so ive got an unlocked 2011 v1 xeon that i plan on taking as close to 5GHz as binning and sensible voltage allows, only my board doesnt have any clock adjustment options in the bios at all. is there any way around this, or do i need to ditch c602 if i want to overclock?
if i ditch c602, whats the support like on x79 for ECC RAM? if the memory controllers on the die now surely i shouldnt have issues with that.
is there anything in particular i should be on the lookout for when it comes to shopping for x79 boards?
I think some of ASRocks Extreme Series X79 motherboards support ECC ram and Overclocking. I think the hardest part will be finding a good used one. I think the Intel dx79sr supports ECC as well.
you've got the wrong chip then. just overclock a consumer part and not a server part. Your OC will be more stable and you'll be able to push upwards of 4.5 and above if you're lucky. you're just going to cause yourself a lot of headache sticking with a xeon.
Not true! The Xeon E5-1600 series for the most part have a multiplier range of x8 - x57! Overclocking these chips is extremely easy, and they tend to OC better than the i7 Extremes due to the tighter regulations around the Xeons and their binning.
@ben_garrison Use an X79 board. Mid-run boards like Gigabytes X79-UP4 or ASUS's P9X79-E WS are normally going to have the correct BIOS support for the Xeons, but if you need to you can always order an older board and update the BIOS EPROM itself for a few bucks on eBay.
Intel's own DX79SI and ASUS's WS series boards support ECC. Of the two, the ASUS will mostly give you fewer overclocking headaches.
Well now that we've whittled it down, yeah the ASUS WS (Workstation) series of X79 boards are going to be your best bet. They aren't exactly cheap these days, but if you ask around some of the bigger tech forums you might find somebody willing to give you a deal.
Now as far as overclocking goes, the E5's are a dream. I loved my E5-1650, and it was incredibly stable up to 4.8GHz. 5GHz was possible but I either didn't have the board for it, or the chip was just not really capable, because it would sit happily at 5GHz with the hyperthreading disabled but the moment I unlocked those threads it refused to boot, even with a ridiculous amount of voltage.
Here is what makes these chips cool though, http://valid.x86.fr/283cug < That is a 1000MHz overclock with a voltage increase of only 0.12v. The stability of these chips is just incredible, and they often will run at much lower voltages and temps than their consumer counterparts.
And here's the limit of my chip, http://valid.x86.fr/ppzhfv . Since I set this clock I've seen people getting these same chips hitting 5.6GHz on water cooling with only the single core, so I KNOW there are better chips with higher limits, and maybe you've got one.
That is not something I've looked heavily into, I know that the Xeons support both ECC and non, and that the board is almost always the limiter in which memory types work, but that's it. If you don't need the ECC, you can get regular DDR3 with XMP 1.3 support and they will work fine. The Xeons love tight DRAM timings and have a rock solid IMC for memory overclocking.
Also with a quick google search it appears as though ECC support became more common on the later X79 boards, so take a look at ASRock's Extreme9 and Extreme11 boards, as well as Gigabyte's UD5, UP5 and UD7. Some of those boards are going to be fetching insane prices though, so search around and look at the QVL lists on each board that you are considering to confirm support. That way you don't drop $350 on a board that, while cool and overclocks like mad, doesn't support the memory you want.
I do not believe so, ECC is generally a hardware change.
I can find some of these boards locally for about $180, so try looking around Craigslist for them. And again, go hit up some tech forums B/S/T sections for any private sellers who might have the boards, TechPowerUp, Overclock.net, hell even the nVidia forums (if they still have the B/S/T up). All these are better bets than trying to deal with the scalpers on eBay.