x58 max bootable/max total PCIe

[ground]

I have recently (over the past year) been binning boards and CPUs (as well as having others check their CPUs/boards) for maximum BCLK. With Setfsb, most decent Boards are comparable/not gonna be a limiting factor below 300 MHz BCLK, but bootable I ran into some issues on some of my otherwise best boards. Note that >118 PCIe only becomes necessery after ~261 MHz BCLK, so this will be irrelevant for most people. 

x58a-oc: max bootable 135-136, max in Setfsb ~138 (3 boards tested, comparable results)

Rampage II Extreme: max bootable 118-120, max in setfsb ~138 (2 boards tested)

Rampage III Extreme: max bootable 118/134, max in setfsb around 135/unknown (2 boards tested)

Rampage III Formula: max bootable 118, max in setfsb currently unknown (2 boards tested)

x58a-UD7 rev 1: max bootable 133, max in setfsb 135 (1 board tested)

EX58-UD3R: max bootable 126, max in setfsb 127 (1 board tested, unmodded)

x58 DK T3eH6: max coldbootable 115, max trainable 118, max in setfsb 119.8 (1 board tested)

 

Testing procedure is basically upping PCIe until it no longer boots at ~1.4V or less ICH voltage (upping this to >1.5V brings 1-2 MHz, same for the related PCIe voltage) and then upping in setfsb using the highest bootable setting. All devices not needed disabled off course.  If anyone has more boards to add to this list I would be glad. If there is a mod to Asus boards to up the max bootable PCIe clock that would be amazing, because for baseline BCLK they have been reliably higher then the Gigabyte Boards (both x58a-ocs were 2-3 MHz worse at ambient. On Dice I suspect that I was limited by the max bootable PCIe clock holding me back (286 Asus, 287 Gigabyte, note that the E5606 doesn't work on Gigabyte but generally seems 2-3 MHz better)

Some boards appear to be able to train max PCIe or scale with ICH/ICH 1.5V Voltages, but those appear to be more of an exception.

Thanks for the current state of the list goes to Jokot, Tagg, quiekmew, coldwove, Tapakah and T.Rex

 

There is far more to x58 max BCLK, though it appears to mostly involve binning hundreds of CPUs.

Edited June 21, 2019 by ground1556

[suzuki]

I think you mean bclk 236 instead of 136 and on first phrase 118 pcie instead of bclk.

Thank you for the tips,need to test mines as well but too many things to test and limited time.

[ground]

15 minutes ago, suzuki said:

I think you mean bclk 236 instead of 136 and on first phrase 118 pcie instead of bclk.

Thank you for the tips,need to test mines as well but too many things to test and limited time.

Nope, I've found all x58a-oc boards I've had in my hands to be able to boot 136 MHz PCIe easily. The second x58a-oc actually booted 286 MHz BCLK on Dice.

Edit: Nevermind, I'm blind

Edited March 1, 2019 by ground1556

[suzuki]

Do you use sata for ssd/hdd or old school ide with hdd ?

I dunno if it was a myth or not , that sata port falls down after a certain pcie freq and also that it’s good to disable all non esentials like lan/audio etc as they might die (Evga had a lot of this issue).

Necer tested myself,only what i heard at others.

[ground]

Just now, suzuki said:

Do you use sata for ssd/hdd or old school ide with hdd ?

I dunno if it was a myth or not , that sata port falls down after a certain pcie freq and also that it’s good to disable all non esentials like lan/audio etc as they might die (Evga had a lot of this issue).

Necer tested myself,only what i heard at others.

IDE when available, Sata when no other options. Which Sata Port didn't seem to matter on the x58a-ocs, though I've heard mentions that the ones from the other controller can take a little more. Everything disabled off course, I kinda take that for granted now.

[T.Rex]

I boot with 134 pcie and 261 bclk at my one asus r3e with  cascade

134 is fine to do 275 bclk for me 

when I test my other 4 mobos I can give you some data from this

but its like every time I start over I got a little higher in everything,so I dont  know for sure where my max is yet ? 

