Zando's Wack Hardware Choices and Other Oddities

Pretty much starting this because I’ve seen other peeps do it here and I like to ramble about my hardware, may as well start a smol blog to keep track of my extremly chaotic hardware situation. This’ll mostly be me spending too much money on hardware from 2009-2014 and generally mucking around with it.

That said, I’m trying to solidify a rig idea for a pair of GPUs I have arriving thursday. A pair of EVGA GTX 780 Classifieds, which I was going to very wisely cram inside a Meshify C Mini along with an EVGA X58 Micro and X5670 or i7 950 (depending on what I felt like slapping in the socket at the time).

Turns out those GPUs want 42A on the 12V rail, each, at a minimum. They’re 250W+ cards as well, limiting my possible PSUs to three out of my collection: My 1000W EVGA G3, 1600W EVGA T2 (scored this sucker for $180 brand new with the full 10 year warranty and everything :sunglasses:) , and Corsair RM1000i. The G3 and RMi are only rated to 83.3A on the 12V rail though, and I need 84A at a minimum for just the GPUs. My T2 is the only one that can actually feed them properly according to spec, it does 133A or so on the 12V rail (according to Tom’s Hardware’s review it can actually do a fair bit higher though), so I’m stuck with using that.

T2 can’t really fit in the Meshify C Mini unless I chop out the lower fan mount though, and it’s a brand new case so I’d rather not. It kinda bulges a bit if I do try and force the PSU in there:


Can see the effects better from the front but I forgot to take a pic of that. T2 is slightly larger than the G3 it’s supposed to be able to fit:

So basically the Mini C is out of the picture if I wanna avoid destructive mods. Leaving me with my Define S or Air 540. If I’m using a larger case I may as well use a larger mobo though, meaning I’ll likely use my EVGA X58 Classy SLI 3-way. Define S apparently requires slight mods to fit it though, so currently I’m thinking of this (replace the 990X with an X5670/75 or if I’m lazy an i7 950):

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/dTbzNq

CPU: Intel Core i7-990X Extreme Edition 3.467 GHz 6-Core Processor (Purchased)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG H5 Universal 65 CFM CPU Cooler (Purchased)
Motherboard: EVGA 141-BL-E760-A1 EATX LGA1366 Motherboard (Purchased)
Memory: Kingston Savage 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (Purchased)
Memory: Kingston Savage 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (Purchased)
Memory: Kingston Savage 8 GB (1 x 8 GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (Purchased)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3 GB Dual Classified ACX Video Card (2-Way SLI) (Purchased)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3 GB Dual Classified ACX Video Card (2-Way SLI) (Purchased)
Case: Corsair Air 540 ATX Full Tower Case (Purchased)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA T2 1600 W 80+ Titanium Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply (Purchased)
Total: $0.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-11-11 14:40 EST-0500

I also have noice Carbon ModMesh cables from CableMod for my T2/G3. Also need to contemplate going even stupider, if I pull out the 3.5" HDD bays in the bottom of the Air 540 I can technically fit my stupidly overkill EVGA X58 Classified SLI 4-Way (the XL-ATX lad), but I’d need to find a way to support and secure the bottom edge of that mobo.

Main advantages of the 4-Way are that it’s dumb thicc and I’ve already done the Westmere-EP mod to it (both Classies are V1.0s and don’t support Westmere-EP without a hardware mod), and I know it’ll push my X5670 to 4.5-4.7 easily with proper cooling. Here it is in a makeshift test bench I ran for a while with a 1080 Ti, perfectly balanced GPU for that CPU:


Also it does indeed run 4 GPUs, sadly I couldn’t get the drivers for all these to behave (I wanted to fold on them, ended up just using the 1660 Ti and 1050 Ti, and eventually just the 1660 Ti):

Still proooobably going to go with the EATX board, assuming I can be arsed to track down the EVGA forums thread and pull the heatsinks again, then dig up my soldering iron and fix it up for Westmere-EP chips.

