ES Xeon Discussion

[William]

I know both are early steppings, but which one is better for E5 V4, A0 or A1?

That will help me make my decision, the 2690V4 is A0, the 2683 V4 is A1.

Thanks

I would stay away completely from any A0 steppings. Odd's are they will not work unless you have a very, very early BIOS from the motherboard manufacture. These are not available for download, you would more than likely have to know some one inside that "might" send it to you.

Even if you can get the BIOS many features will be missing and may not work like a retail processor.

 

[gtz]

Also not sure if your ASRock has that feature but on ASUS and Gigabyte motherboards you can flash the bios without having a cpu or memory installed (ASUS is Bios Flashback while Gigabyte is Q-Flash Plus). Otherwise you will need a V3 CPU to flash to the latest bios to use Broadwell-EP otherwise it will boot loop or fail to post.

Yeah planning on flashing the BIOS, I currently have a 5820K.

Edit
I counter offered the seller with the QS E5 2683 V3, I will see if the seller bites.

 

[helsyeah]

Update: a while back I posted that I picked up a later stepping 2630 V4 from XtremeMicro: Intel Xeon E5 2630 V4 ES 2.2Ghz 25MB L3 10 Core Max Turbo 3.1Ghz 85W Broadwell-E

The processor arrived today. I did a quick check with HWINFO/CPUZ to see how it looked:



Thus far I am pleased with what I received. My only gripe, and this is my fault, is I didn't check the all core turbo as closely as I should have, I thought it was higher than 2.4GHz. At least the clock speeds all match the OEM/retail 2630V4 though!

 

[hiigara]

Hi its fantastic to see a current discussion of these ES chips! Thanks in advance for discussing these chips in detail. I've been researching the idea of a a stronger rig as a way to improve efficiency for what i do at work. naturally i thought that xeons were unaffordable but i came across these articles.

Building a 32-Thread Xeon Monster PC for Less Than the Price of a Haswell-E Core i7
Building a 40-Thread Xeon Monster PC for Less Than the Price of a Broadwell-E Core i7

So obviously since then i've been looking at the plethora of affordable xeons! i am however a bit overwhelmed with the options. For reference what i do for work is run Lubuntu virtual machines on vmware workstation pro with a Linux distro host and access a lot of flash heavy content. Nothing too heavy but I would like for efficiency sake to have around 30-50 VM's active at any given point. this is where i get a bit lost off...

The vm's can run on 1 core but it would be responsible for flash rendering which murders performance meaning i need a high clock cpu or i run a vm using 2-3 lower clock cores. either way core count is king for me within the highest clock allowable.

To this end i am less interested in the old sandy chips with only 32 cores to a system. however please someone explain the virtues of the E5 2690 as that has powerful clocks per core (2.9ghz - 3.8ghz) and is just as affordable as later model ES's. ( i shorted the links below is that allowed on this site?)

sandy 2690 - goo.gl/3k9oUg

Otherwise i'm looking at V2 ES models pushing 40 threads while letting me keep the use of my 32gb of ram i have or going for a v3 gen pushing cores into the 50+ range but sacrificing core clock? (does that even matter wtih the more efficient newer models?) Also my budget is not endless and I prefer a cpu on the lighter side of £200 a piece.

2695 V2 - goo.gl/pu3cSd

2696 V2 - goo.gl/CRKjH6

those have nice core counts but clocks are strong enough?

I don't know at all! I hope one of you guys can help and not be too annoyed by the general questions and less stepping specific questions! thank you very much!

 

[RolloZ170]

According to that list it should work!!!! How do you like your mITX AsRock board? I am thinking of downsizing my main PC and going mini.

I did not know there was A1 stepping variances. The E5 2683 V4 I am looking at has different multi on the HWinfo screenshot but also A1. The one I want has QHZE stepping and higher turbo multipliers.

Regardless thanks for all the info and will probably shoot for the V4 and get the BIOS dated for April 2016 since that is the one running on your AsRock X99.

Thanks again.

u need a v3 to flash bios, take a E5-2630Lv3 ES for $105 or just buy a preflashed bios chip on ebay,
the bios chip is on a socket.

 

[RolloZ170]

Not all the bios chips can be swapped using a chip puller. Depending on the motherboard it may even be soldered in.

he talked about a
X99 Extreme4
all ASRock X99 have bios chip in DIL8 socket

 

[RolloZ170]

Yes I know which motherboard he was referring to. He said he has a 5820K which he will be using to flash the bios so he doesn't need to purchase a V3 Xeon to flash:

ES Xeon Discussion



That looks like a nice chip. 10 cores for a fraction of the cost that a 6950X sells for. It's too bad that V4 compatibility with ASUS and Gigabyte X99 motherboards on ES's is bad compared to MSI or even AsRock otherwise I would have gone V4.

i think you have not noticed that this cpu is stepping R0, same as retail. it will run on gigabyte/asus/msi
turbo will be 2400mhz at all cores.

 

[RolloZ170]

Your right it is an R0 stepping. Normally most V4 ES are Stepping 0 which I assume is A0 stepping from HwInfo64. It would be nice if CPU-Z and HwInfo64 could read the steppings and revisions properly like HwInfo64. Not sure how I missed that I guess I just glanced by the CPU-Z screenshot quickly.

the stepping "R0" is just a definition, there is NO R0 inside a intel processor
stepping "1" at cpu-z ist correct because its the last digit on the cpuid 406F1

 

[RolloZ170]

Do you have any experience working with Gigabyte's Q-Flash plus? I am thinking of updating it using that utility to F22 bios before I get a Broadwell-EP V4 such as that above and was wondering whether there would be any potential issues?

its easy, i had a gigabyte GA-X99 gaming 5P with that and tested it.
my GA-X99M Gaming 5 has NO Q-Flash plus

 

[gtz]

Wanted to update, the seller agreed to my counter offer of 269 for the QS E5 2683 V3. I am very excited since this ES has the Retail/OEM stepping. I also liked that the seller sent me the HWInfo screenshot of the CPU he is sending me.

