# LGA2011 Motherboard with 3920



## Aquinus (Mar 2, 2012)

*LGA2011 Motherboard with 3820*

Good morning,

I'm getting very close to upgrading my poor Phenom II 940 with a new SB-E and I'm looking for users who have a Sandy Bridge-E 3820. I've read that some motherboards do not support the 3820 out of the box and I don't have a 3930k or 3960x to be able to flash the bios. With that said I'm looking for an MSI or ASUS motherboard that will support the 3820 out of the box without a bios flash.

I'm curious if there is anyone who has a 3820 and has luck with any particular motherboard. I currently have an Asus motherboard and I'm thinking that I was going to stick with Asus, but I haven't had bad luck with MSI either.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a good motherboard?

(I'm looking for an ATX mobo, not an Extended ATX.)

Cheers and thanks before hand.


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## cadaveca (Mar 2, 2012)

The ASUS P9X79 Deluxe that I reviewed HERE will fit the bill.


No worries about flashing BIOS with this board...you don't even need a CPU to do it.



> USB BIOS Flashback offers the most convenient way to flash the BIOS ever! It allows overclockers to try new UEFI BIOS versions easily, without even entering their existing BIOS or operating system. It even works without key components such as the CPU and memory installed. Just plug in any USB storage and push the dedicated button for 3 seconds. The UEFI BIOS is automatically flashed using ATX standby power. Worry-free updating for the ultimate convenience!



See the white USB port, and the button?






You simply place BIOS on a USB drive, name it the right way, plug it into the white USB port, and push that button. Wait a fwe seconds, and it's done. Updating BIOS for unsupported CPUs is no longer an issue.



The other two X79 boards I reviewed are a bit larger than standard ATX.


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## Aquinus (Mar 2, 2012)

Thanks, Cadaveca. I was actually looking at that particular motherboard. Nice review, I think I found my new motherboard then, thanks.


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## cadaveca (Mar 2, 2012)

NP. at all. I'm using it 24/7 now as my gaming rig, and also for ram reviews. It's a solid product.

I plan on picking up the quadcore chip, too, so we'll be able to share tips.


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## Aquinus (Mar 2, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> I'm using it 24/7 now as my gmaing rig, and also for ram reviews. It's a solid product.
> 
> I plan on picking up the quadcore chip, too, so we'll be able to share tips.



Sounds good, I'm just waiting for my tax return to get put into my account. Once it's there it will be on its way. Right now this is what my upgrade is looking like:

ASUS P9X79 WS LGA 2011 Intel X79
Intel Core i7 3820
G.SKILL Sniper Gaming Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) @ 2133 (9-11-10-28)
Dual Radeon HD 6870s (I already have one reference MSI,)
2x Corsair Force Series 3 on SATA 6gb (using X79 in RAID-0)
3x1Tb 7200 RPM Drives in RAID-5 on SATA 3gb on X79
1 DVD Burner on off-chipset SATA 6gb.
SeaSonic Platinum-1000 1000W 80 Plus Platinum

It's sure to fly, I can't wait.


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## fullinfusion (Mar 2, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> The ASUS P9X79 Deluxe that I reviewed HERE will fit the bill.
> 
> 
> No worries about flashing BIOS with this board...you don't even need a CPU to do it.
> ...



Yes and no Dave. Have you tried to update the bios using that method? I have and It only refreshes the current bios..It will not Flash the chip to another bios. Trust me when I say this! My board has 2 bios chips and I wanted to clone the other chip... Well I didnt wait long enough and killed the power. Doing so killed bios chip #1. I tried the way you were saying but nada, no go! I did however get the bios chip re-programed the same night though


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## cadaveca (Mar 2, 2012)

I flashed my board from 0804 to 0904 using this method? Good feedback though, i wonder what happened? Did you label the BIOS incorrectly, perhaps?

You're running X79 now?

Directions:

http://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?1142-How-to-use-ASUS-ROG-USB-BIOS-Flashback

Worth noting the same problem is mentioned in that thread(but for AMD boards). Interesting!

EDIT: As an aside, the shipping 0802 BIOS for the P9X79 boards already supports i7 3820. I got my board just before X79 launch in November, with this 0802 BIOS on it.


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## Aquinus (Mar 2, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> I flashed my board from 0804 to 0904 using this method? Good feedback though, i wonder what happened? Did you label the BIOS incorrectly, perhaps?
> 
> You're running X79 now?
> 
> ...



It kind of disturbs me that Asus' site for CPU support says the 3920 is a 6-core. :|


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## cadaveca (Mar 2, 2012)

meh. Probably a typo. Like yours in the thread title, and above. . It's 3820, not 3920.


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## Aquinus (Mar 2, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> meh. Probably a typo. Like yours in the thread title, and above. . It's 3820, not 3920.



Whoops. Good catch. Guilty as charged. 

Edit: Updated.


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## Aquinus (Mar 2, 2012)

Oh, I might add an additional reason for choosing a SB-E was getting Virtualization with Directed I/O (VT-d) and being able to still overclock. Something the 2600k and 2700k don't do.


