SR-2 Optimization Thread

Kendrak said:
Well it was good for a bit over an hour......

I just had a hard crash. I'm going to try setting the CPU Vcore to 1.35625 and give it a spin.
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I was going to post earlier today to ask regarding the bclk wall and whether this is a board limitation or might be overcome with increased voltage to the processors.

Edit: New temps seem to be holding at 77C..... I hope this works. 4GHz will be quite nice :cool:
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I'm rooting for you guys achieve the magical 4GHz milepost. :cool:
 
Well almost an hour later and it's holding.....

24:46 TPF on a 2684 WU.... getting better all the time.

Still hoping it holds.
 
Kendrak, have you tried testing with LinX? I've found that it will fail within 5 minutes if the overclock isn't rock solid. Of course, if you're trying to push beyond "rock solid" it might not help that much.

I'm starting to think jebo_4jc has the right idea. Keep everything on auto, monitor what it does as you push BCLK, then tweak from there.
 
SazanEyes said:
Kendrak, have you tried testing with LinX? I've found that it will fail within 5 minutes if the overclock isn't rock solid. Of course, if you're trying to push beyond "rock solid" it might not help that much.

I'm starting to think jebo_4jc has the right idea. Keep everything on auto, monitor what it does as you push BCLK, then tweak from there.
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that's the idea.

Shamino, the guy who helped design this mobo, needed to change very little to hit 200. he bumped ioh volts a bit, but nearly everything else was auto.
 
jebo_4jc said:
Shamino, the guy who helped design this mobo, needed to change very little to hit 200. he bumped ioh volts a bit, but nearly everything else was auto.
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Wow, that's great to know and surprised it can be that easy. Nice OC you achieved BTW. :cool:
 
Well, it's still going.

24:45 TPF on a 2684. I'm holding at ~78C

If I can make this stick I'll be quite happy.
 
What is your Vtt and IOH voltage at 210 bclk? Is your memory at 1066 or 800? 210 x 19 would look really nice on my pair of hex core L5640's once they get here.
 
Everything is the same as your guide in the front besides the Vcore that I listed above.
 
Update:
I'm now running a 2686 and have a TPF of 18:03 and a ppd of 80k. Also finish a WU in a bit over 30 hours.

I'm happy, this is more than I expected out of this box. I'm pulling 575 from the wall. That makes it 139 ppd/w.

:cool:
 
So whats the verdict on Ram for an SR-2?
is DDR3-2000 going to gain you any OC headroom over DDR3-1600?
What about CL? should i spend extra money on CL7 versus something higher?
 
nitrobass24 said:
So whats the verdict on Ram for an SR-2?
is DDR3-2000 going to gain you any OC headroom over DDR3-1600?
What about CL? should i spend extra money on CL7 versus something higher?
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I don't know much on the RAM side, but since you only have a few options on the SR-2, if it isn't that much more costly... I'd go for the higher clocked stuff since -bigadv are so sensitive to RAM speed.

As far a ppd/watt in is a bit of a jump. I'm pulling more from the wall, but more than made up with it with a higher ppd.
 
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nitrobass24 said:
So whats the verdict on Ram for an SR-2?
is DDR3-2000 going to gain you any OC headroom over DDR3-1600?
What about CL? should i spend extra money on CL7 versus something higher?
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Ask Parja. I don't know if he is running the "DDR-1333" setting for his, but I think he does have DDR2000 memory. The sweet spot for bclk seems to be around 190-210. At the 8x memory setting, that would be 1520 - 1680. All of my PC1600 has been able to handle that without issue. If you bump up to the 10x setting, you would be 1900 - 2100. DDR2000 isn't going to help your overclock, but it might get you some more memory speed if the 10x memory setting works without issue.
 
Ok and what about HSF?
If I want to run Air @ 4.3GH (goal).
 
The top end is the Thermalright Silver Arrow and Noctuna NH-D14. Those will get the job done for sure.

The Thermalright Ultra Extreme is a tried-and true, long time champion. Can't go wrong with it for $20 less than the top options. It will be within a couple degrees of those monsters.

The Cogage true Spirit is a rebrand of sorts of the Thermalright ultra extreme. It's a good mid range option. Maybe a degree or two warmer than the ultra ex.

