LGA2011 Motherboard with 3920

[Aquinus]

yea ofc because the 3820 is actually replacing the i7 920 lol sadly the bang/buck feature+power wise that was offered by the i7 920 doesn't exist with intel anymore, and the i7 3820 is the closest thing to it.

If you didn't want to spend that much money, I would have suggested a used X58 setup actually lol

Then it wouldn't even outperform the 2600k. I got the 3820 because it was practically a 2600k for X79.

Check out this review for the 3820: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...l-core-i7-3820-sandy-bridge-e-cpu-review.html
I found it very informative.

 

[n-ster]

sure, but you'd want VT-d etc, but then you could just get a i7 2600 true lol

used X58 is dirt cheap now though, for 295~325$ you could get 12GB (3x4GB) DDR3 1600, a decent mobo and an i7 920~950 that OCs easily to 4Ghz. You get your whole upgrade in just the price of an i7 2600. I would have recommended it if your budget was along the 300$ line lol

 

[Yo_Wattup]

sadly the bang/buck feature+power wise that was offered by the i7 920 doesn't exist with intel anymore,

*cough* 2500k/2600k *cough*

 

[n-ster]

but the PCI-E lanes are lacking, no new memory thing like tri/quad channel, no VT-d with the K editions, not all mobos can OC, limited amount of SATA ports etc etc the i7 920 to me is on-par with SB performance-wise... You can't really say SB beats X58

i7 920 was top dog back in the day, and all it took was 450~500$ for CPU/mobo/RAM for the top dog platform and features. Now the same $ gets you mid-performance and features. Nothing really improved except power efficiency and OCing with the K editions. To me, that's kind of a let down, hence why I didn't go SB even though I always want to upgrade lol. This is also why I don't own a 3820 yet. If MC starts having specials for the 3820, I'll get it, else, I'll just wait for Ivy Bridge and see how that performs and make my decision then

 

[Aquinus]

That parts are in! Everything is accounted for, the Zalman cooler even has the LGA2011 mounting screws and I don't need Zalman to ship me anything. If i can find the camera I will throw some pictures up.

 

[n-ster]

awesome

 

[Aquinus]

awesome

Oh my god. I've never seen such a sexy looking motherboard. There are 4 chassis fan connections, and TWO cpu fan connectors and they're all 4-pin PWM. There isn't a single PCI slot on this motherboard, it is all PCI-E.

I have more pictures, but I need a better place than just uploading them to the forum because they're really high quality and they're huge, but here are a couple 1600x1200 of the mobo, ram, and cpu without the cooler yet. I'm waiting for my tower to finish backing up my RAID.

Edit: 19 minutes left on the backup... it's feeling like an eternity.

 

[Aquinus]

Here is a quick picture of the other components. I have nicer pictures I will throw up later.

 

[cadaveca]

Look, the board says TPU!

 

[n-ster]

damn sexy

 

[Yo_Wattup]

Oh my god. I've never seen such a sexy looking motherboard. There are 4 chassis fan connections, and TWO cpu fan connectors and they're all 4-pin PWM. There isn't a single PCI slot on this motherboard, it is all PCI-E.

I have more pictures, but I need a better place than just uploading them to the forum because they're really high quality and they're huge, but here are a couple 1600x1200 of the mobo, ram, and cpu without the cooler yet. I'm waiting for my tower to finish backing up my RAID.

Edit: 19 minutes left on the backup... it's feeling like an eternity.

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=46046&stc=1&d=1331071359

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=46047&stc=1&d=1331071359

Wow, a very good looking board and SOOOO much stuff on what I assume is an ATX board. SB-E not worth the money? Pish posh I say.

 

[johnnyfiive]

niiiiiice!

 

[Aquinus]

I have it all put together however I'm getting a light on the DRAM LED. I've read reviews that said that a BIOS update fixed the issue. I'm going to try out the magic button.

 

[cadaveca]

I have it all put together however I'm getting a light on the DRAM LED. I've read reviews that said that a BIOS update fixed the issue. I'm going to try out the magic button.

On first boot, or after turning on XMP?



I'm using 0906? I think, the most recent as of a few days ago anyway.


If it fails to boot, and you hold down the power button, it should boot next time without an issue if it's already on 0906.

 

[Aquinus]

On first boot, or after turning on XMP?



I'm using 0906? I think, the most recent as of a few days ago anyway.


If it fails to boot, and you hold down the power button, it should boot next time without an issue if it's already on 0906.

It didn't appear to, I figured I would update the BIOS anyways with the latest version. How long did it take for you because it has been flashing for at least 15 minutes now. I saw it read the USB and it's just been flashing. Maybe I just need to be more patient.

It didn't boot, the DRAM-LED stayed lit and I got no POST or beep.