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## cadaveca (Mar 2, 2012)

I'l ladd taht the USB BIOS flashback on this board is not like the implementation on the ROG boards that have ROG Connect as well. I do ahve the Rog connect software and cabling from other boards, but it didn't work .

Perhaps that is why fullinfusion had issues that i did not, who knows. Kinda bugs me that it didn't work for him, to be honest, because I know he's 100% on the ball usually when it comes to this stuff.

there ARe other boards out there, so maybe someone has another suggestion for you..I've only had hte three boards, so cannot comment on anything other than those three.


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## fullinfusion (Mar 2, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> I flashed my board from 0804 to 0904 using this method? Good feedback though, i wonder what happened? Did you label the BIOS incorrectly, perhaps?
> 
> You're running X79 now?
> 
> ...





cadaveca said:


> I'l ladd taht the USB BIOS flashback on this board is not like the implementation on the ROG boards that have ROG Connect as well. I do ahve the Rog connect software and cabling from other boards, but it didn't work .
> 
> Perhaps that is why fullinfusion had issues that i did not, who knows. Kinda bugs me that it didn't work for him, to be honest, because I know he's 100% on the ball usually when it comes to this stuff.
> 
> there ARe other boards out there, so maybe someone has another suggestion for you..I've only had hte three boards, so cannot comment on anything other than those three.



Ahh you to kind to me Dave!  I didn't rename the bios. I just drag n dropped the bios into the flash drive. I actually acquired another maximus 4 extreme this week, well actually had 3 in my possession and sent my original back as well as a so called new board back to Asus. Dam Intel and there fast changes 
Thats why I liked Amd lol... cost less. Anyways LLC is spot on now and the board is working very well. Thanks for the tune in Dave! I missed the renaming thing but the board was strange from the start.


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## yuki2012 (Mar 5, 2012)

Quite exciting.


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## Aquinus (Mar 5, 2012)

yuki2012 said:


> Quite exciting.



It is! The money is just waiting to be put into my account, it's pending and is supposed to be effective today. All the parts are picked out with overnight shipping. I'm itching to press that checkout button.


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## claylomax (Mar 5, 2012)

My X79 motherboard should be here in a few hours:


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## Aquinus (Mar 5, 2012)

claylomax said:


> My X79 motherboard should be here in a few hours:
> http://media.bestofmicro.com/7/Q/326870/original/biostar_tpower-x79.jpg



Why would you spend so much money on an x79 board and not go with one with 8-dimm slots?
Edit: This is intended to be a question, not an insult.


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## claylomax (Mar 5, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> Why would you spend so much money on an x79 board and not go with one with 8-dimm slots?



Why should I go with 8-dimm slots? By the time I need more RAM I'll upgrade my rig again. Besides the Biostar is one of the cheapest.


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## Aquinus (Mar 5, 2012)

claylomax said:


> Why should I go with 8-dimm slots? By the time I need more RAM I'll upgrade my rig again. Besides the Biostar is one of the cheapest.



You want to go cheap on a motherboard with an enthusiast level CPU? You baffle me. 

I think I'm changing my mind on motherboard. I really wanted to go with the MSI GD65 but it doesn't support the 3820 out of the box.

So my choice for motherboard is now ASUS Rampage IV Formula.
ASUS Rampage IV Formula LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6G...

This might be if the Zalman doesn't live up to my expectations, I have a push-pull fan on my Phenom II 940 right now that has two 120mm fans that blow 100cfm each (!!) and if I have two CPU fan headers, that can remain an option. Also the Motherboard I was looking at would have required me to replace my case with a workstation chassis.

Edit: Except not, I want 8-dimm slots. Gah. >_>


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## Aquinus (Mar 5, 2012)

Here we go: ASUS P9X79 DELUXE LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s US...


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Mar 5, 2012)

claylomax said:


> Why should I go with 8-dimm slots? By the time I need more RAM I'll upgrade my rig again. Besides the Biostar is one of the cheapest.



You're getting a 6 core at least right? X79 + QUAD + 4 DIMMs = 1155 with higher power consumption, and bizarrely sometimes worse performance.


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## Aquinus (Mar 5, 2012)

LAN_deRf_HA said:


> You're getting a 6 core at least right? X79 + QUAD + 4 DIMMs = 1155 with higher power consumption, and bizarrely sometimes worse performance.



No, I'm getting a 3820 as an interim chip while I'm waiting for IVB-E. I've checked out reviews on the 3820 and it looks like a 2600k with a quad-channel memory controller and more PCI-E lanes which is exactly what I want for the moment.

I know that the 3820 uses more power than 1155 chips. There is logic to my insanity. 

You're right, in some cases it is slower, but you're also wrong because in some cases it is faster. I'm also not spending twice as much for 2 more cores when IVB-E is very likely to have an 8-core varient when it gets released.

Also keep in mind, almost anything is going to be faster than my poor Phenom II 940 with DDR2.

Edit: I've also made the mistake of not leaving room for upgrades in the future, and X79 offers some pretty nice features.