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Seeing as the 780s haven’t arrived yet, slapping a smol lad inside the Meshify C Mini:

i7 5820K:


Not the most amazing bin, does 4.5Ghz at 1.32v or so (which is way, way too much for this cooler, planning to keep it at/near stock lol)

960 Evo, also feat the mobo, an X99 Micro2, and cooler, an NH-L12S (my NH-D15S blocks the top PCIe slot and I couldn’t be arsed to find the right bracket anyways):

GPU is an EVGA 1660 Ti XC Ultra, here’s a test fit:

Clearance is… yes:

And now I gotta go to bed, it’s almost 11.

EDIT: Oof forgot the RAM, it’s 4x4GB EVGA SSC 2800Mhz DDR4. Yoinked it off a lad on Reddit because he had it for a good price and I’m a slight EVGA fanboy.

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Man, those Westmeres most certainly need mitigations=off or the GRC Spectre/Meltdown tool for Windows.

Also, be careful not to blow up the IMC on the 5930K as they blow up super easily.

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Yeah I need to remember to do that when I get the X58 kit up and running again, lol. Will be interesting to see what kind of difference it makes, I’ll try and bench both before and after.

Tis the baby 24-lane 5820K but yeah, I don’t really push the RAM on my X99 stuff, just run XMP. 3200Mhz CL16 in my main rig, 2800MHz CLiforgotwhat for this.

Speaking of which, progress was made:


It commit fit, also peep the random Corsair RGB fan I don’t actually have the controller for so it’s just a white fan now.


And cable management. Still need to track down 3 more SATA cables and my flush cutters for the ends of the zip ties. Also CX550 because it’s got enough power and is a solid unit (I don’t wanna bother to dig out the cables for my G3 lol, I have all my PSU cables in a box so finding the right ones is tricky).

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Desire to go home intensifies:

They were supposed to be here Thursday too, not gonna complain about it being 2 days early.

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Hate to break it to ya, but even XMP can blow up the IMC on Haswell-E.

Really? I’ve only seen people complain about the IMC dying when trying to OC RAM and pushing higher voltages. XMP runs at 1.35v on my 3200Mhz kit, IIRC it’s lower on this lower clocked kit. I ran this 5820K for a while with my 3200Mhz kit as well without a single issue, it’s only in this rig now because I got a 5960X for the main.

5960X are where the most CPU death reports are. Just using XMP has killed CPUs in Haswell-E.

Hmmmmmmm… All I’m seeing so far is ASUS boards pulling too much voltage when XMP is enabled (I run an EVGA board), and one guy saying he killed his own Broadwell-E chip on an MSI board, and had two killed by an ASUS board through no fault of his own.

Some stuff on different BIOS versions being better or worse? And yet more on ASUS boards (especially the original RVE) having issues and cooking 5960Xs.

Oho found one thread where I guy had a 5960X die on an EVGA X99 Micro2, but not anything on why it actually died or much else on what he ran. Just that he was doing 4.4Ghz all core at 1.3v (my 5960X does 4.5 at 1.2v and my 5820K does 4.5 at 1.32v).

Aaaaand some more where an RVE cooked specifically the IMC (stock speeds, workstation use for 2 years), OP pulled the 5960X and had issues with it the whole time they had it.

I’ve had no issues with my 5820K with the core voltages I ran or the 3200Mhz CL16 RAM @1.35v. No issues so far with my 5960X, other than absolutely slapping thermal limits if I try and give it much over 1.2v, so running it at 4.8-possibly 4.9/5 isn’t gonna be a thing till I get better cooling.

Do they just suddenly up and die or does it take a while?

Oho!

Virgin 1060 6GB SSC (water damaged, doesn’t work btw) vs chad 780s:

Can’t use them till tomorrow though, it’s cold out and they sat on the front step for a while, need to get to room temp before I can put power through them because ye olde condensation.

Smol X99 PC is running fine. L12S actually keeps it cooler than I expected, at 4.2Ghz/1.2v it’s hitting a max of 77C after around 20 minutes of Realbench and some testing in Destiny 2 (holds a solid 75fps in massive patrol locations easily, which is just what I need).

Going to have it run Realbench overnight and see how it holds up.

Passed an overnight run of Realbench with flying colors, max temp of 76C. Running 4.2Ghz/3.4GHz at 1.2v/1.05v (core/uncore) with RAM at around 2667Mhz CL16 or so. Had no performance issues so far either, may start using this instead of the main rig due to less noise and power consumption.