Edit: It didn't seem to be doing anything, I'm trying a different flash drive.

Edit 2: That looks more like it, the USB is constantly being read instead of mostly flashing on the button instead. I think it is actually doing it now. I'm jealous of my parent's i7 2600k system, that booted without a hitch first time. Must have been the gigabyte board.

 

[cadaveca]

It booted fine for me, funny it gets stuck at the DRAM LED, beucase you'd think it would be the CPU possibly cuasing the no-boot, but the CPU ahs it's OWN LED for when that part of the POST test is being done. You cna always check the POST display, and check the code the back of the manual to help pinpoint the issue.

 

[Aquinus]

It booted fine for me, funny it gets stuck at the DRAM LED, beucase you'd think it would be the CPU possibly cuasing the no-boot, but the CPU ahs it's OWN LED for when that part of the POST test is being done. You cna always check the POST display, and check the code the back of the manual to help pinpoint the issue.

BIOS flash did the trick. XMP 1.3 @ 2133 working like a pro. I have my SSD raid-0 and HDD RAID-5 setup, I just need to copy raid drivers to my flash drive, then the fun begins. This board has a hell of a BIOS. Never used a BIOS that gave you so much control, and being able to use your mouse is just plain awesome.

 

[Aquinus]

So I ran a HDTune read benchmark while Windows Update was running and I think I drooled a little bit. I think I'm either bottle-necking the x79 SATA 6Gb controller or the DMI interface.

Edit: I'm convinced that I'm topping out the SATA controller.

 

[Yo_Wattup]

So what's RAID 5? Is that like RAID 0 + a backup one?

 

[Aquinus]

So what's RAID 5? Is that like RAID 0 + a backup one?

Not exactly, RAID-5 is striped w/ parity. So what happens is whenever data is written to all the disks, a little bit extra is stored on each disk so if a single drive fails, it can use the parity data from the remaining disks to rebuild your data from the missing drive. So when a drive fails you remove the hard drive, replace it with a new one, boot up your operating system with a "degraded" RAID-5 and you rebuild the array on the fly while your in Windows or what ever OS you're using. You can do stuff while this is going on as well, at least I was able to on my Phenom II motherboard. I'm assuming that Intel works the same way.

With RAID 5, the size of the array is always the size of the smallest drive, multiplied by the number of drives minus one.
size = smallest drive size * (drives - 1) so you lose the space of 1 drive, but in return your adding redundancy to your data. Additionally read-speeds will experience raid-0 like speeds, and writes will be a little better but not by much because you have to write that extra parity data every time you do a write.

 

[Aquinus]

I'm actually a little pissed because once I got the cooler (facing up, not back... grrr.) one of the bolts that came with the Zalman for the LGA2011 started to strip so I couldn't reseat it after I were to get it off, so my CPU cooler is blowing air towards the top of the case, which isn't the end of the world because on the Antec 1200 there is a 200mm exhaust fan on the top of the case, it's just not ideal, but it idles lower than my Phenom II did at about 31*C (the P2 did about 35*C with a much bigger cooler.)

By the way, this is my old motherboard/cooler/ram. (Those are two 100CFM fans, great for pushing the Phenom II 940 @ 1.5v on air if you don't care about noise.)

 

[Aquinus]

I actually just got an email from Zalman, they're happy to ship me another LGA2011 mounting kit free of charge since most CNPS9900MAXs didn't have the kit, mine was one of the few new ones that did. Maybe I'll re-seat it when that comes in.

Edit: Also feel that I should mention that the Seasonic 80 Plus Platinum 1kw PSU is giving me very nice voltages. They're all within .1 volts of what they're supposed to be. This machine idles less with more hardware than my Phenom II 940 did, I've yet to test this puppy full power though. The tower is in the bedroom and the wife is sleeping so I'm stuck with Remote Desktop. :<

Edit: I was able to get my hands on a better benchmark of the SSD RAID-0 and HDD RAID-5 performance.
View attachment 46056
View attachment 46057

 

[n-ster]

damn 1GB/s lol

 

[Aquinus]

damn 1GB/s lol

What's this "loading" thing everyone keeps talking about?

Honestly it's amazing, and I haven't even got to play a game with it yet. So many updates and drivers. t.t

Edit: Also a little tiny (+0.05v) voltage bump and a little turbo bump and 4ghz is cake. I always wanted 4ghz on my Phenom II and it could never do it.

 

[n-ster]

Well....

I got 32GB of RAM, when I get my SB-E I can have 20+GB of RAMDisk and it's much faster *sticks out tongue*

haha I know what you mean, I've done so many reinstalls and new builds for others etc. I also like to disabled all the services I don't need and make the ones I barely use manual, but maybe that's just a bad habit

Yea you might want to am for 4.5 Ghz now