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## Aquinus (Mar 5, 2012)

Parts ordered, there is no turning back.


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Mar 5, 2012)

...interim chip? You could go 1155 and call the 2600k your interim chip while you wait for Ivy. You'd get about the same performance boost from that upgrade but for half the money and end up using half the power. Unless you need the performance NOW and are grabbing a 6 core, or need a cheaper route to 32/64gbs of ram, you'd be much better served with Ivy and 1155. 

As of right now X79 is best thought of as the "go big or go home" platform.

Edit* And I see it's too late haha


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## Aquinus (Mar 5, 2012)

LAN_deRf_HA said:


> ...interim chip? You could go 1155 and call the 2600k your interim chip while you wait for Ivy. You'd get about the same performance boost from that upgrade but for half the money and end up using half the power. Unless you need the performance NOW and are grabbing a 6 core, or need a cheaper route to 32/64gbs of ram, you'd be much better served with Ivy and 1155.
> 
> As of right now X79 is best thought of as the "go big or go home" platform.
> 
> Edit* And I see it's too late haha



Heh, I did consider an 1155 chip, but when you're willing on spending 1800 USD on an *upgrade*, that's all or nothing.


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## n-ster (Mar 5, 2012)

What exactly is your use for your computer?


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## claylomax (Mar 5, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> You want to go cheap on a motherboard with an enthusiast level CPU? You baffle me.
> 
> I think I'm changing my mind on motherboard. I really wanted to go with the MSI GD65 but it doesn't support the 3820 out of the box.
> 
> ...



And you're getting the Formula with a I7 3820 ... now you baffle me.


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## cadaveca (Mar 5, 2012)

claylomax said:


> My X79 motherboard should be here in a few hours:
> http://media.bestofmicro.com/7/Q/326870/original/biostar_tpower-x79.jpg



Interesting looking product. I should have received one of these weeks ago for review, now that I think of it. Thanks for the reminder, will have to see what happened with that.


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## Aquinus (Mar 5, 2012)

claylomax said:


> And you're getting the Formula with a I7 3820 ... now you baffle me.



Read further down, I got a different board... and the price point for the 3820 is much more reasonable than the 3930k. The 3820 is *not* a bad chip. It's just as capable as the 2(6/7)00k and costs about the same amount too. I do like a good fully-featured motherboard though and the 3820 is more than adequate for most tasks so why should I spend twice as much for only 2 more cores and a little more L3 cache? It isn't worth it for my purposes.


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## Aquinus (Mar 5, 2012)

n-ster said:


> What exactly is your use for your computer?



Occasional high resolution gaming, video encoding, and software development (I run at least 3 virtual machines with 2gb of ram on a regular basis.) I also wanted it to be upgradable for the future and to last. Plus, having a Sandy Bridge-E has a status associated along with it and I was willing to dish out a little extra to have a machine that was "more than adequate."

Keep in mind that I tele-work most of the week so I easily spend 30 hours on my computer for work alone, not including free time when I play games, work with video, etc. I debated the 3930k and rejected it.


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## n-ster (Mar 5, 2012)

Does the quicksync feature from SB not help in your case?


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## Aquinus (Mar 5, 2012)

n-ster said:


> Does the quicksync feature from SB not help in your case?



QuickSync has very selective settings when encoding/decoding video and at that point it would make more sense to use my AMD video card with the same settings since the 6870 is a bit more powerful in that area (soon to be two video cards but I don't this transcoding uses both at once). Either way, depending on your settings, it may not support the format that I want to encode to or the format I'm transcoding from.

SB also doesn't support 8 dimms or VT-d (Virtualization w/ Directed I/O), at least on the k editions. Also the feature set that comes with the X79 chipset is pretty sexy. The 3820 however being limited to 45 bins on the multiplier has the more flexible bclk, and I've seen people who have hit >5ghz with the 3820. Not that I'm going to be over-clocking a whole lot because the 3820 is still a power house, but it good enough for I need without spending 600USD+ for the CPU alone. If I went with the 3930k, I would have had to get slower memory and ditch the second 6870 or ditch one of the SSDs, something I didn't want to do. The CPU drives a lot, but the 3820 is perfectly adequate.


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## n-ster (Mar 5, 2012)

True you'd have to go i7 2600 @ 4.2Ghz  If you had went without 1 SSD and gotten a 3930K C2 (C1 don't have Vt-d IIRC) then it would probably have been worth it IMO Oh well.


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## Aquinus (Mar 5, 2012)

n-ster said:


> True you'd have to go i7 2600 @ 4.2Ghz  If you had went without 1 SSD and gotten a 3930K C2 (C1 don't have Vt-d IIRC) then it would probably have been worth it IMO Oh well.



1 SSD doesn't cost 300USD. I bought two 120gb SSDs in hope to break the 1gb/s barrier in RAID-0. Even more so since Intel's raid driver supports TRIM in RAID now.

Edit: also looking at reviews, the only benefit the 3930k has is in some very select benchmarks. The 3820 is very well placed having the best of both the 3960x and the 2600k. It's a fair middle ground in my opinion. We shall see soon enough.


