Showing posts with label soc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label soc. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

GIGABYTE X99 SOC Champion Debuts at CES 2015 with One More WR Under its Belt

GIGABYTE X99 SOC Champion Debuts at CES 2015 with One More WR Under its Belt


Today, Jan. 5th 2015, GIGABYTE held it’s pre-CES Press Event in the Caesar’s Palace Neopolitan ballroom. One of the main focus of that event was the launch of a new overclocking board, the GIGABYTE X99-SOC Champion.
X99-SOC-Champion-Rev10X99-SOC_Champion  image

 http://www.gigabyte.us/press-center/news-page.aspx?nid=1342
One of the main feature of the X99 SOC Champion is the SMT mounted DIMMs for improved signal quality and their location which is closer to the CPU socket. The DIMM’s shorter trace path enables the DDR4 memory to communicate faster with the CPU, enabling the overclockers to reach higher DDR4 memory frequencies. Additionally, the motherboard includes a CPU Mode Switch; this switch allows the overclockers to switch between CPU default socket mode and OC socket mode.
The Press Event was crown by a live overclocking demonstration held by GIGABYTE famous overclockers Dinos22, Sofos1990 and HiCookie. The skilled trio managed to impress the crowd with a 1 World Record, 3 Global First and 3 Hardware First on the X99-SOC Champion! Nice going guys! Here are the submissions:

 

3004 Marks on XTU with Intel Core i7 5960X

http://hwbot.org/submission/2722703
image

2317 Marks on XTU with Intel Core i7 5820K

http://hwbot.org/submission/2722904
image

84470 Marks on 3D Mark Vintage with x1 GPU

http://hwbot.org/submission/2722892
image
Ian from Anandtech already had a look at the X99-SOC Champion. Although he couldn’t test the board on its true intent, LN2 overclocking, Ian gave the Champion a good thorough testing. You can read the results and his opinion here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8804/gigabyte-x99-soc-champion-motherboard-review-low-cost-x99-overclocking

Here are a few pictures of the event:
2015-01-05 14.31.45 2015-01-05 17.37.16 2015-01-05 17.37.34 2015-01-05 17.36.53 2015-01-05 17.34.34


Available link for download

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Tuesday, January 31, 2017

GIGABYTE X99 SOC Champion… is still the Champion!

GIGABYTE X99 SOC Champion… is still the Champion!


HWBOT published their April 2015 number run down. Quite a good month overall we must say for the overclocking world as 36 World Records and 114 Global First Place results have been achieved by overclockers at HWBOT!

But obviously, the numbers that really makes us happy here is to see this month’s Top Hardware numbers. where the GIGABYTE X99-SOC Champion  finished in 1st place in April with 18 World Records!!!

X99-SOC Champion, you rock!!

X99-SOC_Champion

Source: http://hwbot.org/news/12040


Available link for download

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Wednesday, December 7, 2016

GIGABYTE X99 SOC Champion voted the best overclocking board by European Hardware Awards

GIGABYTE X99 SOC Champion voted the best overclocking board by European Hardware Awards


Were happy to announce that European Hardware Awards (EHA) named GIGABYTE X99 SOC Champion as the best overclocking board. 


EHA was formed by KitGuru, Hardware.Info (The Netherlands), Hardwareluxx (Germany), Cowcotland (France), Hardware Upgrade (Italy), Hispazone (Spain), PurePC.pl (Poland) and Lab 501 (Romania).
Combined, the European Hardware Association reaches a vast and unique audience. Here are some of the stats:-
Over 20 million hardware enthusiast visitors a month
Millions of interactions on Facebook
A combined database of more than 100,000 articles
Millions of individual, scientific hardware tests, going back man years

Source: http://www.kitguru.net/channel/computex/andrzej/european-hardware-awards-winners-announced/


Available link for download

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Monday, November 14, 2016

GIGABYTE X99 SOC Champion overclocking guide for uncore and memory overclocking

GIGABYTE X99 SOC Champion overclocking guide for uncore and memory overclocking


Our technical marketing guru, Sofos, has put together an advanced overclocking guide based around uncore and memory overclocking using the GIGABYTE X99 SOC Champion motherboard and chipset so make sure you check this out if you are on X99 platform and need a few pointers.

