Throttlestop overclocking Desktop PCs

[lexluthermiester]

Hey everyone, Sorry to intrude in the middle of any conversations that might be going on.

No worries at all!

I am new to the forum but not this page as I have read literally all 37 pages of this thread to help me with achieving the best performance out of my T3500.

Welcome to TPU, and we hope you've found things here helpful. There is a Dell Workstation thread that you are welcome to browse;

Dell Workstation Owners Club

There have been a ton of posts lately about Dell workstation PC's in other threads that have begun to derail things a bit. Thought it might be a good idea to create this thread for people to share/post info/pics and ask questions.

www.techpowerup.com

 

[Retrorockit]

Getting back to Lex's situation, I think that if going down to 720P doesn't choke the CPU with a GTX2080. Then putting in a more potent GPU may cause that to happen, but that's not a realistic scenario for one of those GPUs anyway. Anyone with an actual interest in 720P gaming would be running a GTX750Ti. It would be a very expensive way to prove a somewhat moot point. It seems to me that it has more in it.
I've seen some CPUs list in their spec. sheet another thermal limit number. The TDP is how much power the CPU comsumes at it's rate level. But there was another limit listed sometimes Maximum Power Dissipation. I don't have a figure for the W3680 but it's listed for the W3580 as 224W. This is how much power the heatspreader can dissipate. It's shown just above the TDP number. It does take a pretty massive heatsink to use that figure since it's approaching twice the TDP. For comparison a QX9650 shows 159W.

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/Intel-Xeon%20W3580%20-%20AT80601002274AB%20%28BX80601W3580%29.html

FWIW The Thermalright Macho 120 (on page 9)has a TDP rating of 200W. The bigger 140mm Macho rev.C is 240W.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Getting back to Lex's situation, I think that if going down to 720P doesn't choke the CPU with a GTX2080.

The idea of setting everything to 720p was to force the CPU into a maximum load situation.

It seems to me that it has more in it.

True, I think that too. However, I worry about the VRM's on the motherboard. I attached heatsinks to each of them, but they're still getting a bit warmer than I'd like.

 

[Retrorockit]

True, I think that too. However, I worry about the VRM's on the motherboard. I attached heatsinks to each of them, but they're still getting a bit warmer than I'd like.

IDK about where you are, but at Harbor Freight or one of the similar outfits an inexpensive laser thermometer can be purchased, and you can see how hot they run in normal use. You may be surprised. My thinking on them is that they aren't an etched integrated circuit component but more of a ceramic material with electrical properties. I don't think they fail, but just quit producing more power when they get too hot. But coming from me that's definitely an uneducated guess. In a $6000 workstation environment with serious data at risk I would be a loose cannon. With a $40 surplus MB on the line ????????? Dell made that to run 24/7 @ 130W with the reliability of an anvil and no heatsinks.
My experience with the Dimension E520 was adding heatsinks made more Voltage available for the overclock. So I assume they got too hot to work w/o them, but when I added the heatsinks they weren't damaged and produced higher voltage. I ran about 1.50V. continuos, and 1.5875V. for validation runs on a 65nm CPU. I doubt if we're getting anywhere near that on the 32nm procs. I think the CPU circuitry is going to be the weak link. Another $40 "fuse".

 

[lexluthermiester]

IDK about where you are, but at Harbor Freight or one of the similar outfits an inexpensive laser thermometer can be purchased, and you can see how hot they run in normal use.

I do have one. That is how I know they're getting warmer than I'd like. It's what motivated the installation of the heatsinks on the VRM's.

In a $6000 workstation environment with serious data at risk I would be a loose cannon. With a $40 surplus MB on the line ????????? Dell made that to run 24/7 @ 130W with the reliability of an anvil and no heatsinks.

Ah, but keep in mind, with ThrottleStop we're pushing an OC on parts that were never intended to do so. We have to take extra precautions to account for such.

 

[Retrorockit]

Ah, but keep in mind, with ThrottleStop we're pushing an OC on parts that were never intended to do so. We have to take extra precautions to account for such.