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## n-ster (Mar 5, 2012)

Sure, but you were talking about IB-E and 8 cores, I was assuming you could benefit from 6 cores


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## Aquinus (Mar 6, 2012)

n-ster said:


> Sure, but you were talking about IB-E and 8 cores, I was assuming you could benefit from 6 cores



Sure, it's just not worth it. As I said before I wanted something faster than my poor Phenom II 940 and with IVB-E around the corner, it doesn't make sense to invest in an expensive SB-E. Plus the 3820 is perfectly adequate.


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## n-ster (Mar 6, 2012)

IVB-E isn't that close around the corner lol... actually pretty far away consider how fast tech moves in general

Did you get a CPU cooler?


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## Aquinus (Mar 6, 2012)

n-ster said:


> IVB-E isn't that close around the corner lol... actually pretty far away consider how fast tech moves in general
> 
> Did you get a CPU cooler?



I did. I got a 130mm Zalman cooler and in case it can't keep up I have a dual 120mm Thermaltake heat sink with two 100 CFM fans attached to it in case the Zalman doesn't keep up which is currently on my Phenom II 940. I can run my Phenom II 940 at 1.55 volts without breaking 60*C with it, and I'm not sure about you but as I've gotten older I've realized that half a year to a year isn't that long of time and it will be here before you know it. Get married and have a child and you will quickly realize how quickly time flies by.

You're just nit picking my decision apart as much as you can, aren't you? 

Edit: I do plan on keeping TPU updated with my upgrade with pictures, numbers, and all. Hopefully I can put some questions to rest over the next couple days.


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## n-ster (Mar 6, 2012)

Don't worry I do that to myself as well xD I also don't want you to end up with something you didn't want or have something missing 

ie: dumb mistake like not having a CPU cooler that works on LGA 2011 etc


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## Aquinus (Mar 6, 2012)

n-ster said:


> Don't worry I do that to myself as well xD I also don't want you to end up with something you didn't want or have something missing
> 
> ie: dumb mistake like not having a CPU cooler that works on LGA 2011 etc



I'm only a System Administrator and I've only been building computers for 10 years.


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## Aquinus (Mar 6, 2012)

n-ster said:


> Don't worry I do that to myself as well xD I also don't want you to end up with something you didn't want or have something missing
> 
> ie: dumb mistake like not having a CPU cooler that works on LGA 2011 etc



But now that you mention that I did notice a statement for the cooler:
* Note: For North America market only: Customers who purchased the product after October 9th, 2011 can receive the LGA 2011 mounting kits free of charge. Please contact support.usa@zalmanusa.com for more information.

Also a review says:


> Other Thoughts: No screws for mounting it to a motherboard with a socket LGA 2011, but then it's not listed as being compatible. As it turns out, the screw needed is a metric M4-0.7 size screw, easily obtainable at a local hardware store. add in a couple or three small washers on each screw, and this cooler will bolt right on, no fuss-no muss.



But that is also for a review for this cooler from 2011. (Hah! No pun intended.) ...but it does list it as LGA2011 compatible.


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## n-ster (Mar 6, 2012)

If you can get the mounting kit free, might as well get the proper mounting kit no?


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## Aquinus (Mar 6, 2012)

I just did some research and it appears that LGA2011 is the same size as LGA1366 but uses threaded bolts instead of using a backplate. I also emailed Zalman, so we will see what they say.


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## n-ster (Mar 6, 2012)

Now that you say that, I think I might have heard something similar but I haven't done any research 

I'm really interested in the overclock when you do that  oh and good luck with everything!


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## Aquinus (Mar 6, 2012)

n-ster said:


> Now that you say that, I think I might have heard something similar but I haven't done any research
> 
> I'm really interested in the overclock when you do that  oh and good luck with everything!



Apparently I just need some M4-0.7 bolts and a couple washers to bolt the cooler on using the Intel clips that come with the cooler. It is pretty astonishing the lack of coolers for the LGA 2011 though, but the hole spacing is the same, it's just a matter of not needing a back plate because it can screw right into the board.

edit: ...and thanks. I'm pretty excited about it.


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## claylomax (Mar 6, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> Read further down, I got a different board... and the price point for the 3820 is much more reasonable than the 3930k. The 3820 is *not* a bad chip. It's just as capable as the 2(6/7)00k and costs about the same amount too. I do like a good fully-featured motherboard though and the 3820 is more than adequate for most tasks so why should I spend twice as much for only 2 more cores and a little more L3 cache? It isn't worth it for my purposes.



Who said is a bad chip? I got one myself. Now I see you're going with the UD5, I think that board is not ATX, but I'm not sure; anyway it will fit in your case.


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## Aquinus (Mar 6, 2012)

claylomax said:


> Who said is a bad chip? I got one myself. Now I see you're going with the UD5, I think that board is not ATX, but I'm not sure; anyway it will fit in your case.



