# Which X99 MB to pick for Xeon ES processors?



## Artas1984 (Nov 28, 2017)

Picked up a socket 2011-3 OEM Broadwell-EP Xeon, that does not want to work with my Asus X99-M WS updated to the latest 2017 year BIOS. Also the OEM CPU did not want to work with the two previous BIOS versions, which officially supported 14 nm processors. The OEM CPU only "works" in BIOS, but once i try to boot something up, i get LED post message "19" - which does not tell me anything, since there is no "19" translation in my Asus PDF manual. Just in order to launch the PC i have to CLEAR CMOS every time... In the BIOS the CPU is not recognized and just reveals itself as 0000 CPU, but i do see the 10 cores recognized at least.

I have another Xeon E5 2620 V4 which works fine and boots Windows 10 through PCI-E NVME SSD.

Figured out this won't go anywhere and i need another MB for my OEM CPU.

Won't pick Asus again - they are too picky for these parts. Not too keen to go with Gigabyte - always memory problems, but i might give a try if you *KNOW* something that i do not and you recommend it. 

I am leaning towards Asrock X99 Taichi (cheapest) or MSI X99 Tomahawk or Evga X99 FTW K (most expensive)... There are other options too.

I expect somebody here had experience with socket 2011-3 OEM Xeons and can tell me how things are?


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## cdawall (Nov 28, 2017)

I am running ES chips with my Asrock X99 extreme 4, had an MSI X99 carbon doing the same. Those would be my go to.


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## Artas1984 (Nov 28, 2017)

cdawall said:


> I am running ES chips with my Asrock X99 extreme 4, had an MSI X99 carbon doing the same. Those would be my go to.



You are the second to recommend Asrock X99 Extreme 4. But i don't want to pick it, because i need more memory slots - i need to assemble a PC with 64 GB RAM, but only 8X8 GB DDR4 sticks are available for me to buy CHEAP... 

I would think the Asrock X99 Taichi would work then, huh?


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## cdawall (Nov 28, 2017)

Artas1984 said:


> You are the second to recommend Asrock X99 Extreme 4. But i don't want to pick it, because i need more memory slots... I would think the Asrock X99 Taichi would work then, huh?



The extreme 4 has 8 memory slots on it?

This is the exact model I am running

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/X99 Extreme43.1/


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## Artas1984 (Nov 28, 2017)

cdawall said:


> The extreme 4 has 8 memory slots on it?
> 
> This is the exact model I am running
> 
> http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/X99 Extreme43.1/



A yes, there are  Asrock X99 Extreme micro-ATX and full-ATX versions. So you are running your CPU on full ATX version with 8 memory slots instead of 4 slot version micro-ATX. Which CPU you have? Does the MB come with BIOS that supports 14 nm CPU out of the box?


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## EarthDog (Nov 28, 2017)

ES is different than Xeon... be careful.

I don't know offhand what boards that will work in (OEM isn't relevant AFAIK, just the CPU type..). My suggestion is to see what you can/want to afford and look up CPU compatibility at the mobo website.



Artas1984 said:


> Does the MB come with BIOS that supports 14 nm CPU out of the box?


I mean who would know... it can vary pretty wildly depending on where you get it from, really. Depends on when they received stock... if they haven't sold out of the, say, 20, they had from the get go... it may have the stock BIOS on it. And vice versa, if they go through boards and get newer shipments, it will have a newer BIOS.. but who knows, really.


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## cdawall (Nov 28, 2017)

Artas1984 said:


> A yes, there are  Asrock X99 Extreme micro-ATX and full-ATX versions. So you are running your CPU on full ATX version with 8 memory slots instead of 4 slot version micro-ATX. Which CPU you have? Does the MB come with BIOS that supports 14 nm CPU out of the box?



Right now I have a 2650v4 ES in it, I had a 2683v4 in it before it went in my server. I did have to flash it with my spare haswell chip. 



EarthDog said:


> ES is different than Xeon... be careful.
> 
> I don't know offhand what boards that will work in (OEM isn't relevant AFAIK, just the CPU type..). My suggestion is to see what you can/want to afford and look up CPU compatibility at the mobo website.



Correct Asrock, MSI and EVGA support ES chips. Asus code 19's every single time.


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## Artas1984 (Nov 28, 2017)

cdawall said:


> Right now I have a 2650v4 ES in it, I had a 2683v4 in it before it went in my server. I did have to flash it with my spare haswell chip.
> 
> 
> 
> Correct Asrock, MSI and EVGA support ES chips. Asus code 19's every single time.



Seriously you are actually conforming that Asus X99 boards are a no no for ES chips? Does this fall on all Asus boards or just on those with X99 chipsets?


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## EarthDog (Nov 28, 2017)

cdawall said:


> Asus code 19's every single time.


Well... I would beg to differ on that...