[T.Rex]

I can also add a asus r3be,but like Suzuki I also need more time, have a lot of hw to test ?

[ground]

16 minutes ago, T.Rex said:

134 is fine to do 275 bclk for me

134 should be about enough for 298, but good luck finding a CPU capable of that

[T.Rex]

1 minute ago, ground1556 said:

134 should be about enough for 298, but good luck finding a CPU capable of that

LOL then I will say 134 bclk is max and just fine ?

[ground]

3 minutes ago, T.Rex said:

LOL then I will say 134 bclk is max and just fine ?

Please test with setfsb too! I’ve yet to see an asus board that couldn’t do 138 with setfsb  

Edited March 5, 2019 by ground1556

[T.Rex]

1 minute ago, ground1556 said:

Please test with setfsb too! I’ve yet to see an asus board that couldn’t do 138 with setfsb  

aaarh 134 pcie of course ?

[ground]

4 minutes ago, T.Rex said:

aaarh 134 pcie of course ?

Okay, same behavior as gigabyte boards on your R3E then, thanks! Gonna have to see if I can find one that can do 136 for myself

[T.Rex]

1 minute ago, ground1556 said:

Okay, same behavior as gigabyte boards on your R3E then, thanks! Gonna have to see if I can find one that can do 136 for myself

it was a note from my gigabyte with 134 pcie and then I just use it for my r3e and it work fine ?

[T.Rex]

Just now, T.Rex said:

it was a note from my gigabyte with 134 pcie and then I just use it for my r3e and it work fine ?

my next bench I will tell you my max pcie just for fun, but I think 136 is max and then I just use 134 to not crash my os,but its 4 years ago

and I have almost loost all my notes of settings so have to make some new again ?

[ground]

make sure to test different drives (IDE and SATA). Just randomly decided to throw a Sata drive on my board (rampage II) and it suddenly starts posting 130+ (though boot fails as sata still drops out above 122...)

Rampage II Extreme:

Max(coldboot): 118
Max(ide boot): 118-120
Max(ide boot + setfsb): 138-141 (depends on OS) (138 benchable)
Max(sata post): 135
Max(sata boot): 122
Max(sata boot + setfsb): 137-138 (136 benchable)

[DR4G00N]

I had a go with PCIE freq on my Evga E770 and was able to boot and load into the OS @ 130MHz using the Marvell SATA ports. Didn't try higher since it's not really necessary. Also did about 250MHz BCLK with my X5687. 

[ground]

Okay, anyone who runs into the ~118-122 boot limit on asus try different GPUs. I had thought my 8600 gt couldn’t be the cause since it posts 126 on msi, 136 on gigabyte x58 and 155 on gigabyte AM3. Turns out it was the limiting factor, posting 138 consistantly with an HD 5450 now. That should be enough for 306 BCLK post  

Edit: Nevermind, it only applies to 45nm CPUs. Apparently those can boot higher PCIe clocks for 45nm. Just confirmed with my 8600 GT

Edited April 23, 2019 by ground1556

[ground]

got another x58a-oc, same results as the other x58a-OCs, 135 boot (with Sata on second controller), 138 in OS, anything above crashes.

[drizzler]

Hi there. long time no see ? After losing nearly all my gear to a stupid burglary last year i was at least able to gather some boards again.

For terms definition :

Boot (max setting possible after cmos reset and 1. start)

Trainable (max setting possible in bios after 1.boot and then restart to boot windows)

SetFSB (max setting possible after windows boots up with trainable bclk)

First testing with a new hardware setup aproach :

Gigabyte X58A-OC  : boot 129, trainable 150 (max), setfsb 168 (max), maybe more with RW? 