Read the entire thread. I ordered an ASUS P9X79 Deluxe since Dave said he has had great success with the P9X79 board. I also currently have an ASUS motherboard and I'm happy with that too. The UD5 is a gigabyte board isn't it? I did initially pick out the P9X79 WS but realized very quickly that I don't have an Intel Workstation Chassis to hold it (before I ordered it of course.)

Also the 3820 isn't bad, it's like a souped-up 2600k. The only thing that makes it a little worse than the 2600k is the memory latency in quad-channel mode, but even that is pretty acceptable for the amount of bandwidth you get.

Edit: I think it was in reference to this.


> True you'd have to go i7 2600 @ 4.2Ghz  If you had went without 1 SSD and gotten a 3930K C2 (C1 don't have Vt-d IIRC) then it would probably have been worth it IMO Oh well.



No one has really said it is a bad chip, it just has a great price point for what it is. It's the i7 920 of SB-E.


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## n-ster (Mar 6, 2012)

I wouldn't go as far as to say it compares to the i7 920 lol. The i7 920 was phenomenal while still being cheap at Microcenter. It was practically the best CPU you could get at the time, yet you could get it for 230$ 

it's as if the 3930 non-K (doesn't exist AFAIK but illustrating a point) would be 250$ or less


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## Aquinus (Mar 6, 2012)

n-ster said:


> I wouldn't go as far as to say it compares to the i7 920 lol. The i7 920 was phenomenal while still being cheap at Microcenter. It was practically the best CPU you could get at the time, yet you could get it for 230$
> 
> it's as if the 3930 non-K (doesn't exist AFAIK but illustrating a point) would be 250$ or less



It doesn't exist for a reason! 

All I was saying is that the placement of the 3820 is similar to the placement of the 920 for the X58 platform for both price and performance in comparison to the other models for that socket.

I'm just saying 3820 is to 920 as 3960x is to 990x.


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## n-ster (Mar 6, 2012)

yea ofc because the 3820 is actually replacing the i7 920 lol  sadly the bang/buck feature+power wise that was offered by the i7 920 doesn't exist with intel anymore, and the i7 3820 is the closest thing to it.

If you didn't want to spend that much money, I would have suggested a used X58 setup actually lol


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## Aquinus (Mar 6, 2012)

n-ster said:


> yea ofc because the 3820 is actually replacing the i7 920 lol  sadly the bang/buck feature+power wise that was offered by the i7 920 doesn't exist with intel anymore, and the i7 3820 is the closest thing to it.
> 
> If you didn't want to spend that much money, I would have suggested a used X58 setup actually lol



Then it wouldn't even outperform the 2600k. I got the 3820 because it was practically a 2600k for X79.

Check out this review for the 3820: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...l-core-i7-3820-sandy-bridge-e-cpu-review.html
I found it very informative.


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## n-ster (Mar 6, 2012)

sure, but you'd want VT-d  etc, but then you could just get a i7 2600 true lol

used X58 is dirt cheap now though, for 295~325$ you could get 12GB (3x4GB) DDR3 1600, a decent mobo and an i7 920~950 that OCs easily to 4Ghz. You get your whole upgrade in just the price of an i7 2600. I would have recommended it if your budget was along the 300$ line lol


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## Yo_Wattup (Mar 6, 2012)

n-ster said:


> sadly the bang/buck feature+power wise that was offered by the i7 920 doesn't exist with intel anymore,



*cough* 2500k/2600k *cough*


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## n-ster (Mar 6, 2012)

but the PCI-E lanes are lacking, no new memory thing like tri/quad  channel, no VT-d with the K editions, not all mobos can OC, limited amount of SATA ports etc etc the i7 920 to me is on-par with SB performance-wise... You can't really say SB beats X58

i7 920 was top dog back in the day, and all it took was 450~500$ for CPU/mobo/RAM for the top dog platform and features. Now the same $ gets you mid-performance and features. Nothing really improved except power efficiency and OCing with the K editions. To me, that's kind of a let down, hence why I didn't go SB even though I always want to upgrade lol.  This is also why I don't own a 3820 yet. If MC starts having specials for the 3820, I'll get it, else, I'll just wait for Ivy Bridge and see how that performs and make my decision then


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## Aquinus (Mar 6, 2012)

That parts are in! Everything is accounted for, the Zalman cooler even has the LGA2011 mounting screws and I don't need Zalman to ship me anything. If i can find the camera I will throw some pictures up.


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## n-ster (Mar 6, 2012)

awesome


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## Aquinus (Mar 6, 2012)

n-ster said:


> awesome



Oh my god. I've never seen such a sexy looking motherboard. There are 4 chassis fan connections, and TWO cpu fan connectors and they're *all* 4-pin PWM. There isn't a single PCI slot on this motherboard, it is all PCI-E. 

I have more pictures, but I need a better place than just uploading them to the forum because they're really high quality and they're huge, but here are a couple 1600x1200 of the mobo, ram, and cpu without the cooler yet. I'm waiting for my tower to finish backing up my RAID.

Edit: 19 minutes left on the backup... it's feeling like an eternity.


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## Aquinus (Mar 6, 2012)

Here is a quick picture of the other components. I have nicer pictures I will throw up later.


