My Dual Harper - Asus Z7S WS living review *56K warning*

[STEvil]

Might need a reflash?

[shanems3]

i am using the one that one of the members got pre release... ill go try the "Official" one tommorow night..

[Madman666]

Guys,

I noticed an unpleasant bug with my new Z7S which the old one (which definitely was anotehr revision) didn't have.
As soon as I set Vcore manually and save, it reboots fine but hangs and says "Press F1 tor necover bios settings, F2 to load defaults and continue". When I then enter bios, all voltage-related settings are set back to default. I circumvented this by loading my saved settings again, disabling "press F1 on error" option (or similar), hit F10 and it booted up fine using the Vcore settings I set.

However, as soon as I reboot or shut down, the settings are lost again.

Now, I don't care much because I hardly ever reboot or shut it down (roughly every 6-8 weeks when some update or program keeps nagging about a reboot) but this should be a real PITA for people who want to use the rig as their main systems

And like I said, my old board definitely didn't have that problem. I guess Asus isn't done here yet, the bios still sucks.

I have the same issue, however I noted that when you let it reboot at default values (so press F2) and than shutdown and startup again than enter the BIOS and than do your settings and reboot again you don't get the message again when normally rebooting/shutdown/startup.

However as soon as your PC hangs (due to OC or because of windows/software) or reboots (by itself of by the user) before windows is loaded (so before the bios detected all hardware) it starts all over again.

[jcool]

Ok I'll try that Madman666, hope it works. Maybe I'll need to re-download and flash the bios, the one I have is also the pre-release I think.

[Madman666]

I'm (again) considering selling my 2x L5410 Xeon Asus z7s rig and buy an Gigabyte X58 UD5 and a 920.

Main use: Adobe CS4, rendering and downloading

Existing rig:
-fast rendering
-slow memory
-no future upgrades
-oc limited

Pros i7 920:
- future upgrades ?
- exiting oc
- fast memory
-???

Any ideas, suggestions?
Need advice...

@jcool: could you please post me the Nuclearus results of your new 920 @stock and @3.2?

[Martijn]

Unless you've got a lot of money to burn, your current rig should really be fine with what you use it for.

[Jaco]

Unless you've got a lot of money to burn, your current rig should really be fine with what you use it for.

The Xeon system (mobo/cpu's/RAM) is worth more than the i920 + UD5 + DDR3 combo. Actually, you could save some money here

[drewhemm]

Hey Guys,

I've been waiting for ages to get onto this forum and share my results and ask some questions - I'll come back later for the questions, but they relate to the irritating reset of the bios and OC profile 50% of the times when I reboot my computer, thereby making it impossible to rely on it for remote control operations...

Azus Z7S motherboard
1 x Antec 650W Truepower Trio Power Supply - more efficient than my 550W Thermaltake PSU.
2 x L5420 Xeon Processors (50w low voltage)
8GB of Kingston RAM 1 x 8GB Kit (2 x 4GB modules - KVR800D2D4F5K2/8G)
1 x 74GB Raptor 10,000 RPM for OS
2 x Hitachi deskstar 160GB in RAID 0 (fast access documents and other high-speed stuff)
1 x WD 250GB drive
Running SATA as RAID with full caching/performance settings (Yes I have UPS and backup generator!)
1 x ATI FireGL V5100 workstation graphics card supplying images to 2 x 19" Samsung LCD monitors.
2 x OCZ Core V2 60GB SSDs on their way from the States to install in RAID 0 for OS, 2 more possibly to follow in the new year.
D-TEK CPU Fuzion V2 waterblocks with quad core mid chamber inserts, Thermaltake GPU waterblock (bought D-TEK Fuzion GPU block but can't use it as it's not compatible with my FireGL - I'll have to use it with my new graphics card that I will add next year to run the 22-24" center screen)
1 x Laing D5 Pump running on slowest/quietest setting
1 x Thermaltake racing level radiator with 2 x 120mm fans in Thermaltake Armor case.
1 x Thermaltake AquaBay M3 5.25" reservoir - looks nice but poorly thought of when constructed, want to change it for something better and with 3/8" couplings.

I managed to get the L5420's to clock to 3308.00MHz with 441 FSB - I'm running 1.2ish vcore - totally stable. I kept speedstep enabled as I want the power savings. I am currently enjoying much more processor capacity than with my previous Pentium D (dual-core) 3.6GHz stock processor with a lot less power usage.

