ES Xeon Discussion

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Viktor N

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Aug 8, 2016
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flixujin said:
Here is the promised build for my recent dual ES xeon E5-2689 v4 (...)
I works stable and great so far for heavy rendering. Too bad, just a windows OS thing, some application could not use the second CPU to render a file. I might need Linux for affinity stuff
Click to expand...
Hi,

So I got mine too but having a few Qs about the motherboard. 1) does it take you a minute or so as well to get to the POST screen? 2) can you boot from USB? If so, what settings did you use in the BIOS bcs for me if I stick a USB drive in the back it isn't really willing to do anything w/ it...? (I opened a new thread on this in the forum if you feel like wandering in there... -- thnx!)
 
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William

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May 7, 2015
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Ahhh... I stumble across the big ES thread :)

I work with a recycler and ID/Confirm working tons of CPU's for him.
He is the deal with ES processors.

There are big reasons why they throw out or recycle ES chips and replace them with retail/OEM versions.
First off, early stepping's are from process nodes where Intel is working on features and getting the process down for acceptable yields.
As they work through stepping's they are sampled out to OEM's so they can build systems.
You guys already know this tho.

OEM's may or may not support ES CPU's, or some version in the release BIOS's so they might appear to not work. In fact they can drop ES micro codes from BIOS's so they don't have to handle incompatibilities with non-standard hardware. There is also only so much room in the BIOS and they drop ES support to free up space. If you have very early ES chips you might require a pre-release BIOS to even get it to work. Intel samples out all kinds of different ES speeds and TDP's so OEM's can find the sweet spot for their systems.

I also think that in some cases They remove micro code per intel to kill the ES market.

Updating your BIOS to latest version can also render your CPU to non working as micro code might have been dropped. Its best to use early versions of BIOS's for early stepping's, with C0 versions you should be ok to update as they are very close to release.

Some ES chips are only partially working, they serve vendors needs in designing MB's for thermal testing, register access etc.

It is a total crap shoot with ES chips that may or may not have all features working or even have bugs. In most cases however you should be fine.

I flashed back a motherboard for a guy who wanted to use a pair A0 Xeons, yup I got them to work. The BIOS was pre-release tho and looked very different than release version, it still worked tho. Problems started showing up when tried and true working PCIe devices were added, they made the system unstable in some cases, did not work to full PCIe speeds and many motherboard features did not work or were supported.

Another guy with C0 stepping's system worked fine... for a few days then start blue screening on him. I think he just had a bad chip that took awhile for issues to start showing up.

In my experience I would say only use C0 stepping's, these are very close to retail and you should have no issues really.

I get batches like this often, yeah its a bunch of work to ID all these.
 
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William

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It was quite a mix of CPU's. Yes we had a bunch of 18 core V3's and a lot of E7's also.
 
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William

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Some manufactures might have. They all do their own thing with regards to these things.
Most Xeon CPU's I have tested will work, I generally use Supermicro boards for testing. Others like ASUS, Gigabyte etc might be different.

There might have been issues with B0's that they wanted to completely remove from BIOS's so its very possible.

Normally I do not do X79 or X99 boards, enthusiast stuff anyway.

Testing can get crazy if you try out every board under the sun. I would stay away from any A0 or B0 stepping's tho. if you are looking at
buying them.

I used to have a full dev setup, I called it that. BIOS chips that went as far back as possible. I would just swap them out and try a CPU. Sadly its to much work to try piles of chips like that with this method and then no one would be able to use the chips unless they had the exact same setup so it was pointless.
 
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Viktor N

New Member
Aug 8, 2016
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flixujin said:
Here is the promised build for my recent dual ES xeon E5-2689 v4

I works stable and great so far for heavy rendering. Too bad, just a windows OS thing, some application could not use the second CPU to render a file. I might need Linux for affinity stuff
Click to expand...
Did you manage to run Geekbench? Doesn't want to work for me.
Also CPUZ says B0 stepping. (yours is blank)
Also the core voltage is 0.860V for me
 
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flix_ujin

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Jul 23, 2016
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Viktor N said:
Hi,

So I got mine too but having a few Qs about the motherboard. 1) does it take you a minute or so as well to get to the POST screen? 2) can you boot from USB? If so, what settings did you use in the BIOS bcs for me if I stick a USB drive in the back it isn't really willing to do anything w/ it...? (I opened a new thread on this in the forum if you feel like wandering in there... -- thnx!)
Click to expand...
1. yes, this is normal for dual xeon motherboard though, but if you use only one CPU on dual socket mobo, you will get normal speed like common consumer motherboard