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## cadaveca (Mar 6, 2012)

Look, the board says TPU!


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## n-ster (Mar 6, 2012)

damn sexy


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## Yo_Wattup (Mar 7, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> Oh my god. I've never seen such a sexy looking motherboard. There are 4 chassis fan connections, and TWO cpu fan connectors and they're *all* 4-pin PWM. There isn't a single PCI slot on this motherboard, it is all PCI-E.
> 
> I have more pictures, but I need a better place than just uploading them to the forum because they're really high quality and they're huge, but here are a couple 1600x1200 of the mobo, ram, and cpu without the cooler yet. I'm waiting for my tower to finish backing up my RAID.
> 
> ...



Wow, a very good looking board and SOOOO much stuff on what I assume is an ATX board. SB-E not worth the money? Pish posh I say.


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## johnnyfiive (Mar 7, 2012)

niiiiiice!


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## Aquinus (Mar 7, 2012)

I have it all put together however I'm getting a light on the DRAM LED. I've read reviews that said that a BIOS update fixed the issue. I'm going to try out the magic button.


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## cadaveca (Mar 7, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> I have it all put together however I'm getting a light on the DRAM LED. I've read reviews that said that a BIOS update fixed the issue. I'm going to try out the magic button.



On first boot, or after turning on XMP?



I'm using 0906? I think, the most recent as of a few days ago anyway.


If it fails to boot, and you hold down the power button, it should boot next time without an issue if it's already on 0906.


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## Aquinus (Mar 7, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> On first boot, or after turning on XMP?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



It didn't appear to, I figured I would update the BIOS anyways with the latest version. How long did it take for you because it has been flashing for at least 15 minutes now. I saw it read the USB and it's just been flashing. Maybe I just need to be more patient.

It didn't boot, the DRAM-LED stayed lit and I got no POST or beep.

Edit: It didn't seem to be doing anything, I'm trying a different flash drive.

Edit 2: That looks more like it, the USB is constantly being read instead of mostly flashing on the button instead. I think it is actually doing it now. I'm jealous of my parent's i7 2600k system, that booted without a hitch first time. Must have been the gigabyte board.


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## cadaveca (Mar 7, 2012)

It booted fine for me, funny it gets stuck at the DRAM LED, beucase you'd think it would be the CPU possibly cuasing the no-boot, but the CPU ahs it's OWN LED for when that part of the POST test is being done. You cna always check the POST display, and check the code the back of the manual to help pinpoint the issue.


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## Aquinus (Mar 7, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> It booted fine for me, funny it gets stuck at the DRAM LED, beucase you'd think it would be the CPU possibly cuasing the no-boot, but the CPU ahs it's OWN LED for when that part of the POST test is being done. You cna always check the POST display, and check the code the back of the manual to help pinpoint the issue.



BIOS flash did the trick. XMP 1.3 @ 2133 working like a pro. I have my SSD raid-0 and HDD RAID-5 setup, I just need to copy raid drivers to my flash drive, then the fun begins. This board has a hell of a BIOS. Never used a BIOS that gave you so much control, and being able to use your mouse is just plain awesome.


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## Aquinus (Mar 7, 2012)

So I ran a HDTune read benchmark while Windows Update was running and I think I drooled a little bit. I think I'm either bottle-necking the x79 SATA 6Gb controller or the DMI interface. 

Edit: I'm convinced that I'm topping out the SATA controller.


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## Yo_Wattup (Mar 7, 2012)

So what's RAID 5? Is that like RAID 0 + a backup one?


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## Aquinus (Mar 7, 2012)

Yo_Wattup said:


> So what's RAID 5? Is that like RAID 0 + a backup one?



Not exactly, RAID-5 is striped w/ parity. So what happens is whenever data is written to all the disks, a little bit extra is stored on each disk so if a single drive fails, it can use the parity data from the remaining disks to rebuild your data from the missing drive. So when a drive fails you remove the hard drive, replace it with a new one, boot up your operating system with a "degraded" RAID-5 and you rebuild the array on the fly while your in Windows or what ever OS you're using. You can do stuff while this is going on as well, at least I was able to on my Phenom II motherboard. I'm assuming that Intel works the same way.

With RAID 5, the size of the array is always the size of the smallest drive, multiplied by the number of drives minus one.
size = smallest drive size * (drives - 1) so you lose the space of 1 drive, but in return your adding redundancy to your data. Additionally read-speeds will experience raid-0 like speeds, and writes will be a little better but not by much because you have to write that extra parity data every time you do a write.


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## Aquinus (Mar 7, 2012)

I'm actually a little pissed because once I got the cooler (facing up, not back... grrr.) one of the bolts that came with the Zalman for the LGA2011 started to strip so I couldn't reseat it after I were to get it off, so my CPU cooler is blowing air towards the top of the case, which isn't the end of the world because on the Antec 1200 there is a 200mm exhaust fan on the top of the case, it's just not ideal, but it idles lower than my Phenom II did at about 31*C (the P2 did about 35*C with a much bigger cooler.)

