding from beginning. Please note that for some people it's not a fix, as they may have other plans for the slots and/or PCIe lanes.