Core Temp 0.96.1 Temperatures:

Core #0: 50C
Core #1: 42C
Core #2: 42C
Core #3: 44C
Core #4: 45C
Core #5: 48C
Core #6: 45C
Core #7: 46C
Core #8: 46C

Asus PC Probe II reports:

CPU0: 34C
CPU1: 36C
MB: 34C

Which program do you guys find to be more reliable?

Has anyone been able to get more speed from either the L5420 or the E5420? Has anyone been able to go past 450 FSB with the vcore bios update?

Regards

Andrew

[shanems3]

Jcool, get the bios from Asus site.

http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=455152

1.35vcore in bios, gets me 1.3 in windows, running 440fsb, about to go tweak it up.
temps are around 55c idle though.. that was idle on Copper and fan heatsinks, TJmax is 100c on these chips, so i will try and keep it under 70c..

[shanems3]

still has that reboot bug, but i did manage to pull this off , my goal has been met..

http://valid.x86-secret.com/show_oc.php?id=455163

edit, Super pi done in 11 seconds, 1M
Cinebench 64bit scored 29k
http://www.hwbot.org/result.do?resultId=797627

[jt1]

2 x 4GB modules

Get two more to take advantage of the quad channel bandwidth.

[Madman666]

Hey Guys,

I've been waiting for ages to get onto this forum and share my results and ask some questions - I'll come back later for the questions, but they relate to the irritating reset of the bios and OC profile 50% of the times when I reboot my computer, thereby making it impossible to rely on it for remote control operations...

Azus Z7S motherboard
1 x Antec 650W Truepower Trio Power Supply - more efficient than my 550W Thermaltake PSU.
2 x L5420 Xeon Processors (50w low voltage)
8GB of Kingston RAM 1 x 8GB Kit (2 x 4GB modules - KVR800D2D4F5K2/8G)
1 x 74GB Raptor 10,000 RPM for OS
2 x Hitachi deskstar 160GB in RAID 0 (fast access documents and other high-speed stuff)
1 x WD 250GB drive
Running SATA as RAID with full caching/performance settings (Yes I have UPS and backup generator!)
1 x ATI FireGL V5100 workstation graphics card supplying images to 2 x 19" Samsung LCD monitors.
2 x OCZ Core V2 60GB SSDs on their way from the States to install in RAID 0 for OS, 2 more possibly to follow in the new year.
D-TEK CPU Fuzion V2 waterblocks with quad core mid chamber inserts, Thermaltake GPU waterblock (bought D-TEK Fuzion GPU block but can't use it as it's not compatible with my FireGL - I'll have to use it with my new graphics card that I will add next year to run the 22-24" center screen)
1 x Laing D5 Pump running on slowest/quietest setting
1 x Thermaltake racing level radiator with 2 x 120mm fans in Thermaltake Armor case.
1 x Thermaltake AquaBay M3 5.25" reservoir - looks nice but poorly thought of when constructed, want to change it for something better and with 3/8" couplings.

I managed to get the L5420's to clock to 3308.00MHz with 441 FSB - I'm running 1.2ish vcore - totally stable. I kept speedstep enabled as I want the power savings. I am currently enjoying much more processor capacity than with my previous Pentium D (dual-core) 3.6GHz stock processor with a lot less power usage.

Core Temp 0.96.1 Temperatures:

Core #0: 50C
Core #1: 42C
Core #2: 42C
Core #3: 44C
Core #4: 45C
Core #5: 48C
Core #6: 45C
Core #7: 46C
Core #8: 46C

Asus PC Probe II reports:

CPU0: 34C
CPU1: 36C
MB: 34C

Which program do you guys find to be more reliable?

Has anyone been able to get more speed from either the L5420 or the E5420? Has anyone been able to go past 450 FSB with the vcore bios update?

Regards

Andrew

Hi Andrew,
I have L5410's with the z7s.
Unfortunately I have not been above 400 FSB, so you are one lucky
Anyway, did you look how your memory is detected in the bios ?
Mine says 667Mhz but it truly is 800Mhz ! I also have Kingston, however 4x2GB.