By the way, this is my old motherboard/cooler/ram. (Those are two 100CFM fans, great for pushing the Phenom II 940 @ 1.5v on air if you don't care about noise.)


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## Aquinus (Mar 7, 2012)

I actually just got an email from Zalman, they're happy to ship me another LGA2011 mounting kit free of charge since most CNPS9900MAXs didn't have the kit, mine was one of the few new ones that did. Maybe I'll re-seat it when that comes in.

Edit: Also feel that I should mention that the Seasonic 80 Plus Platinum 1kw PSU is giving me very nice voltages. They're all within .1 volts of what they're supposed to be. This machine idles less with more hardware than my Phenom II 940 did, I've yet to test this puppy full power though. The tower is in the bedroom and the wife is sleeping so I'm stuck with Remote Desktop. :<

Edit: I was able to get my hands on a better benchmark of the SSD RAID-0 and HDD RAID-5 performance.
View attachment 46056
View attachment 46057


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## n-ster (Mar 7, 2012)

damn 1GB/s lol


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## Aquinus (Mar 7, 2012)

n-ster said:


> damn 1GB/s lol



What's this "loading" thing everyone keeps talking about? 

Honestly it's amazing, and I haven't even got to play a game with it yet. So many updates and drivers. t.t

Edit: Also a little tiny (+0.05v) voltage bump and a little turbo bump and 4ghz is cake. I always wanted 4ghz on my Phenom II and it could never do it.


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## n-ster (Mar 7, 2012)

Well....

I got 32GB of RAM, when I get my SB-E I can have 20+GB of RAMDisk and it's much faster *sticks out tongue*

haha I know what you mean, I've done so many reinstalls and new builds for others etc. I also like to disabled all the services I don't need and make the ones I barely use manual, but maybe that's just a bad habit

Yea you might want to am for 4.5 Ghz now


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## Aquinus (Mar 7, 2012)

n-ster said:


> Well....
> 
> I got 32GB of RAM, when I get my SB-E I can have 20+GB of RAMDisk and it's much faster *sticks out tongue*
> 
> ...



I will if I have to, like I said I haven't tried a single game on it yet. Dirt 3 just finished downloading on Steam, which is going to run like a dream anyways (it did with one 6870 and my phenom ii 940,) but I did just get 3dMark2011 and Win 7 SP1 installed. :3

On multiplier alone I think I can hit 4.4ghz, then a little bclk tweaking and I've heard it isn't unfathomable to hit 5ghz, but with this chip I want to watch temperatures carefully as I go. As I said before earlier, I'm not used to over-clocking Intel chips let alone a 32nm chip so the voltages are a little foreign to me. I'm starting light.


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## Aquinus (Mar 9, 2012)

4.4ghz without a hitch using turbo an a minor tweak of the bclk (3mhz). I don't know why everyone is getting their panties in a bunch over the 3820 vs the 2600k and 3770k, but the 3820 doesn't seem to have a problem pumping out more speed. I might push it a bit more as I get more confident overclocking it. Something worth noting is that the turbo doesn't actually want to hit 44 bins, it seems to stop at 43 even though 44 is selected. It doesn't exceed 62*C @ 4.437ghz @ +.11 volts over stock. (I do like the offset vs manual overclocking when it comes to voltage on the P9X79 Deluxe.)

Thanks again, Dave for recommending the P9X79 Deluxe, it's amazing.


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## cadaveca (Mar 9, 2012)

It is a great board, for sure. I knew as soon as I powered it up that I'd be spending a lot of time with it for memory reviews, because the BIOS is so flexible. ASUS BIOS engineers are doing a great job making these boards work well, for sure.

Are you running the 125 MHz BCLK divider? This should get you 4.5 GHz with 36 multi, and 2000 Mhz ram. You should be able to drop the ram to 9-10-9-27 @ 2000 with 1.65 V. I can toss up a screenshot of my BIOS timings page if you like, too, as I'm pretty sure you even got the same ram kit that I reviewed a few weeks back.


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## Aquinus (Mar 9, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> It is a great board, for sure. I knew as soon as I powered it up that I'd be spending a lot of time with it for memory reviews, because the BIOS is so flexible. ASUS BIOS engineers are doing a great job making these boards work well, for sure.
> 
> Are you running the 125 MHz BCLK divider? This should get you 4.5 GHz with 36 multi, and 2000 Mhz ram. You should be able to drop the ram to 9-10-9-27 @ 2000 with 1.65 V. I can toss up a screenshot of my BIOS timings page if you like, too, as I'm pretty sure you even got the same ram kit that I reviewed a few weeks back.



Sure, I would be happy to give it a try. I'm at 2200 @ 9-11-10-28 @ 1.65v at the moment with a low 103.2 bclk for starters. I've been working so I haven't had a whole lot of time to play with it yet.


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## cadaveca (Mar 9, 2012)

I'll reboot right now and get a sceenie for you that I'll edit into this post. In A few minutes!