Can't wait for the CPU to arrive!!!

 

[RolloZ170]

What I have also seen is that the newer CPU-Z shows the Revision properly with 1.77 versus 1.76 which is the most common ones used by sellers. M0 appears to be the revision for Stepping 1 ES samples.
Is the 2630 V4 ES the only R0? I was looking at the 2603 V4 and the 2609 V4 ES and they appear to be both R0? Also saw a 3630 V4 ES (QHVK) with L0 stepping.
Okay that's good to know.

R0 or M0 or B0 are the retail stepping of broadwell-ep.
its R0 because of 10 cores. haswell-ep have different stepping names.
on haswell-ep cpu-z stepping "2" (cpuid 306F2)is retailish.

 

[RolloZ170]

Do you have a list of all B0/M0/R0 stepping Broadwell-EP ES's? Most of the ones I see that aren't the 2603/2609/2630 V4 (there are two version btw) are usually A0/A1 stepping and indicated as 0 in CPU-Z for stepping (meaning incompatible with ASUS/GIGABYTE X99).

only important is the "1" in cpu-z(on v4)
a "0" indicates cpuid 406F0
atm i know 3, there are more, named as QS
E5-2630L v4 ES2 QK3K 1,7ghz
E5-2630 v4 ES2 QK3G/QS 2,2 ghz
E5-2609 V4 ES2 QK3J/QS 1.7GHz

 

[RolloZ170]

Any ideas what the L0 stepping is? Some HwInfo64 show L0 for example on the E5-2650 V4 ES (QHV6) , same on the E5-2680 V4 ES (QHV7),

 

[gtz]

Very nice. That's the one I was looking to buy (E5-2683 V3 OEM) as well but now I may just go with the V4 R0 ES's as they offer slightly better IPC and clockspeeds at the expense of cores (4).

This is the one I was originally looking at:

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Intel-Xeon-E5-2683-v3-OEM-Retail-SR1XH-LGA2011-3-Compatible-X99-i7-5960X-

Now I am looking at this:

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Intel-Xeon-E...-L3-10-Core-Max-Turbo-3-1Ghz-85W-Broadwell-E-

Yeah with the luck helsyeah had with his it is a good little chip for the price (240 shipped). In a dual socket config it would be a multitaskers and gamers dream. Dual socket you will have 3-4 cores turboing to 3.1 making it perfect for games and 2.4 on 20 cores on heavy workloads. I want one just thinking about it.

 

[helsyeah]

Yeah with the luck helsyeah had with his it is a good little chip for the price (240 shipped). In a dual socket config it would be a multitaskers and gamers dream. Dual socket you will have 3-4 cores turboing to 3.1 making it perfect for games and 2.4 on 20 cores on heavy workloads. I want one just thinking about it.

Keep in mind the 2630V4 only turbo's on a two cores @ 3.1, then 2.9 on 3, 2.8 on 4, etc. Also this is assuming you're running windows on bare metal and not dealing with a hypervisor mucking up the turbo waters as well.

I saw 2.9GHz most of the time, but I didn't try to game with the bare metal windows install i tested on.

 

[gtz]

Keep in mind the 2630V4 only turbo's on a two cores @ 3.1, then 2.9 on 3, 2.8 on 4, etc. Also this is assuming you're running windows on bare metal and not dealing with a hypervisor mucking up the turbo waters as well.

I saw 2.9GHz most of the time, but I didn't try to game with the bare metal windows install i tested on.

Yeah I know only one or two cores turbo to 3.1, that is why I suggested a dual socket setup where 3 or 4 cores turbo out of the 20 making it a good chip for gaming. My HTPC has a i7 2600 and still games well, with the IPC gain that broadwell has it will be a good gamer. Again this is my opinion and you know what they say about that. But I am glad you posted about your chip, it looks it is a great chip.

 

[helsyeah]

Yeah I know only one or two cores turbo to 3.1, that is why I suggested a dual socket setup where 3 or 4 cores turbo out of the 20 making it a good chip for gaming. My HTPC has a i7 2600 and still games well, with the IPC gain that broadwell has it will be a good gamer. Again this is my opinion and you know what they say about that. But I am glad you posted about your chip, it looks it is a great chip.

Gotcha. I'd be curious if a gaming would split between two CPU's like that, allowing max turbo on both. I'd honestly bet windows would probably push it to just one CPU so there's limited impact of addressing ram across multiple sockets, etc...

 

[gtz]

Gotcha. I'd be curious if a gaming would split between two CPU's like that, allowing max turbo on both. I'd honestly bet windows would probably push it to just one CPU so there's limited impact of addressing ram across multiple sockets, etc...

My thinking was whenever heavy workloads weren't needed and you wanted to run a game, going into the BIOS and disabling cores 2-9 on both CPUs and only leaving 0 and 1 on both. Maybe that will work, forcing windows to only those cores. If I was not having a baby on the way, I would love to experiment with something like this.

 

[Kneelbeforezod]

Is it safe to buy the ES Chips from overseas or do you all stick with North American Sellers?

 

[helsyeah]

My thinking was whenever heavy workloads weren't needed and you wanted to run a game, going into the BIOS and disabling cores 2-9 on both CPUs and only leaving 0 and 1 on both. Maybe that will work, forcing windows to only those cores. If I was not having a baby on the way, I would love to experiment with something like this.

Hmmm, I bet you could simply set CPU affinity as well via a script, without the need to exit the OS at all.