The Cooler Master Hyper 212+ is a fantastic budget option, can be found for $20-$30. It's within a degree of two of the Cogage

Oh, and then there's the Corsair H50. It will be similar to the Thermalright Ultra in terms of performance, so I suggest going with the one at the best price.
 
If I recall it didnt provide enough benefit to justify the cost.
 
From what I have seen the H50 is good for mid overclocks, but struggles with heavy OC. It just can't move that much heat out of a smaller rad. Its great for up to 3.8 id say.
 
Kendrak said:
From what I have seen the H50 is good for mid overclocks, but struggles with heavy OC. It just can't move that much heat out of a smaller rad. Its great for up to 3.8 id say.
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yeah, 3.8 to 4.0 is around the point where most CPUs (particularyly 45nm ones) will be in the 70s territory on their temps with a H50 or TRUE

Those big boys would get you a little farther.

However, you're right nitro to point out their size, I'm not 100% sure you could get two of the Noctuna or TR Silver Arrow on the SR2.

You might then consider an option I forgot, the Corsair H70.
 
H50s/H70s give you additional mounting concerns, especially with two of them to deal with. I personally would avoid them on an SR-2 build.

Any of your giant 120mm or 140mm fan tower coolers are going to be within a few of degrees of each other. You are also going to have plenty of room to work with regardless of how you plan to mount the board. The only thing I would recommend is to get ones that would allow a second fan should you need a little boost in cooling. You may even want to look at something like the Prolimatech Megahalems or the Xigmatek Thor's Hammers and get some higher flow fans to start with.
 
jebo_4jc said:
However, you're right nitro to point out their size, I'm not 100% sure you could get two of the Noctuna or TR Silver Arrow on the SR2.
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Are they really that close? I am used to seeing my "little" Hyper N520s, which have plenty of room. Looking at the board, it does look like you could run into problems if you mount them to go bottom to top or top to bottom, but still you have a lot of room. If your flow was front to back, it looks like you have tons of room.
 
SR2 fixed - I am back! New RAM, fixed my nightmare, have update my post on first page. Still certifying new overclocks, but hope to be back folding by the weekend.

Can't wait to add 4.2GHz back to the Horde!
 
may i be worthy said:
SR2 fixed - I am back! New RAM, fixed my nightmare, have update my post on first page. Still certifying new overclocks, but hope to be back folding by the weekend.

Can't wait to add 4.2GHz back to the Horde!
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Awesome! Glad everything is back up and running for you. :cool:
 
may i be worthy said:
SR2 fixed - I am back! New RAM, fixed my nightmare, have update my post on first page. Still certifying new overclocks, but hope to be back folding by the weekend.

Can't wait to add 4.2GHz back to the Horde!
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awesomesauce.jpg
 
may i be worthy said:
SR2 fixed - I am back! New RAM, fixed my nightmare, have update my post on first page. Still certifying new overclocks, but hope to be back folding by the weekend.

Can't wait to add 4.2GHz back to the Horde!
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Interesting info on MCH Strap. I did not see this at all during my last round of overclocking with my L6540s, although I did have the ram times set manually to 8-8-8-20-2T. Is 191 bclk about all you can get? I wonder if you can back your multiplier down one notch and get 21 x 200. That would get you a little more out of your memory. You may need to go 2T command rate to do it, though. Still, awesome results! That is the fastest SR-2 we have at the moment, at least until Nitrobass gets his stuff up and running.
 
musky said:
Interesting info on MCH Strap. I did not see this at all during my last round of overclocking with my L6540s, although I did have the ram times set manually to 8-8-8-20-2T. Is 191 bclk about all you can get? I wonder if you can back your multiplier down one notch and get 21 x 200. That would get you a little more out of your memory. You may need to go 2T command rate to do it, though. Still, awesome results! That is the fastest SR-2 we have at the moment, at least until Nitrobass gets his stuff up and running.
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Well, it will need to be fast, as having to use it as a workstation will completely kill my PPD on bigadv - I can't believe how sensitive bigadv is to disruption by other processes.

You know, until you mentioned it, I had given up on 200 bclck, but with what I have learnt in the last week you gave me just the nudge I needed ... I just gave it a go, and found.... drum roll....

