X99 on mITX: ASRock X99E-itx/ac

Anybody have experience going back to older bios revisions?

I haven't paid any attention to my computer for some time and just realized I'm on the 3.80 revision which I believe was created just to add microcode for specter fixes.

I'm one of those nutters who would rather have his system performance back. I want to go back to 3.6 to get rid of that microcode and then after that I will patch to stop Windows 10 from putting the new microcode on itself.

So is it possible/safe for me to go back to 3.6?

I've got an 18-core E5-2695 V4 cpu (ES) coming in the mail (they are super cheap on aliexpress) and a couple of Crucial 32GB ram sticks (CT32G4RFD424A) are on the way as well.

This will be a nice upgrade from the 2x16GB RAM plus 5820K i7 I have now.

But I'd like to get the full performance out of my system for the second half of its life.

Advice?

Bios downgrades must be possible.
But the Windows 10 Updates loads also microcode updates...

Look here for more information: https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/what-controls-turbo-core-in-xeons.2496647/page-123
 
New summary pic there... Want to reanimate this thread ; )

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Another alternative would be to go with the EPC612D4I board, which has 4 SODIMM slots. That would give you even more capacity, and quad channel. Should work with non-Xeon CPUs, I think. Or go for X299.
and one more, if someone interested - Asrock Rack EPC621D6I which supports 6 Channel, DDR4 2666/2400/2133 SO-RDIMM, *ECC SO-DIMM
 
I am still rocking this board, and in case anyone is interested, regular desktop kits of 64GB DDR4 work just fine in it. I just bought a Kingston Fury 2x32GB 3200MHz kit and wasn't sure if it would work since the board's latest BIOS came out in 2018 which I believe was before desktop 32GB sticks were available. So I wasn't sure if it would work, but it does just fine, XPM is recognized, no issues.

One issue I was sad to find out recently though is that overclocking of Broadwell-E chips (and probably Haswell-E) no longer appears to work in Windows, likely due to a conflict between the Spectre/Meltdown fixes issued by ASRock in 2018 and Microsoft in recent Windows 10/11 updates. It could be fixed with an up to date BIOS patch, but at this point I am 100% sure ASRock won't issue anymore BIOS updates for this board. So you will get stock boosts, my 6800K now only boosts to 3.6 GHz except one core does 3.8 GHz (I guess that's Turbo Boost 3.0). It was OCed to 4.2GHz before, I'm not sure when overclocking broke. It's okay, it's a very old platform at this point, but still works for me and I absolutely love the board, so I am waiting for a proper replacement. I may get a Z690M-ITX/ax which I like more than all the other Z690/Z790 ITX boards despite the power limit, but I think I'll wait another generation or two. It's just amazing how much things have slowed down now to where Broadwell-E doesn't yet feel slow. I don't even have an NVMe SSD yet, haven't felt the need, still rocking an 850 EVO.

Anyway... X99E-ITX/ac still going strong into 2023. ;)
 
For luck (don´t know if the board has the support) i buyed today SK Hynix 256 GB (2x 128GB) RDIMM DDR4-2666MHz, reg. ECC (HMABAGR7A4R4N-VN) Sticks in ebay.

First of all, some older pics of the current setup with 2x 32 GB reg. 2133 MHz RDIMMs (borrow of my big WS):

Optic:
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Temps:
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Hey Blaze!
Wow! returning back to this post makes me so nostalgic :D However, I'm still rocking this thing of beauty. ;)

I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction for SK Hynix 256 GB (2x 128GB) RDIMM DDR4-2666MHz, reg. ECC (HMABAGR7A4R4N-VN)? or if you were selling yours? :facepalm:

Cheers!
 
I'm sure no one will know this, but is the mPCIe (mini PCIe) slot on this motherboard Gen3? I know all mPCIe are x1, but I also read that they tend to be Gen1. I can't find information from ASRock or anywhere else, it just says the board has a mini PCIe, but doesn't say what gen.

I'd like to adapt it to a regular slot and plug in a 10 gigabit Ethernet adapter. If it's Gen3, I should be able to get at least 7 gigabit out of it. But if it's Gen1, it would only be about 2 gigabit, in which case I can just use a USB 3.0 adapter. I know I should just get a new board, but X99 is still fast enough for me and there aren't any mini-ITX boards with 10GbE ports anyway.
 
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I'm sure no one will know this, but is the mPCIe (mini PCIe) slot on this motherboard Gen3? I know all mPCIe are x1, but I also read that they tend to be Gen1. I can't find information from ASRock or anywhere else, it just says the board has a mini PCIe, but doesn't say what gen.

I'd like to adapt it to a regular slot and plug in a 10 gigabit Ethernet adapter. If it's Gen3, I should be able to get at least 7 gigabit out of it. But if it's Gen1, it would only be about 2 gigabit, in which case I can just use a USB 3.0 adapter. I know I should just get a new board, but X99 is still fast enough for me and there aren't any mini-ITX boards with 10GbE ports anyway.
no idea but sounds like a good topic for a new thread...
 
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