EDIT: PICS:


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## n-ster (Mar 10, 2012)

I should stop looking at this thread else I'll be spending money I don't have on a comp I don't need


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## Aquinus (Mar 10, 2012)

n-ster said:


> I should stop looking at this thread else I'll be spending money I don't have on a comp I don't need



I didn't *need* a SB-E, a 2600k *could* have worked just as well but the x79 chipset and this ASUS board are just gorgeous and when you use your computer more than you sleep, you better believe I was going to buy a nice one! 

Dave: When the wife wakes up and I actually have access to my tower, I will give that a try. Thanks.


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## n-ster (Mar 10, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> I didn't *need* a SB-E, a 2600k *could* have worked just as well but the x79 chipset and this ASUS board are just gorgeous and when you use your computer more than you sleep, you better believe I was going to buy a nice one!
> 
> Dave: When the wife wakes up and I actually have access to my tower, I will give that a try. Thanks.



haha but you still can benefit considerably from X79 vs LGA 1155 while I'd barely see the difference


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## Aquinus (Mar 10, 2012)

n-ster said:


> haha but you still can benefit considerably from X79 vs LGA 1155 while I'd barely see the difference



Do you game? I do, not as much as I used to, but every game so far that I've thrown at my 6870 in crossfire and the 3820, there has been practically no slowdowns (except when I tried using beta drivers... I think I will stick with the current release.  )

Honestly, the 3820 is cheaper than the 2600k and will be cheaper than the 3770k. The chip idles pretty low (I don't have numbers, I need the tools to do it... but I know Dave does!) in fact idling this machine uses less power than my Phenom II 940 did with one 6870. Now over-clocking is a different story. Just running Heaven 3 benchmark pushed my usage up to 400-watts (over-clocked 6870s,) and that was with 11% usage on the 3820 @ 4.4ghz (!!).

Now with all of this said, I'm sure you've noticed how the 3960x is an 8-core with 2 cores laser cut. I suspect that IVB-E will have a surprise for us. (wink, wink, hint, hint.)

Also with the x79 chipset there are huge possibilities for upgrades where if you have a SB or IVB, you're a little limited if you need more than a 2700k/3770k but like you said, it's over kill for most users (over kill as we speak now that is.)

I'm partial to my hardware though, but I'm not going to lie, it flies, but when I built it I was definitely planning for the future. I don't expect that I will have to replace the motherboard, psu, and drives in a long time, but the CPU and memory have plenty of room for improvement and since I only occasionally game now, the 6870s in crossfire will last a while as well.

I guess what I'm really trying to say is, quality hardware will deliver and last a long time. Look at all the users still using the x48 chipset and are just now considering upgrading.


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## Aquinus (Mar 11, 2012)

Latest accomplishment.

View attachment 46166


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## n-ster (Mar 11, 2012)

Wow, what temps do you get?


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## Aquinus (Mar 11, 2012)

n-ster said:


> Wow, what temps do you get?



65*C tops @ 1.4v on the hottest core, the coldest core tops out at 58*C.

Edit: Dave, the T3 command rate is crap. It makes latency jump to 150ns. The ripjaws handle T1 just fine.


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## cadaveca (Mar 11, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> 65*C tops @ 1.4v on the hottest core, the coldest core tops out at 58*C.
> 
> Edit: Dave, the T3 command rate is crap. It makes latency jump to 150ns. The ripjaws handle T1 just fine.



Something else is causing the latency jump. 150ns is not right, should be much less. Might want to investigate further. 

Your results should be like this(although I ran this @ 3.9 GHz, so bandwidth in the screenshot may appear low):





However, I did tell you to play with that, did I not?


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## claylomax (Mar 17, 2012)

I going to keep this cpu for a long time:




http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20120315231232_Intel_tmit_Release_of_Enthusiast_Class_Ivy_Bridge_Processors_This_Year.html


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## Aquinus (Mar 17, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> Something else is causing the latency jump. 150ns is not right, should be much less. Might want to investigate further.
> 
> Your results should be like this(although I ran this @ 3.9 GHz, so bandwidth in the screenshot may appear low):
> 
> ...



That you did.


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## cadaveca (Mar 17, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> That you did.
> http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=46259&stc=1&d=1332015075



eggcellent. 

1T, eh?


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## Aquinus (Mar 17, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> eggcellent.
> 
> 1T, eh?



Yeah, runs great.


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## cadaveca (Mar 17, 2012)

Aquinus said:


> Yeah, runs great.



I figured it would. You now, becuase IC quality can vary so much, I just wanted to give ya an easy starting point that you could tweak to what you liked. I wasn't really expecting ya to push that far, pretty decent, IMHO.


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## Aquinus (Mar 17, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> I figured it would. You now, becuase IC quality can vary so much, I just wanted to give ya an easy starting point that you could tweak to what you liked. I wasn't really expecting ya to push that far, pretty decent, IMHO.



Yeah, it's a pretty good over-clock all things considered. I don't think I'm going to try and push it any further. It seemed to become unstable > 2366mhz, but I didn't experiment with the timing at that point a whole lot. I'm perfectly satisfied with 2333 @ 1T, 10-11-10-28.


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