ASRock Extreme6 : boot 138, trainable 138, setfsb 138  (no slowmode available?, so kind of useless in terms of maxing out bclk)

Asus Rampage II Extreme : boot 119, trainable 134, setfsb 140

Asus Sabertooth X58 : boot 129, trainable 129, setfsb 138

That X58A-OC is outstanding for now, tests with the gotten stolen ones before haved peaked out at round about 140 but with a more "conventional" testing hardware setup. (i have 2 more X58A-OC to test and some other boards ).

None reliable tests for benching done till now. No detailed testing yet in kind of getting bootable and trainable to be equal, should be possible for all boards.

I will do a dedicated post or thread to this with the testing method later on, have to do more testing before.

Stay healthy ;D

[drizzler]

Tested some more boards :

2x Gigabyte X58A OC : boot 135-136 trainable 138-139 setfsb both 140 ,  batch numbers (RT,ITC,FQC and lot ) are different compared to the "golden one"

Foxconn Flaming Blade GTI : boot 121, trainable 137, setfsb 137

Since nearly every board is somewhat trainable next to around 138 there should be some kind of synch tolerance every train step (it is 2 to 5 pcie steps on all the boards, except the golden one, there i was able to boot up 135 with can go straight to 150).

So maybe it is just the quality of the clock gen (can not find data for all but in other clockgen data sheets you will find the maximum range is not guranteed), the northbridge or just the ram detection / routine in combination with the board quality. Playing around with the ram settings (especially turn around settings) is next, but since the C1 Debug is not moving after bootup on gigbyte boards with pcie to high, i think it is a detection problem.

Something to look for was that  maybe the Intel Mangement Engine is the kicker here, but digging around this it seems that it is not implemented in X58 consumer boards ,despited me_cleaner project is claiming it should be in some kind, but size of the bios files and the spi is also saying no, data sheet also says you can set a flag to run the chip without ME. 

Later this day i will do a dump of the spi to check, but i think it is a dead end.

 

I use a Samsung 950 Pro with a PCI GT 610 for testing, looks like the Samsung Controller can take as much PCIe as i wanted him to take (i think since it is a PCIE 3.0 Controller and we running at 2.0 there is high tolerance due half bandwith cut).

Downside : currently only bootable for Windows 7 or higher, with XP the legacy option rom of the SSD conflicts while booting and i think there is more of a problem too (win-raid.com is the place to dig arround this). Conflicts with other onboard controllers (sata stuff) are common so you have to turn them of if you test it yourself. Also the adpater you are going to use is important (will post this later on).

Also tested an AHCI based PCIe SSD to boot  XP(first gen of ocz revodrive) but this thing faded out at about 130 (it is a PCIE 2.0 device, sandforce controller with a raid controller too). There are some other AHCI PCIe SSDs X58 bootable around (Plextor, Kingston) but since they are all pcie 2.0 standard i guess you will run into the same high pcie problems here.

Using modern PCIE 3.0 NVME SSDs need an EFI Loader like DUET, that needs and extra firstboot device and i think is not an option.

So my conclusion at this point : Samsung PCIe SSD with PCI GPU is some easy way to go maxout your PCIE-Frequency (and looks reliable with above 150 PCIe) but not a must, since they are other ways to maxout your pcie clock to 140, above that it is going to maybe be relevant. Sadly the first board i tested with this setup was the "golden one", so i was a little bit too happy about and thought this is the way to go ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 11, 2020 by drizzler

[drizzler]

Forgot :

Infos of the batch sticker of the 150+ PCIe : RT 68 | ICT 68-5 | FQC N5 | Lot No BH 3184D

would be nice if you check yours if you have one `, the other X58A-OCs  i have are ICT 68-4 and a different Lot No.

If ITC is standing for In Circuit Testing it would be nice to know if the 5 is some kind of quality value or just the number of the testing station or whatever.

Does somebody know? Gigabyte has not answered this question to me cause of EOL product and i have no connections or knowledge that maybe someone has here

Edited May 11, 2020 by drizzler