My 6950X was an ES and it worked in ASUS X99 boards (LINK to my review). My 7900X is an ES and worked in 3 ASUS X299 boards (not published yet, but worked in TUF Mk1 and Strix Gaming XE and my daily driver Prime Dx).


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## cdawall (Nov 28, 2017)

EarthDog said:


> Well... I would beg to differ on that...
> 
> My 6950X was an ES and it worked in ASUS X99 boards (LINK to my review). My 7900X is an ES and worked in 3 ASUS X299 boards (not published yet, but worked in TUF Mk1 and Strix Gaming XE and my daily driver Prime Dx).



Those are not xeon based chips and probably fall under QS as opposed to ES anyway. Asus boards code 19 with xeons that are ES. I didn't feel the need to make that separation since the thread is about xeons not consumer chips.



Artas1984 said:


> Seriously you are actually conforming that Asus X99 boards are a no no for ES chips? Does this fall on all Asus boards or just on those with X99 chipsets?



There is a whole list of boards that do and do not work with ES xeons. Asus is a doesn't work at least for broadwell-e.


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## Artas1984 (Dec 1, 2017)

Hey cdawall, form all of the thank's i gave in this forum, this one for you has to be the most serious one. I picked up Asrock X99 Taichi and it sure works straight away with that ES 14 nm 10 core Xeon. This is a huge relief...


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## jaggerwild (Dec 1, 2017)

Doesn't the board post in there support, what CPU will work with them? Glad yer all set! NOW CLOCK IT!!!


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## ikeke (Dec 1, 2017)

I've had good experience with Asrock (1S) and Supermicro (2S) boards accepting a range of ES cpus, Asus is not so good with ES from my experience.


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## cdawall (Dec 1, 2017)

jaggerwild said:


> Doesn't the board post in there support, what CPU will work with them? Glad yer all set! NOW CLOCK IT!!!



You can't.


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## er557 (Dec 2, 2017)

had it been a xeon v3 haswell-ep it could be turbo-moddable for 40% performance increase, easily so with an asrock board. being v4- broadwell-ep, that's off the table.


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## Artas1984 (Dec 13, 2017)

er557 said:


> had it been a xeon v3 haswell-ep it could be turbo-moddable for 40% performance increase, easily so with an asrock board. being v4- broadwell-ep, that's off the table.



@cdawall, is this true? How on earth is that possible? I've noticed the Xeon might be overclocked by a 2 MHz BLCK at the very max, giving it a pathetic  40 - 50 MHz overclock from it's base 2200 MHz! To gain 40 % performance you'd have to get a whole 1 GHz base clock higher than what it is. Provide some facts to your statement! I don't believe this...


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## er557 (Dec 13, 2017)

No problem, here's screenshots of my dual xeon v3 clock all 36 cores to 3ghz, when on stock they are locked to 2.3ghz all cores turbo. When a bit less cores are stressed they easily go to 3.5ghz simultaneously. The cinebench results clearly give a 40% boost with the bios e5 v3 haswell turbo hack, an efi driver which modifies the behavior. Broadwell-e cant do that, it does not work for them. What I mentioned is the asrock boards are the most easy to mod that way. 
Notice on the left side how I select cpu 0 and cpu 1 in each screenshot.


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## Artas1984 (Dec 13, 2017)

er557 said:


> e5 v3 haswell turbo hack



Is this some kind of custom bios for Asrock boards only? Is this only working on C612 Asrock server boards? I want to read the info about this. 

So i take it you have tried to turbo max all cores of Broadwell-EP Xeons and it did not work?


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## er557 (Dec 13, 2017)

Not specifically, no, it actually works on any x99/c612 motherboard with an moddable enough bios, they just remove the microcode for the cpu from the bios, then exploit a pre production haswell-ep behavior to load an efi driver to lock all cores  to max turbo, i.e. 3.5~3.8ghz, depending on the cpu in question. NO ONE has ever managed to do so on broadwell-ep xeons, or any other consumer  processor for that matter. The driver also removes the xeon TDP lock to allow all cores to boost without throttling, provided you have enough cooling for 400-500 watt. Then you load a recent microcode in windows and you have stability, as it is too late to lock it back now, the cpu has been configured upon boot.


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## Artas1984 (May 16, 2018)

Do C612 motherboards support dual OEM Xeons or just retail Xeons???


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## er557 (May 17, 2018)

they support all pairs of any identical xeons, oem, retail, even qualification stepping QS. any haswell-e or Broadwell-e xeon. I don't know for other boards, but asrock ep2c612-ws also runs fine with regular ddr4, no need for ecc


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## TrancëJay (Jun 2, 2018)

Anyone know if Gigabyte X99 motherboards support Xeon V4 ES?


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## er557 (Jun 2, 2018)

No reason it wouldn't , with the latest bios


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## cdawall (Jun 3, 2018)

er557 said:


> No reason it wouldn't , with the latest bios



Except for ES Xeon chips not working with GB boards at all.


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## er557 (Jun 3, 2018)

really? does that include qualification sample/QS?


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