First time LCer, EVGA SR-2 + 2x 5970

[Dooms101]

Got prime95 going @ 4.4, but it took 1.44 vcore to do so. It's also pushing one chip to 80c
Not crashing, but not something I wanna see either.

EDIT: Hitting 82c/83c now. But it's gone 10 passes so far.

Sounds stable to me, if you don't mind the high temps at full load. But what did you say this is going to be used for again?

 

[ispano]

Well I got it running about 4.33 at under 1.4v right now. Apparently running at 200bclk was what was causing my issues. I wanted 200 bclk because it let me run my RAM right at 1600, like it's specced for. So now it will be a little underclocked, but not a whole lot.

I was more worried that going over 1.4v was bad for the chips lifetime, They're expensive buggers, and I don't want one to die from overvolting.

EDIT: Oh right, it's 2 25x173=4.337Ghz as of last night, bumping bclk and testing more right now.

 

[ispano]

There's also an issue with my G19 keyboard(really any keyboard on a usb 2.0 hub, it just has the hub built in) that causes it to flake or drop out on some boards or in certain conditions. I started seeing it over 180 bclk. So it might overall be better this way.

 

[ispano]

Yeah, pretty much stuck at 4.33Ghz. 1Mhz bump in Bclk and it takes almost from 1.39v to 1.45v to get it to not insta crash. Probably got a crummy batch on one or both CPUs. But that's how life is, can't do anything about it if I wanted to right now. Still leaps better than what I was using.

 

[Dooms101]

Yeah, pretty much stuck at 4.33Ghz. 1Mhz bump in Bclk and it takes almost from 1.39v to 1.45v to get it to not insta crash. Probably got a crummy batch on one or both CPUs. But that's how life is, can't do anything about it if I wanted to right now. Still leaps better than what I was using.

I don't know a whole lot about the Xeon's, but 4.33Ghz sounds pretty good to me I'd say you have one hell of a killer system.

 

[m0r7if3r]

For real, that system's a HOSS

 

[ispano]

Heh, I must have the worst luck. As you know, I had one of the 5970's prior to thinking about this system. The one issue I had with that one was that it could never push past ~790Mhz, stock being 725Mhz. The problem was that no matter what voltage I threw at it, it would artifact at 795Mhz every time.

Same thing is happening now, I haven't tried ocing just the new one to see if it's just the one card, but since it's in a crossfire setup, and works fine at stock(can't RMA it) I see no point.

So far running Prime95 Small FFT with 23 threads and MSI Kombustor with Xtreme burn in, CPU temps are hitting a little over 73c on one CPU, about 10c less on the other CPU(apparently this is normal for the SR-2)
The GPUs never go past 45c, VRMs hit 50c I think.

But my question was, what software would you guys use to stress and record temps? I know it needs to be longer than like 10 minutes, just looking for suggestions. Using Prime/Kombustor atm for the stressing of course, and currently using RealTemp for CPU temps. Would GPUz work fine for GPU temps, or is there something better?

EDIT: If there's anything specific you want to see me run on it, please name it as well. I have plenty of time on my hands, sadly :/

 

[m0r7if3r]

prime on...errr...23 (lol) threads and furmark will give you your worst case scenario.

 

[ispano]

I've done that, and it doesn't trip the breaker thankfully. But that one thread doesn't let furmark push all the GPUs to 95% or more, they bounce between 50% and 80%

 

[Dooms101]

I've done that, and it doesn't trip the breaker thankfully. But that one thread doesn't let furmark push all the GPUs to 95% or more, they bounce between 50% and 80%

Run 2 instances of FurMark, just make sure they're not minimzed and put em either on different monitors or side by side. That should be enough to take them to 100%. After that you should run 3DMark01, 3DMark03, 3DMark05, 3DMark06, 3DMark Vantage, 3DMark 11, PiFast, and SuperPi

 

[ispano]

Should probably start saying Kombustor, not Furmark. Since Furmark locks up whenever I do any type of burn in, but Kombustor does not. Thought it was because it only used OpenGL2, but Kombustor works fine when set to OpenGL2. And it can stress the gpus fine, it's just when prime is running, even with 22 threads, there's not enough headroom to allow it to push all the gpus to the max. If I could force the threads from prime to run on everything but one physical core, it might work, but who knows.