But the W3680/90 is AKA the i7-980/990X which was specifically intended for overclocking. The MB wasn't, so it remains to be seen how far it can go. The Optiplex office computers are usually limited, often by weak VRM, but the workstations and multimedia machines can sometimes surprise you. Especially the BTX versions which were designed for high clock speeds. The only blown MB isssues I've seen/heard of were the known bad capacitors on Dells from a certain era. But the standard overclocking techniques all apply. Heatsinks on VRM,CPU coolers/ fans, fancy TIM, and lapped heatspreaders all play a part. The more you do the more you get. Dell did everything they could to block overclocking on the Dimension E520 and it went to 2nd place at CPUZ anyway. It was 10 years old when it did that. Bad caps and all.

 

[unclewebb]

with the reliability of an anvil

The T3500 I built seemed very solid. There were no issues even when I was full load testing the W3680 at 4.00 GHz with the TDP set to 180 Watts. A cheap fan ghetto tied to the heatsink kept the temps ridiculously low. Great heatsink that just needed a fan attached to it. My nephew installed an Nvidia GPU and has been using this T3500 for gaming, etc., every day for many hours a day without any issues. Definitely money well spent.

These were expensive computers designed for reliable business use. They tended to be over built. Dell was probably sourcing capacitors and VRMs from the high priced bin, not the bottom of the barrel.

 

[Retrorockit]

Actually the 10 year old E520 went to 2nd place at 3.73GHz. But the next fsb overclock was just a few MHz behind. I figured he could just mindlessly flip a few MHz and catch me. So I just added another 266fsb multiplier for 4GHz and was in 2nd and 3rd spots at the same time. I lost 3rd to another E 520 who was getting the full 266.6MHz bus.Mine was only making 265Mhz. But it's OK because I taught him how to do it, and he taught me the T3400 4.15Ghz mod. So it had the grunt for 2nd place +1 multiplier at CPUZ in 2015. So yes, Dell definitely overbuilds some of their stuff.
The E520 was an Optiplex MT sized multimedia computer.

 

[unclewebb]

@lexluthermiester - I know a while ago we were talking about how much power a W3680 really needs. I finally found a screenshot which shows the results while doing some Prime95 torture testing. To avoid any multiplier throttling, CPU power consumption has to go way beyond the default 130W TDP to get full performance out of a W3680.

http://imgur.com/WTU1huC

 

[Retrorockit]

How much difference in speed and temperature would turning off Hyperthreading make?

Also I found listed for the Nehalem W3580 a Maximum Power Dissipation rating of 224W. I haven't found this listed for any of the other CPUs that interest us. But that's what Intel says they can do in a worst case scenario.

 

[lexluthermiester]

@lexluthermiester - I know a while ago we were talking about how much power a W3680 really needs. I finally found a screenshot which shows the results while doing some Prime95 torture testing. To avoid any multiplier throttling, CPU power consumption has to go way beyond the default 130W TDP to get full performance out of a W3680.

http://imgur.com/WTU1huC

Interesting. I did not need to use those settings to get to 4ghz all core and stress with Prime95. Granted, I have HT turned off to mitigate the vast majority of all the vulnerabilities the popped up in the last few years.

I set TDP for 135 and TDC for 140. Perfectly stable, no throttling and it ran cool. However this is not a 24/7 thing. I ran it to test and play around with what the CPU could do. I've only ran it twice at 4ghz during tasks that needed the extra CPU power.

To get 4.13ghz it needed TDP 145 and TDC 160 to run stable, but that got warmer than I was ok with. 4ghz at a mild bump? Yes please!

 

[Retrorockit]

To whom it may apply. LGA775 2 core 65W SLGYP

Top 15 Highest frequencies for Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E6500 @ 2.93GHz - CPU-Z VALIDATOR

CPU-Z VALIDATOR is the world-recognized standard for system analysis & performance validation

valid.x86.fr

I don't have my hands on one yet. Prices and availability vary wildly. I'm not going to spell out what this is. Certainly not for everyone.

 

[agent_x007]

To whom it may apply. LGA775 2 core 65W SLGYP

Top 15 Highest frequencies for Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU E6500 @ 2.93GHz - CPU-Z VALIDATOR

CPU-Z VALIDATOR is the world-recognized standard for system analysis & performance validation

valid.x86.fr

I don't have my hands on one yet. Prices and availability vary wildly. I'm not going to spell out what this is. Certainly not for everyone.

Just FYI : I'm pretty sure all results above 6GHz are errors that got validated.