1. Adjust the OC switch the position 2, otherwise you won’t have the voltages you need for Uncore and memories.
Clipboard01
2. Voltages for Uncore
In the CPU Advanced Voltages, when you have the OC switch in the 2 position, you will see some extra voltages. VL1 to VL6.
You only have to change VL4, VL5 and VL6 as below.
Clipboard01d
The voltage you have to change to get higher uncore is mostly the VL6. Almost all the CPUs can do 1.45V, most of the CPUs can do 1.5V but some CPUs can do even higher Voltage. There are few CPUs that boot with lower than 1.45V though. If the CPU can do high VL6 then probably it can do and high Uncore but not all the times. It depends on the CPU. In the OS through GTL all you have to do is to raise the VRING to 1.45V-1.5V in able to get high Uncore.
Temperature also helps with VL6 and uncore. If you are using subzero cooling try to find ideal temperature for max VL6 value and then see how high the uncore will clock. VRING is another voltage option that helps some CPUs. Try 1.35v and if going subzero, test up to 1.55 to see if there is any scaling.

3. RTLs
You can change the RTLs but not manually only changing the IOLs manually. IOLs to 1 will bring the RTLs all the way down to what the board is capable of until now. You need to change the IOLs at every channel. Set the option at manual mode and change the primary and secondary timings only for channel A and then change the IOLs to each channel manually.

Clipboard01dd

4. Use both 8pin and 4pin cables for CPU Power otherwise with heavy load the system maybe will be shutting down.

5. You don’t need extremely high VSA and VDIMM. VSA between +0.25-0.35V should be enough to drive the mems high. +0.25-+0.3V should max your mems on most cases. VDIMM 1.55-1.65V is ok. I was able to do even C11 with 1.6V.
Clipboard01dsds

6. Few times you will see codes like 72, 74, 50, 51, 60, 8A. Try to press the reset button few times. There’re times that doing it it passes the training. Especially when you change the RTLs and you get 8A try it for sure. It doesn’t happen on latest bios so often.https://www.dropbox.com/s/g46ggra2mtkvv4z/F4f.rar?dl=0

7. X99 MemTweak, GTLhttps://www.dropbox.com/s/546fstudskrtpb8/GTL%202.1%20B15.0129.1.rar?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/op86rsq2ikubgcl/MemoryTweak-X99%20B14.1218.1.rar?dl=0
Highest bootable VL6 cannot be overridden through software. Same value that your CPU won’t boot from bios if you set it through software it will shut down.

8. Please be careful! The VLs can affect your CPU cold bug so make sure that when you change you don’t hit the cold bug earlier than before. If you have this problem try higher or lower VL3 (usually higher helps). If VL3 doesn’t fix your problem then try the same for VL6.
Also, different bclk affects the cold bug too, so try this as well. Almost all the CPUs are ok with 127.5 bclk and PCI3.

9. Make sure that you’re using proper insulation around the memories area and also put some paper towel around the PCH cooler. The way that worked best for us was a layer of plastidip, then a layer of Vaseline and paper towel.

10. Always save a profile before you save and exit cause most of the times the only way to go back is the CMOS button.

11. For memory voltage we used up to 1.9V on single sided dimms on LN2 without a problem. But it doesn’t mean that all the dimms can handle it so be careful in case you don’t want to degrade or kill your memories. Dino was benching with 1.8V without any issue.

Enjoy!


Available link for download

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Friday, October 28, 2016

GIGABYTE Z97X SOC FORCE LN2 Keeps on Collecting Records!

GIGABYTE Z97X SOC FORCE LN2 Keeps on Collecting Records!


Thanks to Team Lab501, the GIGABYTE Z97X-SOC FORCE LN2 collects even more records!
During the DreamHack Masters 2014 held in Bucharest last week-end, Team Lab501 (Monstru and Matose) showed off their skills at the HyperX booth. During their overclocking demonstration at the gaming event, not only did they managed to get a lot of attention on overclcoking with LN2, but also broke a few records!!
Using the GIGABYTE Z97X-SOC FORCE LN2 motherboard, overclocker Matose did indeed impress everyone with his skills by collecting to top score on PiFast with 9sec and 770ms, thus taking on the WORLD RECORD!! http://hwbot.org/submission/2667738
image
But that was not all, Matose had one more trick under his sleeve that he kept to keep the crowd on their toes. On the same motherboard, he collected the Hardware Top Score on SuperPi – 1M !! http://hwbot.org/submission/2667731
image
One other Z97X-SOC FORCE LN2 achievement made by the Lab501 Matose is this CPU Frequency of 7101.67 MHZ using a 4770K. Although it is not a world record, it is the highest frequency ever achieved on the Z97X-SOC FORCE LN2!  http://hwbot.org/submission/2667737_
image
You can find more pictures of the event on Facebook here:
https://www.facebook.com/monstru.lab/media_set?set=a.866332913400144.1073741902.100000703307781&type=1
10468485_866332933400142_4726522990861482840_o 10373021_866332986733470_1440486177855142746_o
Nice work Lab501!