 

[m0r7if3r]

Run 2 instances of FurMark, just make sure they're not minimzed and put em either on different monitors or side by side. That should be enough to take them to 100%. After that you should run 3DMark01, 3DMark03, 3DMark05, 3DMark06, 3DMark Vantage, 3DMark 11, PiFast, and SuperPi

Don't run 2 instances of furmark, that won't do anything

Should probably start saying Kombustor, not Furmark. Since Furmark locks up whenever I do any type of burn in, but Kombustor does not. Thought it was because it only used OpenGL2, but Kombustor works fine when set to OpenGL2. And it can stress the gpus fine, it's just when prime is running, even with 22 threads, there's not enough headroom to allow it to push all the gpus to the max. If I could force the threads from prime to run on everything but one physical core, it might work, but who knows.

Can you max the GPU's at all with kombustor? Like, if you run it without prime, does it max? You probably need to play with settings to get it to max out...once you do that, start stealing threads with prime until you lose GPU performance, then back it off one (so all your threads are utilized, either by prime or by kombustor) and let that run for 30mins or so

 

[torin3]

EDIT: Oh right, it's 2 25x173=4.337Ghz as of last night, bumping bclk and testing more right now.

With the x5670s, if you are running more than x23, you are not using all cores. I think x25 you are getting 2 cores running at that speed.

Turbo-boost is where it drops cores for faster speed. Different than normal Turbo, which moves you from x22 to x23 with all cores running.

 

[ispano]

X5680s, Multiplier is 25. Turbo is disabled. And yeah, Kombustor will max all 4 GPUs. It's odd though, if I run it full screen at 1920x1080 the gpus load to about 80-85% and I get like an average of 700fps. If I turn on Xtreme Burn in, which is supposed to unlock power draw, all 4 GPUs go to 95% but fps only averages 190

 

[m0r7if3r]

it changes settings at the card...it's just the way the program behaves

 

[ispano]

Also found out why Furmark won't run, If I change the Kombuster filename to furmark.exe and set it to use OpenGL, it doesn't work either. Must be the Profile for Furmark causing that issue.

 

[ispano]

So quick question for the magic 8-ball, and anyone else for that matter. When I put the CPU blocks on, I researched several methods for applying the thermal paste. Went with what looked to be the best for what I have, using some Shin-Etsu(Forgot the number part, but it's on Skinnees) I checked the seating twice, so i'm pretty sure it's on there good, but I was thinking maybe I should check it again. The only issue is I have very little Shin-Etsu left, so i'd need to use some MX2 or something. Would it be worth trying to reseat? OR possibly swap sockets. Apparently with the SR-2 CPU1 tends to run 10-12c higher than CPU0. The other reason for this line of thinking is that at auto settings, CPU0 is at 1.15v and CPU2 at 1.2v. I'm asking this elsewhere too, just looking for any input.

EDIT: Whups, forgot to add that CPU1, the hotter one, is hitting ~84c on one core with VCore and VTT almost at 1.4v each, part of why i'm asking the question. Maybe swapping the sockets will help equalize the temps, who knows.

 

[m0r7if3r]

How's your mounting pressure? That'd be my first thing I checked. If the block isn't getting decently warm at load you're not getting heat out of the cores for some reason or another. You also have to consider that the IHS to Core contact is mediocre at best...it takes a decent bit of heat before it starts to effectively flow through the solder joint.

 

[ispano]

Well the nuts are to the point where there's a good deal of resistance in turning them, I don't want to bend the board or anything of course. I'm running some stressing with HT turned off right now, might be able to push the clocks higher because of it. I'll check the blocks afterwards. And if I can get a better clock with HT off, I'll just save my current stable profile in the bios.

I know it's not really a bench, but at 4.33 with HT on, Linpack is maxing out at 140 GFlops, but with HT off i'm getting 180 GFlops so far.

EDIT: Fixed 1.4 GFLops, should be 140

 

[m0r7if3r]

I'm pretty sure that's not any real representation of compute muscle. on 1366, ht is worth ~30% more compute muscle.