 

[rGBurninator]

I finally got my W3680 and my EvGA x58 sli3 board today and will be setting it all up tomorrow. I have never had experience overclocking but I have been reading about it for the entire time I waited for my CPU (2months). I am hoping to get more than 4ghz but will have to see how it goes.

 

[Retrorockit]

Just FYI : I'm pretty sure all results above 6GHz are errors that got validated.

I've seen plenty of bogus multiplier overclocks there on locked CPUs. So no idea really. But nothing in the top 15 under 5GHz is what get's my attention. Those were only sold in China, and Intel disabled SSE4 on those Wolfdale CPUs. So it is what it is. But my Optiplex 380 with a 120W Xeon should be able to push one of those pretty far. And I have a few Optiplex XE POS computers with 4 phase VRM that might take it all the way.
It will be at least a month before I get my hands on one.
The listings there with 11x multi are probably the SLGUH CPU , and not the SLGYP I refered to. CPUZ seems to lump them together.

 

[unclewebb]

I am hoping to get more than 4 GHz

With an EVGA X58 board, you should be able to get 4 GHz stable at default voltage. With a little more voltage, 4.4 GHz is possible. With lots of voltage, you might get 4.7 GHz more or less stable. With lots and lots of voltage, a suicide run at 5.0 GHz is possible. This old hardware is fun to play with.

With an EVGA board, you should have went cheap and got the W3670. This CPU has a locked multiplier but your motherboard allows BCLK overclocking. Bumping the BCLK from 133 MHz to 200 MHz or so is a good way to see some positive results.

http://imgur.com/0XxLLWh

 

[rGBurninator]

With an EVGA X58 board, you should be able to get 4 GHz stable at default voltage. With a little more voltage, 4.4 GHz is possible. With lots of voltage, you might get 4.7 GHz more or less stable. With lots and lots of voltage, a suicide run at 5.0 GHz is possible. This old hardware is fun to play with.

With an EVGA board, you should have went cheap and got the W3670. This CPU has a locked multiplier but your motherboard allows BCLK overclocking. Bumping the BCLK from 133 MHz to 200 MHz or so is a good way to see some positive results.

http://imgur.com/0XxLLWh

So i purchased the W3680 way before I decided to get an EVGA board so I was already stuck with the W3680. So with that I have some questions...

Can I "bump" the BCLK on the W3680 to 200MHz?
I have a 700w power supply, will putting the voltage higher say like enough to get 4.4ghz stable?

I would love to overclock this W3680 to a stable 4.2 -4.5GHz, that would be my goal. I also need to update my bios to 83 but both of my USB flash drives are write protected without option to disable read only lol!!

 

[lexluthermiester]

I am hoping to get more than 4ghz but will have to see how it goes.

You should be able to easily reach that speed. Upwards of 4.3 or 4.4 ghz is where you're going to start hitting the wall.

Can I "bump" the BCLK on the W3680 to 200MHz?

Yes. I would recommend 201mhz BCLK as my experience has shown that most 1366 samples seem to like it better than straight 200mhz. Not sure why, just a quirk of the platform. So start with 201mhz as a base, keeping the multi at 16 until you find that voltage sweetspot.

Take screen shots of all the menu's so we can walk you through each setting. However, let's do that in a new thread so we don't derail this one.

 

[Retrorockit]

Thanks Lex. The simplicity of TS overclocking does get lost in the minutiae of the BCLK method.
It would be interesting to see what an aftermarket MB with aftermarket cooling would do with a TS overclock.
Then do the traditional method and see how they compare. My guess is TS should produce about the same clock speed, but the traditional method could gain some extra performance from the increased RAM and BCLK speeds.
I hope he'll do a TS run here, and then come back with a comparison. The comparison would have value for those trying to decide between a 10 yearold $150 X58 Gaming MB vs. an $80 T3500 complete system. The T3500 with ECC support could have an advantage for some users.
Since he's not an experienced overclocker his POV on the difficulty of each method may be relevant to many others also. There's an opportunity here to produce some useful information.

The 201MHz may have to do with the 3 channel RAM. 201 is evenly divisible by 3.

 

[lexluthermiester]

The 201MHz may have to do with the 3 channel RAM. 201 is evenly divisible by 3.

Possible! I've never actually dug into it enough to find out why, just went with it. Makes sense though.