The Turbo Bug!

I upped vtt to 1.4 and dropped multiplier to 19x, and booted for the first time to 200 bclck! I had never posted before trying that, and the secret was to set mem timings to regular - 7,8,7,20,1T and set each one manually etc, but relax the MCH from DRAM ratio (1066) to 1333 - which would normally result in mem timings of 9,9,9 etc on auto.

Now having said that boot times were a bit longer, and it does not always boot up with all 24G - need a few reboots. (This still sporadically happens to me, even at the stable settings - I hate inconsistent bootup behavior, and the SR2 is pretty poor)

I started running memtests and things were going ok, so I booted to windows, and kept trying. I was loading up a dozen memtestPro, and it passed 10 mins or so, and then I noticed. I WAS AT 4.4GHz. Son of a bitch Turbo is NOT respecting the dropped multiplier. It gives you back the one you dropped! so my x5650 which should be 20x +2 turbo, when set to 19x becomes 19x + 3 turbo! Back to 22x. I tried 18x, and yup, I get 4x turbo boost! Ran Cinebench and froze. 4.4 is just too much.

So I am snookered. It looks like I could run 200 bclck, and the memory seemd ok - after all, 200 bclck = stock 1600 speed. But turbo takes me from 4.2 to 4.4 Ghz, and as my 2 year old daughter says "dat's silly daddy". :p

Not that I am complaining- 4.2 is a very good result on air, and 191 means my 1600 memory is running at 1520 DDR - just comfortably enough under spec to not need overvolting and to cope with running 12 sticks at 1T. Also 191 means I can keep vtt at 1.375v, and I really don't wan't to run higher for 24/7.

Tonight I am testing 190 bclck = 4.180Ghz, which hopefully will mean I can drop IOH to 1.375 too, which I would feel better about running 24/7. There seems to be a mini wall between 190 and 191 bclck, and fingers crossed that tiny difference means I can drop 2 voltage notches on vcore and one on IOH. 3 notches down just failed IntelBurn test Very High/ 32 threads at 2 hours at 190 1.3750v vcore, 1.375 vtt and 1.375 IOH.

Incidentally for those following - the quickest way to find an unstable overclock on my SR2 is IntelBurnTest 2.50, set to Very high, at auto and/or 32 threads. Standard is great for quick testing. But as I get close to final settings I can have a combo pass 50x standard, and 8 hours of maximum, but fail Very High in several minutes. It is just the quickest way to find the weakest point. Two weeks ago I would have told you Maximum was the go, but turns out that was because I had shitty memory!

Thanks for the sauce K! and wishes Apollo. Anyone know if Sazaneyes updated his bios and tried again? he was stuck at 3.85.. This is the SR2 club - nobody gets left behind ;-)
 
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Had the turbo bug you describe been reported before? That is pretty annoying, and will potentially be a problem for anyone with a higher multiplier CPU. It also sounds like something that a bios upgrade could fix.
 
Can't you just turn off Turbo mode completely? If you're manually lowering the multiplier you don't need turbo.
 
musky said:
Had the turbo bug you describe been reported before? That is pretty annoying, and will potentially be a problem for anyone with a higher multiplier CPU. It also sounds like something that a bios upgrade could fix.
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First I have seen or heard of it. And yes, I could not be happier with choosing the x5650! the way the numbers have worked out is just great. Slightly under potential on the memory, but that is fine given I need 24G, so can use the headroom.

SazanEyes said:
Can't you just turn off Turbo mode completely? If you're manually lowering the multiplier you don't need turbo.
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nitrobass24 said:
My thoughts exactly.
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And how pray tell do I get 4.2 Ghz back without turbo? I lose 2x multiplier. I would have to run a base clock of 210 to get back to where I am now on 191. On air. 24/7.

I am seeing bad things start to happen at 191 vs 190, let alone 210. By all means, give it a go, but I don't think I could make that work. I am not that good. What am I missing?
 