Available link for download

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Thursday, October 20, 2016

GIGABYTE X99 SOC Champion breaks XTU world record and highest DDR4 memory frequency

GIGABYTE X99 SOC Champion breaks XTU world record and highest DDR4 memory frequency


HWBOT lit up today with some more scores from GIGABYTE X99 SOC Champion coupled with DDR4 and 5960X CPU. First score was the highest DDR4 memory frequency done by hicookie. New DDR4 frequency top score was set with Corsair DDR4 memory and it stands at DDR4-4326 (2163.3MHz).

HWBOT score link: http://hwbot.org/submission/2745882_hicookie_memory_clock_ddr4_sdram_2163.3_mhz

It comes with a video validation showing oscilloscope measurements confirming the frequency.

Clipboard01s

image_id_1331606

The latest XTU world record was also broken by dinos22 on GIGABYTE X99 SOC Champion motherboard. New world record XTU score is at 3039 points running 5920MHz CPU frequency on Intel 5960X CPU powered by a 1500W Corsair PSU.

HWBOT score link: http://hwbot.org/submission/2746285_dinos22_xtu_core_i7_5960x_3039_marks

Clipboard01

image_id_1331820image_id_1331821


Available link for download

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Saturday, October 8, 2016

GIGABYTE Z97X SOC Mobo Featured in Project Modern Orange

GIGABYTE Z97X SOC Mobo Featured in Project Modern Orange


When it comes to making an epic case mod, leave it to Matteo Amodio from Italy to do it right. In its latest creation, Project Modern Orange, you can spot the GIGABYTE Z97X-SOC, which fits perfectly with the orange theme of the build.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here are a few for your viewing pleasure!

You can find more picture here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/matteoamodio/sets/72157652762878630/

 

18098134704_91a48e442c_o18723049861_bf14c2f4cf_o18534375309_a2423732fa_o18532774790_6ab85ffe72_o


Available link for download

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Tuesday, October 4, 2016

GIGABYTE X99 SOC Champion 6950X Broadwell E Overclocking Guide

GIGABYTE X99 SOC Champion 6950X Broadwell E Overclocking Guide


GIGABYTE X99 SOC Champion OC Guide (Broadwell E Update)
by dinos22 & sofos1990


1.       SINGLE BIOS mode: make sure you turn it ON (position 2). This switch will disable Dual bios mode in case it triggers a bios switch or update due to OC fail.


2.       This CPU_Mode switch is ONLY required for 5960X (Haswell-E) and it is not required for Broadwell-E (6950X). We suggest that you leave it in DEFAULT position (position 1)

3.       POWER DRAW: Our testing has shown that Broadwell-E draws less power than Haswell-E, despite the fact it has a higher amount of cores. This is welcome news as some PSUs were having problems with OCP shutdown as power draw exceeded the Amp draw limit on 12V rail. This may still be happening on PSUs of lesser quality or with aggressive OCP spec. We recommend discussing with peers what PSUs to use for extreme OC.

4.       CB (Cold Bug) & CBB (Cold Boot Bug) changes: From our experience testing 6950X CPUs, weve seen very similar behaviour with CB and CBB overall. CB is generally between -95C and -110C. CBB is more CPU specific and can sometimes be same as CB but mostly ranges around -90C.

Some tips: Find your CB and CBB first and test it a few times. Once you have a rough idea, it will make it a lot smoother to bench your CPU. Here are some post LED codes to watch out for:
·        Post Code "bF": When you restart and you see post code "bF", switch off PSU and let all power drain from board before switching PSU back on, start again. Most times it will boot straight back up and you are ready to go. However, you may see post code 91!
·        Post Code "91": Switch PSU off if you see this post code, let power drain from board (you will see power LED light turn off on board so there is no residual power in the board), switch PSU back on and hit start and go. Sometimes you may need to go warmer than your regular CBB (i.e from -90C to -80C) to avoid post code 91.
·        Post Code "BLANK": This is generally CBB (no post code showing at all). Just turn off PSU, warm up below CBB temp (try -80C) and turn on.

This is simply a guide and may not be the case with your CPU so it is advisable to test the limits of your chips specifically.

5.       Voltage Changes, Limits and Frequencies: We are going to talk about 4 categories, core voltage, uncore voltage, memory voltage and voltage limits
·        Core Voltage: Air cooling 4GHz, you are looking at around 1.2vcore. We tested up to 1.35vcore with benchmarks such as XTU and found CPUs were mainly running below throttling temperature and frequency of up to 4.4GHz.

LN2 cooling we find that its best to start with 1.5v at -60C and go colder. Most CPUs will like 1.55vcore with -80 to -110C. Some chips will scale higher with 1.6v-1.7v but majority we tested stop scaling up to 1.6vcore. Majority of CPUs did 5GHz, great CPUs did 5.2GHz and special chips will go beyond 5.3GHz with Cinebench R15. This may change with new retail batches.