 

[Retrorockit]

Well I finally dug into my junk pile and started a Throttlestop project of my own.
I fired up a Dell XPS 420 (LGA775, BTX, DDR2, X38). I just wanted to test some DDR2 4GB modules to see if they were low density. But when they were compatable things started to happen.
QX9650, 12GB DDR2 800, GTX1060 6GB. Alphacool skived copper heatsinks on the VRM MOSFETs. I tried an XPS 720 CPU cooler but it wasn't up to the task, so I installed my custom made 150x50mm Delta (259cfm) fan conversion using that heatpipe (8mm pipes) cooler. Problem solved.
I played with SetFSB and got up to 374MHz, then applied Throttlestop and got to 4.3GHz. No stability there to speak of. But I'll get back to that later.
With Just TS 12.5x333=4.15GHz which is the "normal" overclock for X38 BTX computers. There are few of them at userbenchmark in the Dell T3400 lists.

Please click the green human to continue - UserBenchmark

What I really need to do is start over with a pinmod to 400fsb and nail down 10.5x400fsb for 4.2GHz.
That would give a nice base clock of 9.0x400=3.6GHz (nice step up from my existing Optiplex 380 Xeon 3.33Ghz).
A couple of options in the 4-4.2Ghz range, either SetFSB, or TS.
And the nuclear option of editing TS to overclock just 2 cores and try for something in the 4.3-4.4Ghz range.
I was planning on saving the XPS 420 for last after testing on a T3400. But it was laready running, and so I used it to test the 4GB DDR2 modules I had. It's much nicer looking computer than the T 3400 or XPS 410. And this one was owned by a little old lady and only driven on Sundays. It has a 2ndary USB based display on it that can show Temp. Voltage, and clock speed info. I've heard it can be made to work in Win7.
So far I've just run this in the car porch with no internet, and 90*F. Florida weather. Just an OS and some tuning apps. loaded.
I'm using the Dell 425W PSU from a T3400. This gets the wiring length right for a BTX Mid tower, and 3x18A rails available.
It has 2x 6 pin PCIe cables vs. the single one the 2 rail 375W it came with had.

 

[Retrorockit]

Trying to put some captions in here somewhere. Picture of the XPS420 Multimedia computer.
CPUZ@ 4.32GHZ- all TS overclock 13x333. stable enough to run the short TS benchmark. Out doors PWM fan speeed.
Other CPUZ 4.15GHZ running full TS long benchmark. 4.2GHz faked this with SetFSB 324fsb to represent 10.5x 400 TS overclock. I don't have enough Voltage at boot to do the pimod yet. I'm running the OC utilities form a DVD.
Cooling there's a lot more to be had. The fan barely speeds up. As far as speed I need to get in climate control and rev the fan up and see what happens. This is all 4 cores so far no 2 core overclock yet.

This is whats inside it. A lot of bodging to get the heatpipe cooler with 8mm pipes in there. and then splice 2 different shrouds together to mate up with the AFC1512DG 150x50mm 259cfm fan. So I covered it up with some wood trim.
The front HDD cage was removed and this left room for a 120x38mm cage fan mod. It's a 150cfm version from a T3500. That was a mod for the 2 GPU T3400 but it fit in here so I used it. Both fans are a press fit. A lot of the extra wiring is for the HDD harness which used to run all the way across the case. The big fan was used to cool 2x 130W CPU workstations.

 

[SamirD]

I love it! It's a stock looking system with a whole lot of mods under the hood. In the car enthusiast world it would be known as a 'sleeper'.

 

[Retrorockit]

I prefer the term "Flying Shitbox". I've owned a few of them.
Dell could have built and sold this 12 years ago. Alll the pieces were there.

 

[KLiKzg]

Hi all,
have seen that you talk mostly about DELLs here. As I also have one T5500, which I got in Croatia for sthg like $300.
It came with slower 2x E5645, 48GB RAM, ATi 7790 Radeon HD card & HDD.

Update was done to run it on 2x X5670, nVidia 1650 GTX & SSD.
Had some problem booting, but that was fixed with correct cable.
Also added 1 fan in the back of the case, to keep the more airflow going.

As I'm doing the calc on WCG & Asteroid@home or GPUgrid, so working this computer 24/7.
Keeping my temps down is done with Tthrottle problem to keep CPUs under 85°C & GPU under 75°C.

Has anybody got any suggestion for coolers upgrade without removing the HDD/SDD bracket?