Also finished cable management:

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Aaaaahhhhhhh update time.

CoolerMaster mounting systems, please die in a fucking fire.

That aside, the V6 GT is beefy af:

Also illegally fitting the XL-ATX Classified SLI 4-Way into the Air 540 (says it supports up to EATX IIRC):

Test fitting with GPUs:

Should be good to go, just have to actually find the many PSU cables I need and make sure they’re the right ones for my T2 and not off some other OEM’s PSU. Note to self: don’t put all the cables in the same bin.

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Case needs a dusting the bottom has finger trails

Indeed it does, lol. Motherboard has dust as well because it’s sat for a while. Once I get some more compressed air and some microfiber towels that don’t track lint everywhere I’ll probably give it a good cleanout.

Get a small air compressor 100psi pays for it’s self not having to buy cans or fill tires just hold the fans and such so they don’t blow their bearings can never know with used gpus bought one that had dead fan cuase that

Ye I may get one of the purpose built blowers (like a tiny leafblower or reverse vacuum, Amazon has them for like $50). Compressors tend to condensate water inside and then occasionally blast it out in my experience, don’t reeeeeally wanna spray water inside my case. Also the neighbors in the apartments above and below and across from me probably wouldn’t be fans of the noise they make.

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Aaaaand rig up and running:

Everything was funky tho. CPU misbehaved, GPUs were wacky, but I did get a good Firestrike run at 1320Mhz core/stock VRAM/1.2-1.25v on the GPUs (they don’t wanna do the exact same settings in Firestrike anymore so I am bamboozled:


better than 69% of results ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

On to the wackiness: IDK if it’s the mobo or the RAM or what, but nothing wants to clock high. Tried with my X5670, which I ran on this board with both air and water, up to 4.54-4.74Ghz, now if I try and go past 4.3Ghz or so everything borks itself, it crashes on RAM initialization, and throws a no keyboard found error.

Swapped to a W3670, similar issues going for higher clocks, but it has a decently strong uncore so it’s all good. Settled in at 4.24Ghz core (max multi of 24-25 with turbo 170 blck), 3.57GHz uncore, 2044MHz CL10-11-11-31 RAM. 1.35v core, 1.905v CPU PLL, 1.2v QPI PLL, 1.65v DIMM, all other voltages auto. Best result so far is a 956cb in Cinebench R15.

GPUs were a little funky but are fine now. Best I’ve gotten is 1320Mhz core, if I can do some tweaks software side I can apparently push 1.3+ through them, should get me to 1333-1350Mhz at least. Haven’t tweaked the VRAM yet. Top card hits up to the mid 80s, bottom card stays in the mid 60s.

Performance wise, it’s pretty damn good in games that can stomach SLI. 110+ fps in Battlefront 2015, around 140-170fps in Battlefield 4, and 68-75fps (75Hz monitor with V-Sync on) in Destiny 2 - but it randomly crashes there even at stock on the cards, need to figure that out. All at 2560x1080 and max settings (but medium textures on some that can’t fit ultra textures in the 3GB of VRAM).

Oh and also I’m running Windows 7 because I tried some different RAM to see if that was the issue and Windows 10 just consumed it (and yes that’s a Gammax 400 with the fan off a Noctua NH-D15 on it because the nice thicc coolermaster is agony to remove when I need to reseat stuff, and the Gammax uses nice push-pins).

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Check again with 200Mhz BCLK. I know on P55 there’s a BCLK hole that if you push past will mean stability is re-gained.

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Yeah, I did try 200 and a bit over, but it doesn’t seem to like that. Also failed to pass an overnight run of Prime95 blend so I’ve upped voltage to 1.38v and it’s hitting a casual 97C :eyes:. May have been the source of my crashing in Destiny 2, not the GPUs. Could proooobably lower the uncore but like I don’t wanna, lol. Think I just don’t have the best bin on a chip, or I’ve lost my touch. This is the first time I’ve pushed an OC on X58 in what feels like a year? I think it’s closer to around 6-8 months though, I forget when I got into X99. Just checked my order history, yeah I got my X99 board February this year, so roundabout 8-9 months.