2. which mobo are you using? if it's ASUS, then you just have to rename it to Z10D16WS.cap and press and hold BIOS flashback button for 3 second. that's it, just wait until the LED turned off
different motherboard has different naming convention, here is the naming convention list: How to use USB BIOS Flashback?
The naming convention on here Z10PE-D16 WS - Support is wrong actually, i know that is retarded, you should rename it to Z1016WS.CAP instead of Z10PED16WS.CAP"
 
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Viktor N

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Aug 8, 2016
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flix_ujin said:
1. yes, this is normal for dual xeon motherboard though, but if you use only one CPU on dual socket mobo, you will get normal speed like common consumer motherboard

2. which mobo are you using? if it's ASUS, then you just have to rename it to Z10D16WS.cap and press and hold BIOS flashback button for 3 second. that's it, just wait until the LED turned off
different motherboard has different naming convention, here is the naming convention list: How to use USB BIOS Flashback?
The naming convention on here Z10PE-D16 WS - Support is wrong actually, i know that is retarded, you should rename it to Z1016WS.CAP instead of Z10PED16WS.CAP"
Click to expand...
Thanks - I'll stick to dual CPU and be patient :)
Managed to get around the USB problem, ish.
 
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RolloZ170

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Apr 24, 2016
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some words on microcodes:
Each cpuid has ONE microcode for all cpu in that family.
Microcode can updated by BIOS and OS later as linux and Windows do(without asking the user).
there are two types of ES, the real ES have different cpuid than OEM/retail cpu.
The better ES has same cpuid like OEM/retail, thats called a pre-QS/QS.

examples...
Haswell-EP v3 ES/ES2 = cpuid 306F1 (cpu-z stepping 1)
Haswell-EP v3 preQS/QS/OEM/retail = cpuid 306F2 (cpu-z stepping 2)
Broadwell-EP v4 ES0/ES2 = cpuid 406F0 (cpu-z stepping 0)
Broadwell-EP v4 preQS/QS/OEM/retail = cpuid 406F1 (cpu-z stepping 1)
 
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saivert

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Nov 2, 2015
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I notice there is a limited range of CPUs where ES/QS are available.
So you haven't noticed any of the E5-1xxx CPUs out there in ES/QS? Particularily fewer cores but higher clocked.
 
R

RolloZ170

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Apr 24, 2016
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saivert said:
I notice there is a limited range of CPUs where ES/QS are available.
So you haven't noticed any of the E5-1xxx CPUs out there in ES/QS? Particularily fewer cores but higher clocked.
Click to expand...
E5-26xx v3 v4 ES came out of dual cpu oem servers, E5-16xx are Workstation CPU with single cpu conf.
 
R

RolloZ170

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Apr 24, 2016
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cnj said:
OEM servers use ES CPUs?
Click to expand...
yes, if intel can not deliver much. and custom cpu for microsoft/amazon are first ES versions
if u buy a server with v3 cpu NOW there will be no ES inside,
that was prior/at the official publishing of haswell-ep.
 
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cnj

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Aug 18, 2016
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RolloZ170 said:
some words on microcodes:
Each cpuid has ONE microcode for all cpu in that family.
Microcode can updated by BIOS and OS later as linux and Windows do(without asking the user).
there are two types of ES, the real ES have different cpuid than OEM/retail cpu.
The better ES has same cpuid like OEM/retail, thats called a pre-QS/QS.

examples...
Haswell-EP v3 ES/ES2 = cpuid 306F1
Haswell-EP v3 preQS/QS/OEM/retail = cpuid 306F2
Broadwell-EP v4 ES0/ES2 = cpuid 406F0
Broadwell-EP v4 preQS/QS/OEM/retail = cpuid 406F1
Click to expand...
Can you block microcode updates within the OS? With the BIOS, it is as simple as not updating beyond a certain version. My assumption is, with Linux, the microcode updates would be delivered through kernel updates. However, with Windows, my uneducated guess is that it would be packaged as a device driver update? And with the lovely W10 updates, your install will basically eat up whatever Microsoft decides to shit out and turn your working rig into a semi-brick until you can roll back the update.

Also, are the BIOS updates signed from the manufacturer, say ASRock, Speedmicro or Asus? Or can you flash a suitable binary without having to worry about signing or encryption?
 
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