ES Xeon Discussion

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jpmomo

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Aug 12, 2018
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I haven't received my mystery chips yet but should this friday. There is still the remote possibility that if these chips are xeon w and some form of es, it might be worth a try to test on a supermicro mb. We have seen similar behavior (not posting or not completely posting) with other es chips on non-supermicro mb but then the same chips were able to post on specific supermicro mb. Unfortunately I am having a hard time trying to find a c422 supermicro mb to test with. something like the Supermicro X11SRM-F might be worth a try.
In regards to delidding, there are simple tools to do this task. It removes the IHS from the PCB. You would then replace the TIM (thermal paste) with something like liquid metal for better heat transfer. The complicating issue here is that most xeon cpus use solder instead of thermal paste. If we did delid this cpu and found that it had thermal paste, it might suggest that this was an i9 chip and not a xeon w series. We could also see the details of the actual chip itself. I am not sure what the i9 vs the xeon w series chip (die) looks like but I am sure we could track that down somewhere. and the mystery continues...........
I received the cpus a bit earlier than expected. I took a good look at them using a magnifying glass and made notes of a couple of things.
1. if you shine a light on the bottom of the chip, you can see a blue haze over part of the gold contacts. specifically it looks like something spilled on it then wiped off so that the gold contacts would not be blocked. I tried to clean it with so isopropyl spray but it did not seem to remove it. For those that have these chips, can you shine a light on the bottom and tilt it slightly to see if you notice this blue film?
2. the small chip on the top side, upper right corner (when gold triangle is on the bottom left) has a marking of 642
X8

It also has another marking lower right side of J20146 01 A99448
I still can't tell whether this is a skylake x or xeon w. I did get 2 so I may wind up delidding and looking under the cover!
I may be able to get an asus (both x299 and c422) to test but I would prefer to try on a supermicro if possible. the supermicro x11sra should be compatible with a real xeon w chip.
 

nero243

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Oct 28, 2018
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So i finally bought the problem plagued E5-2696v3 QEY8 on ebay, declared as defective not booting on a X99.

First i noticed i don't have ddr4 rdimms lying around (sadly they were ddr3 rdimms), but all the x99 mainboard manufacturers say the e5 xeons should be working with udimms. Did anyone had problems with unbuffered memory and ES xeons? I tried it with 2 different sets of DDR4 Udimms, no success.

So i started trying around with a whole bunch of different microcodes (and no microcode), i always ended up with the Q-code 55 (no memory installed). Without any actual memory installed i end up with Q-Code 53 (memory initialization failed). So yeah...

I already wanted to give up here but luckily i've read here on the forum, that the QEY8 should work on a Asus rampage V with an older bios. So i gave the rampage bios a shot and just flashed it on my Asus X99 Deluxe. I mean what could go wrong?! Now i get halfway through the initialization Q-Codes and get stuck on code b0 (Runtime Set Virtual Address MAP Begin). I hoped that i get halfarsed to a post screen with the wrong bios... But it seems to work a little bit, without RAM i end back up at code 53 and with a newer rampage Bios Version and RAM installed i get back to code 55. But i have no idea what causes the initialization issues between the older and newer bios versions. If i knew i could try to switch out the responsible Bios modules from the real X99 Deluxe bios.
 
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RageBone

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Jul 11, 2017
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@nero243 in my experience e5 xeons can boot any ram that is supported by the board.
Had my 1650v3 running gskill trident z a while back, though that wasn't an ES, but i don't think Udimms are the problem.

It is nice to hear that you at least have one that posts, the most recent V3-ES i got to play with was shorted out, Postcode 00 and no Voltage from the VRMs.
To your postcodes, i currently assume that 5X so early in the Post process, before "bX" is something around "no ram detected" and bX should be Ram (init | training). 5X after the bX codes is something i have no clue about.

The last time i tried to boot a V4 Es on an Asus X99 board, it went through into the bios on the first try but after applying defaults, it was stuck somewhere. Probably Microcode related.

Maybe you want to take a look at the Asus Serverboards, Z10Pa /Pe, those, i think, have ES support. You might be able to grab the right modules from there bios.

Depending on where you are located, i could test it for you, or we could exchange or lend hardware. In my Case, EU, Germany.

@joe paolicelli you are right, if they have the crappy paste, it's most likely a dummy i9.
Though since deliding soldered cpus is a bit different then the i9s, i'm pretty sure you'd kill your sample in case that it is a soldered xeon W.

I prefer the Supermico c422.
I will check my two blanks for the shade and markings when i get back home this evening.
 

RageBone

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Jul 11, 2017
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@joe paolicelli took my time, reread your post, and i can tell you that the blue shade is on both of mine, and i think i have something like that on older broadwell and haswell chips. So to me it seems completely normal!

The piroms also read 642 x8 on both of them, just like you said.
The Substrate marking is smiliar: J20146 01 A28029
and J20146 01 A28067
 

Klee

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Jun 2, 2016
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@nero243 in my experience e5 xeons can boot any ram that is supported by the board.
Had my 1650v3 running gskill trident z a while back, though that wasn't an ES, but i don't think Udimms are the problem.

It is nice to hear that you at least have one that posts, the most recent V3-ES i got to play with was shorted out, Postcode 00 and no Voltage from the VRMs.
To your postcodes, i currently assume that 5X so early in the Post process, before "bX" is something around "no ram detected" and bX should be Ram (init | training). 5X after the bX codes is something i have no clue about.

The last time i tried to boot a V4 Es on an Asus X99 board, it went through into the bios on the first try but after applying defaults, it was stuck somewhere. Probably Microcode related.

Maybe you want to take a look at the Asus Serverboards, Z10Pa /Pe, those, i think, have ES support. You might be able to grab the right modules from there bios.