Did you change any other voltages, besides the Vcore ? Which BIOS do you have ? 0401 ?
Intel stated the Tjunction max for these CPU's should be 70C. If you use coretemp, you can adjust Tj.max and you should have the "correct" temps.
However, testing looks Tj max should be more in the line of 75-80C.
Because I think coretemps should be at idle ±5-10 above cpu temp.

Anyway, i hope you put some benches up.

BTW: what are your Dimm temps?

[Madman666]

The Xeon system (mobo/cpu's/RAM) is worth more than the i920 + UD5 + DDR3 combo. Actually, you could save some money here

You are actually quite right !
I must have been

[shanems3]

madman, the reason your 800 mem shows up as 667 is because our Memory runs 1:1 with cpu, the fsb on the processor is 333, so 333 on the mem too, i cranked mine manualy to 400 to get the memory at 800, and my processor at 3.6ghz.. that is leaving all voltages at normal/auto

[Madman666]

madman, the reason your 800 mem shows up as 667 is because our Memory runs 1:1 with cpu, the fsb on the processor is 333, so 333 on the mem too, i cranked mine manualy to 400 to get the memory at 800, and my processor at 3.6ghz.. that is leaving all voltages at normal/auto

I know, but I'm running at 396 (that's my max ) and the memory still says 667.
So at 400 Mhz or above it should say 800 ?
I cannot get more than 396 stable. from 397 to 400 it boots into Vista but freezes up when testing. 401 just freezes at boot.
Already tried 1.26Vcore, 1.30 MCH, 1.83 mem. E1C and speedstep disabled.
Also tried everything default besides the FSB.
What did you change from the default ?

[anubis]

Madman666 YGPM

[drewhemm]

Get two more to take advantage of the quad channel bandwidth.

I thought about that - is there a noticeable performance difference to justify the extra $$$ ? I bought 4GB modules so that I would have the upgrade path available in the future when the prices drop.

Hi Andrew,
I have L5410's with the z7s.
Unfortunately I have not been above 400 FSB, so you are one lucky
Anyway, did you look how your memory is detected in the bios ?
Mine says 667Mhz but it truly is 800Mhz ! I also have Kingston, however 4x2GB.

Did you change any other voltages, besides the Vcore ? Which BIOS do you have ? 0401 ?
Intel stated the Tjunction max for these CPU's should be 70C. If you use coretemp, you can adjust Tj.max and you should have the "correct" temps.
However, testing looks Tj max should be more in the line of 75-80C.
Because I think coretemps should be at idle ±5-10 above cpu temp.

Anyway, i hope you put some benches up.

BTW: what are your Dimm temps?

My 800's are also showing as 667's. DIMM1 is running at 60c and DIMM2(Slot 3) is running at 54c. I have a small silent system fan sitting on top of the Northbridge that is sharing some ventilation with the memory and I also have a 250mm side case fan. I'm in the Spanish winter right now and my office is very cold - we'll see how they fare in the summer!

I'm running bios version 0401 and I haven't changed any other voltages, wasn't sure about it as this is my first time overclocking!

I've attached a screenshot from Cinebench R10 - running 36 seconds for the x CPU test. Another screenshot shows the comparison between the new rig and the old rig. Even the OpenGL scores are higher!

madman, the reason your 800 mem shows up as 667 is because our Memory runs 1:1 with cpu, the fsb on the processor is 333, so 333 on the mem too, i cranked mine manualy to 400 to get the memory at 800, and my processor at 3.6ghz.. that is leaving all voltages at normal/auto

What do I need to do in order to get my memory to show as 800? I thought it was because I am running a 1333MHz processor and you need a 1600Mhz CPU to run 800MHz memory.

Regards

Andrew

[drewhemm]

Forgot to mention none of my core temperatures went above 62c during Cinebench - and that's from Core Temp. Immediately went back to high 40's afterward.

[Madman666]

Forgot to mention none of my core temperatures went above 62c during Cinebench - and that's from Core Temp. Immediately went back to high 40's afterward.

Just set in the settings Show Delta Tjunction max. temp
You then see how much "headroom" you have left until the max. temp is reached.

[drewhemm]

I must say that for anyone who is considering a rig like this the raw processor benchmarks don't do the potential and capacity of this setup justice - in my opinion, it's the multitasking that is most important for daily workstation use - the ability to do more things at once; for me, that will directly translate into more income - the speed is a bonus!