I'm with you MIBW. I have 21x multiplier E5640s and I'm stuck right around 190-191 blck. It seems that 192 will cause a BSOD every 24 or so hours (well, not actually a bsod, I just find an unresponsive computer). 191 will crash 1x or 2x per week. Same scenario. 190 seems rock stable. I've fiddled a bit with vtt but I haven't found any settings yet that lead to stability above 191.
 
jebo_4jc said:
I'm with you MIBW. I have 21x multiplier E5640s and I'm stuck right around 190-191 blck. It seems that 192 will cause a BSOD every 24 or so hours (well, not actually a bsod, I just find an unresponsive computer). 191 will crash 1x or 2x per week. Same scenario. 190 seems rock stable. I've fiddled a bit with vtt but I haven't found any settings yet that lead to stability above 191.
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What IOH and QPI are you running? And what uncore?

Hell, post screenies of your whole BIOS ;)
 
I thought you were no longer going for 4.2...thats why you lowered your multiplier?
If thats not the case then yea leave turbo on.
 
OK, I looked at the BIOS screenshots, and it does look like a BIOS limitation. I've been working with a DFI mobo recently and it has the opposite problem -- lots of control over the turbo multiplier, but the base multiplier is locked even with a 980X. I really hope EVGA's engineers are busily working on an improved BIOS.

I haven't tried overclocking the SR-2 again. I'm hoping my case will ship next week, and I'll work on it while it's being rebuilt.
 
nitrobass24 said:
I thought you were no longer going for 4.2...thats why you lowered your multiplier?
If thats not the case then yea leave turbo on.
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Oh righto - yeah if I return to my 4.0 in summer I could see myself trying a turbo-off situation at 200 x 20. Assuming I could get 200 bclck stable, which apparently is Hard.

Right now I am in my greedy-wringing-every-drop-of-performance-out-of-a-new-purchase phase, in the chilly southern hemisphere ;-)
 
OK guys, I upgraded to the latest BIOS today and tried again. After a couple hours I'm back to where I started. :(

Those of you running high overclocks, if you get a chance, please test with LinX using 10GB of memory. When I go beyond 175 BCLK, everything seems to work fine and I can boot into Windows, and in at least 40 attempts of different BIOS settings I've only gotten one BSOD. However, LinX will always fail after 1 or 2 passes. Because this is going to be my primary desktop, I want rock-solid stability, not just enough "stability" to complete a bigadv.
 
SazanEyes said:
OK guys, I upgraded to the latest BIOS today and tried again. After a couple hours I'm back to where I started. :(

Those of you running high overclocks, if you get a chance, please test with LinX using 10GB of memory. When I go beyond 175 BCLK, everything seems to work fine and I can boot into Windows, and in at least 40 attempts of different BIOS settings I've only gotten one BSOD. However, LinX will always fail after 1 or 2 passes. Because this is going to be my primary desktop, I want rock-solid stability, not just enough "stability" to complete a bigadv.
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I am with you - this is my main machine too, so rock solid is the only way.

I am sure you will get you there - I test using Intelburntest2.5 which runs linpack up to Maximum ram available and pass. (that is 20+ GB of 24 installed) Although I find 32 thread Very high (4GB) the fastest way to spot my weak spots.

Can you post full BIOS screens or settings that we could look over? I am fresh from doing a ton of work on this this week, so let's work on it while I remember ;)

Assuming you have enough vcore and vtt, cooling is ok etc I would look first at memory issues. If you are at 1066 DDR (2:8) divider, set all your mem timings manually - maybe loosen them a touch, then loosen the MCH to 1600, and uncore 2133Mhz = 16x. Make sure QPI is set to 4.800GT. That should get you up there, and you can always drop the MCH down to 1333 or 1066 later to boost performance. But if you have any memory settings other than back to back cas delay set to auto, then the memory settings will be jumping around depending on the MCH strap you set.

In fact, I would suggest setting memory even to 2:6 for a while to see if that is the problem.

My 4.0 GHz is:

1.31 Vcore
1.375 vtt
1.375 IOH
1.65v DIMM

This board is quite quirky - for example, my final settings on my ram are 8 9 8 24 to run 12 DIMMs reliably, but if I set 9 9 9 24 it will not post! Even though it will boot at 11 11 11 24 etc.

I think it is likely we have a weird roadblock here than a bit of tweaking can overcome.
 
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