Depending on where you are located, i could test it for you, or we could exchange or lend hardware. In my Case, EU, Germany.

@joe paolicelli you are right, if they have the crappy paste, it's most likely a dummy i9.
Though since deliding soldered cpus is a bit different then the i9s, i'm pretty sure you'd kill your sample in case that it is a soldered xeon W.

I prefer the Supermico c422.
I will check my two blanks for the shade and markings when i get back home this evening.

I run 64 gigs of Gskill Trident Z 3200 in my dual Asrock Rack Workstation board with dual E5-2667 V3 ES cpu's.
 

wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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My asrock taichi x99 will boot the QHUZ with ECC or non ECC DDR4 (actually ddr4 laptop sodimm on an adaptor if that makes any difference)......

but the SM X10SRA would not boot up the QHUZ with the said non ECC DRR4 but does boot up the QHUZ if i use ddr4 rdimm.. i thought i read in the manual that says x10 only use non ECC udimm when booting i7 so maybe that's why won't work with xeon cpu when using dimm ?

so question is is the sm board just being a little more picky than the asrock? or is there some thing with the ram sodimm dimm adator?

maybe i need to get a haswell i7 and non-ecc udimm to test?
 

RageBone

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Jul 11, 2017
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@wildpig1234 nope, nothing picky with the adaptor or the boards, it's just that way.
All X10 Supermicro boards only take Reg ECC, the same as Asus Z10P*s.
I guess it's a chipset thing.
By the way, nearly all X99 boards take Reg Ecc. just saying.
 

wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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@wildpig1234 nope, nothing picky with the adaptor or the boards, it's just that way.
All X10 Supermicro boards only take Reg ECC, the same as Asus Z10P*s.
I guess it's a chipset thing.
By the way, nearly all X99 boards take Reg Ecc. just saying.
So for the SM x10sra, the non ecc dimm would only work if you are runnning i7? i was going to get an i7 but they are still all expensive and above $100
 

wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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@wildpig1234 according the web page, yes, udimms only with i7s.
so i guess the asrock x99 is still a notch better since it will let you use non ecc udimm with the QHUZ xeon cpu while the sm x10 didn't... but i am wondering if asrock will let you use ecc rdimm with i7...

i am tempted to get an i7 just to test out these points, but hate to spend $150 on a low end single cpu only haswell, part that only have 6 cores.... maybe i should look on the brighter side that these are usually very overclockable?
 

wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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@wildpig1234 no Reg Ecc with any i7. That'd be Intels fault and not Asrock.
Maybe Unbufered Ecc, but not Registered!
I will have to go back to my asus p9x79 mb and recheck that.. i thought i got i7-3930k to run with 4gb rdimm ecc ddr3 but maybe i was mistaken... maybe intel got stricter for haswell/broadwell..
 

RageBone

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Jul 11, 2017
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@wildpig1234 X79 might support Reg ecc in some cases, though not in general and with all and every Dimm.
Tried 16GB reg ecc on an Asus Rampage iv Formula and a Xeon that wouldn't have been the problem.

Yes Intel got stricter with Haswell and even more on Broadwell, though they got less strickt with X99 since it not supporting Reg Ecc seems to be the exception.
 

foureight84

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Jun 26, 2018
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I'm trying to buy the E5 1680 V3 mainly for gaming but also run a few vms in the background. They're still fairly expensive at $700 on eBay. Do you think this is worthwhile (I already have a spare x99a msi gaming mb) or buy a different desktop CPU like a used i7 6950x?

I am trying to avoid desktop PC's for overclocking considering that they are not soldered until the recent release.
 

RageBone

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Jul 11, 2017
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Well, since the 1660V3 and 1680V3 are both 8Core 16thread cpus, i suggest you expand your search to also include the 1660.
I think i have seen one for around 500 a short while ago.

But if you can get a 6950X for the same amount of money, Broadwell is superior and 2 cores 4 threads more.

What Ram do you plan on using?
 

foureight84

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Jun 26, 2018
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Well, since the 1660V3 and 1680V3 are both 8Core 16thread cpus, i suggest you expand your search to also include the 1660.
I think i have seen one for around 500 a short while ago.

But if you can get a 6950X for the same amount of money, Broadwell is superior and 2 cores 4 threads more.

What Ram do you plan on using?
I was planning on non-ecc. I could save money by going with a 1660 V3 or 1680 V3 and stick to 2133/2400 considering it can't support anything faster than 2133. I am planning on doing a lot of overclocking. I was staying away from 1660 V3 since I thought the latter would yield higher oc.
 

RageBone

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Jul 11, 2017
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The multipliers should be unlocked on both, so you should be able to set the Ram freq to more then the rated speeds, similarly to any i7.
Since you aren't limited by Ram or platform, go for whats cheaper or better, yields best price to performance.
if you can get a 6950x for less then what you'd pay for the 1680v3, go for the i7.
 
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foureight84

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Jun 26, 2018
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The multipliers should be unlocked on both, so you should be able to set the Ram freq to more then the rated speeds, similarly to any i7.
Since you aren't limited by Ram or platform, go for whats cheaper or better, yields best price to performance.
if you can get a 6950x for less then what you'd pay for the 1680v3, go for the i7.
Thanks for the advice! I took your advice and bought a 1660 V3 for $400. Save $300 with the asking price of all of the 1680 V3 and 6950x available .
 

foureight84

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Jun 26, 2018
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The multipliers should be unlocked on both, so you should be able to set the Ram freq to more then the rated speeds, similarly to any i7.
Since you aren't limited by Ram or platform, go for whats cheaper or better, yields best price to performance.
if you can get a 6950x for less then what you'd pay for the 1680v3, go for the i7.
Wait that second part about the ram. DDR4 3400 is possible with the 1660 V3 and 1680 V3?