I'd be curious to know how a dual-harpertown workstation would compare to a single Core i7, as the latter can also execute 8 threads, but only has four physical cores. I've read reviews that say that hyperthreading is much better on the Core i7 than on previous processors, but I still have a gut feeling that it's better to have 8 physical cores - I haven't found any direct comparisons yet. Otherwise, a comparative setup would be a quad socket AMD (more cores but slower clocks) or a dual Core i7, but dual Core i7 boards aren't available from Asus yet, I heard that overclocking is limited and the power consumption is higher compared to the 50w L5420s.

I'm currently downloading a trial of VMware Workstation as I'm curious to see how well it runs virtualization, I may end up running 64-bit Windows XP on the host and 32-bit Windows XP on the guest. Might be reason for me to upgrade to 16GB quad channel RAM. I'll report back on that...

[drewhemm]

Just set in the settings Show Delta Tjunction max. temp
You then see how much "headroom" you have left until the max. temp is reached.

Ah, I had an older version of Core Temp, I have now downloaded 0.99.3 and I have the option to change the Tjunction Max offset.

Also, the CPU temperatures now agree with Asus PC Probe, so I am guessing Core Temp's database has been updated.

Thanks Madman!

[shanems3]

I know, but I'm running at 396 (that's my max ) and the memory still says 667.
So at 400 Mhz or above it should say 800 ?
I cannot get more than 396 stable. from 397 to 400 it boots into Vista but freezes up when testing. 401 just freezes at boot.
Already tried 1.26Vcore, 1.30 MCH, 1.83 mem. E1C and speedstep disabled.
Also tried everything default besides the FSB.
What did you change from the default ?

yes, when you hit 400mhz, they show up as 800mhz chips,

EnableStepspeed, 1.35mch 1.83mem, i had to go to 1.35Vcore on each to boot 440fsb, try going to 1.3vcore if you are water cooled..

[drewhemm]

yes, when you hit 400mhz, they show up as 800mhz chips,

Does the FSB need to be exactly 400MHz? I am running 441MHz and still the memory shows as 667MHz...

[jcool]

I must say that for anyone who is considering a rig like this the raw processor benchmarks don't do the potential and capacity of this setup justice - in my opinion, it's the multitasking that is most important for daily workstation use - the ability to do more things at once; for me, that will directly translate into more income - the speed is a bonus!

I'd be curious to know how a dual-harpertown workstation would compare to a single Core i7, as the latter can also execute 8 threads, but only has four physical cores. I've read reviews that say that hyperthreading is much better on the Core i7 than on previous processors, but I still have a gut feeling that it's better to have 8 physical cores - I haven't found any direct comparisons yet. Otherwise, a comparative setup would be a quad socket AMD (more cores but slower clocks) or a dual Core i7, but dual Core i7 boards aren't available from Asus yet, I heard that overclocking is limited and the power consumption is higher compared to the 50w L5420s.

I'm currently downloading a trial of VMware Workstation as I'm curious to see how well it runs virtualization, I may end up running 64-bit Windows XP on the host and 32-bit Windows XP on the guest. Might be reason for me to upgrade to 16GB quad channel RAM. I'll report back on that...

My Dual X5450's at 4,05Ghz are around 30-50% faster than an i7 clocked at 4Ghz. Leave out benches that are completely memory-dependant (like Winrar) and you get closer to 50% most of the time. Apps I have compared so far: WCG HCC, Cinebench, 3DMark CPU, TrueCrypt, wPrime. I think there was more.. I should do a comprehensive writeup of the results I know, but I really don't have the time

So for now, you can either believe me, or bench for yourself
The most important factor on a Dual S771 setup (besides the CPU clock speed) is the FSB, by the way. If you compare my bench runs and daily results with same or higher clocked CPUs on a ST with lower FSB, the Z7S always wins. FSB is a real bottleneck here, every Mhz helps especially as you go up in clock speed.

[drewhemm]

My Dual X5450's at 4,05Ghz are around 30-50% faster than an i7 clocked at 4Ghz. Leave out benches that are completely memory-dependant (like Winrar) and you get closer to 50% most of the time.

That's good - so I don't need to feel stupid for splashing out on this hardware!