Overclocking Escapades: Intel socket LGA1366 Xeon E5520

Thought I'd see what my Xeon E5520 4C/8T (quad core with Hyper Threading), since the team doesn't have many submissions with this CPU.

Stock is 2267MHz, with 2400MHz Turbo Boost speed.

Procedure is same as usual, find lowest stable voltage and then move up from there with overclocking. In this case I started at the max Turbo Boost frequency for the lowest stable voltage test.

I'm a bit surprised that the lowest stable voltage was only 1.168v, I figured I'd get down to at least 1.15v, the VID on this chip is 1.20v. It wouldn't run at any lower voltage though.

Stock temperatures:

CPU: Intel Xeon E5520
Motherboard: Asus Rampage II Extreme
Memory: G.Skill 6GB (3x2GB sticks) F312800CL8T-6GBRM (DDR3-1600/PC3-12800) 8-8-8-24-2T @1.6V
Graphics: Evga GTX260 216 CUDA cores
CPU cooling: Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme Black Edition with 1x Scythe Gentle Typhoon AP-15 in push and 1x Cooler Master SickleFlow 120x25mm blue LED fan in pull
HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE 160GB SATA II

Intel Xeon E5520 overclock settings
2.2GHz: 1.168v (1.175v)
2.3GHz: 1.168v (1.175v)
2.4GHz: 1.176v (1.18750v)
2.5GHz: 1.176v (1.18750v)
2.6GHz: 1.176v (1.18750v)
2.7GHz: 1.176v (1.18750v)
2.8GHz: 1.176v (1.18750v)
2.9GHz: 1.176v (1.18750v)
3.0GHz: 1.176-1.184v (1.18750v)
3.1GHz: 1.176-1.184v (1.18750v)
3.2GHz: 1.176-1.184v (1.18750v)
3.3GHz: 1.184v (1.18750v)
3.4GHz: 1.192v (1.2v) +1.25v QPI & 1.3v IOH
3.5GHz: 1.216-1.224v (1.225v) +1.275v QPI & 1.3v IOH
3.6GHz: 1.192v (1.2v) +1.35v (1.4125v) QPI & 1.35v (1.39166v) IOH
3.8GHz: 1.263-1.272v (1.275v) +1.35v (1.4125v) QPI & 1.35v (1.39166v) IOH
3.9GHz (216x18): 1.296v (1.30v) +1.35v (1.4125v) QPI & 1.35v (1.39166v) IOH

Pretty much all of my 100 submissions are on 1366/x58 typicaly bclk gets flaky over 210 for me depending on the chip. I am actually gonna pop this E5530 back in and take 1st on the few benches I left behind. What cooling/motherboard are you using ?

Scout said:

Pretty much all of my 100 submissions are on 1366/x58 typicaly bclk gets flaky over 210 for me depending on the chip. I am actually gonna pop this E5530 back in and take 1st on the few benches I left behind. What cooling/motherboard are you using ?

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It's being cooled by air (Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme), and the board is an Asus Rampage II Extreme. Board is somewhat toasted I'm afraid (melting on backside of board), but it is currently in working order.

Looks like my E5530 is pretty dead my P5X58D-E's socket burnt out with this chip in it. Watch for Vdroop if its anything like my Rampage III Gene.

My P6X58D-E died, killing i7 920. Some other users also had problems with these boards. Actually I'm not buying more expensive ASUS boards from other series than ROG since that day. I also had some problems with standard ASUS series at work so at least for benching it's only ROG.
Gigabyte X58 had problems with power section and some of them couldn't make high bclk. I made 4-5 RMA for problems with BIOS or power section.
MSI/ASRock had weak power section and other issues.
At the end you could pick 3-4 good boards without bigger issues.

I still have R3E which is working fine. I've dropped CPU into the socket so couple of pins look weird but contacts are where they supposed to be so it's working without problems. With current prices of 1366 CPUs it's maybe good idea to bench something from time to time.

Scout said:

Looks like my E5530 is pretty dead my P5X58D-E's socket burnt out with this chip in it. Watch for Vdroop if its anything like my Rampage III Gene.

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That sucks man. Did the CPU get welded to the pins, or is it removable?

Strangely enough this board doesn't seem to have any vDroop. It's the same at idle as it is under load. Does have a very slight vDrop though, it's coming out 0.01v lower than what I'm setting in the BIOS with LLC enabled. I can deal with that though, it's not bad at all. I haven't tried it without LLC, with LLC set to Auto it reacts the same as setting it to Enabled, so it's always on unless I manually Disable it with this board.

That's a lot better than I get with most LGA775 motherboards where I'm looking at 0.02-0.06v of vDroop.

I had a 2.26ghz westmere hexcore chip that would to 250 blck on air and run the crap outta stuff. was just wierd with memory divider. had to keep it below 1333 base or was really wonky

Well, this is going pretty well so far. I've got it up to 3GHz and I still haven't had to increase the vCore (still below stock VID actually).

Now testing 3.1GHz.

Tech Tweaker said:

That sucks man. Did the CPU get welded to the pins, or is it removable?

Strangely enough this board doesn't seem to have any vDroop. It's the same at idle as it is under load. Does have a very slight vDrop though, it's coming out 0.01v lower than what I'm setting in the BIOS with LLC enabled. I can deal with that though, it's not bad at all. I haven't tried it without LLC, with LLC set to Auto it reacts the same as setting it to Enabled, so it's always on unless I manually Disable it with this board.

That's a lot better than I get with most LGA775 motherboards where I'm looking at 0.02-0.06v of vDroop.

Click to expand...

The chip came out but the socket was trashed bad, the chip is just not as stable I can't get the bclk as high as I did first time I benched on it. The Vdrop with the Rampage III Gene was around .1-2v it was awful. My Rampage III Extreme is fantastic.

Well, memory frequency doesn't seem to be a problem with this CPU. It says it only officially supports 1066MHz, but I was at 1422MHz with 3.2GHz to for the CPU and it wasn't skipping a beat.

QPI Link speed also seems to have no issue with higher frequencies, I was at 3200MHz on it (6.4GT/s) and it was having no problems.

NB Frequency at 2844MHz.

I haven't adjusted the voltages for any of these yet.

Must say I'm impressed that the CPU has gotten so far at the same core voltage without any adjustments. I think this CPU may have been something like an X5570 or W5580 that was just binned lower to accommodate production demands.

I have my old 2.26ghz box back for service and ran a cinebench with it. the rampage2 mobo wont allow bclk like the rampage 3 or the good p6t deluxe, but still not bad for an aging chip of miniscule clocks