VRIN is another voltage you need to use (up to 2V on air and generally 2.2v LN2). 2.6v can kill CPUs so be careful.

PLL TRIM is the last one to look out for. Use +15. Improves OC performance and stability.


LLC (load line calibration), set to Extreme (refer to screenshot below for full settings).

·        Uncore Voltage: This voltage has changed compared to Haswell-E. There are two voltages that affect uncore/cache frequency. One is "VRING" and other is "VccU Offset".

Air testing showed that uncore will scale to 3.75GHz roughly using up to 1.40VRING and +0.25 VccU Offset. You dont really need high VccU offset for air or LN2, +0.25 is generally enough for majority of CPUs.

LN2 testing showed that uncore will scale to 4.6GHz roughly using a mix of voltage and correct temperature. In terms of voltage, we could see uncore scaling up to 1.6VRING and we use +0.25 VccU Offset. You can try higher voltages and see if it helps with your CPU. Temperature is very important with uncore. You must be cold enough to boot at very high uncore clocks (-80C or colder). We recommend booting at lower uncore and using GTL to clock up core and uncore frequency in OS.

Post Code tips: If you see the post code looping after restart and board suddenly shuts down, that usually means the uncore is too high for that boot which will either need colder temp or bios reset and reloading profile. You may see postcodes such as "b0", "bF", "b2" but it might be others as well.


·        Memory Voltage: We will specifically refer to B-die based memory ICs here as they have shown to be best for extreme OC. There are two different volts (VSA & memory volts) you need to use to clock memory well as well as memory voltage training.

VSA voltage is generally recommended in +0.25 to +0.35v.

Memory voltage we generally use 1.6v for 3000MHz 12-12-12-28. For 3400MHz and higher, we use 1.7-1.75v. CPU must be cold (use -80C or higher). 

·        Voltage Limits: CPUs did not really scale past 1.7vcore. Uncore voltage did not really scale past 1.6v on most CPUs. Memory voltage we suggest keeping below 1.8.  Offset voltage and VSA are not needed any higher than previously shown. These are extreme limits and you must find out what your CPU and memory like. If you use too high a volts, you will probably lose max MHz frequency. Best to find the ideal volts for your hardware!              





6.       Post Code LED tips: Please check point 4. & 5. for some tips. We will also provide some additional info for various memory related post code troubleshooting below:
·        Post Code "61": Overtightening CPU pot can cause this post code. This can also be pure memory frequency or vdimm limitation. If a RAM slot is wet, it can also show 61.
·        Post Code "50":  System not detecting memory correctly due to dirt in dimm slot or not inserted properly. Tight timings limitation can also show this code.
·        Post Code "91": Uncore too high, CPU too cold
·        Post Code "8A": 1T unstable, too high VTT termination volts, RTL incorrect
·        Post Code "bF": memory wet

7.       CPU temperature, paste, correct mount and stability: Make sure you have a stable mount when you are overclocking. You will find that once you start to push high frequency and volts that your paste may not work correctly and can become unstable and previously stable frequency. Best way to OC is to use a staggered approach where you start with 4.5GHz profile, 4.8, 5 , 5.2 with specific volts and temp ranges. If you crash at any stage, you probably "lost your mount". Essentially your paste snapped and is not conducting heat properly between CPU HS and CPU pot. One way you can detect this is via a delta probe (keep one temperature probe on HS and second on CPU pot). Quick way to fix this is to turn off system and cool down to -25C and then quickly bring back temps down to cold and start. 90% if the time, you will be able to clock high again but may not be able to get max clocks until full paste remount (full CPU pot warm up, paste replacement etc)

.       B-die memory screenshots


8


9.       GIGABYTE Tweak Launcher (GTL):
Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/nilp1r52k5u0xsx/GTL%202.1%20B16.0527.1.zip?dl=0


10.   BIOS: You don’t need a special bios for extreme overclocking. Download the latest bios from here
http://www.gigabyte.us/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5280#bios

Haswell-E (5960X, 5930K, 5820K) OC Guide


11.   Voltages for Uncore (make sure CPU_Mode switch is turned to ENABLE (position 2)
In the CPU Advanced Voltages  when you have switched to the OC mode you will see some extra voltages. VL1 to VL6.

You only have to change VL4, VL5 and VL6 as below.



The voltage you have to change to get higher uncore is mostly the VL6. Almost all the CPUs can do 1.45V, most of the CPUs can do 1.5V but some CPUs can do even higher Voltage. There are few CPUs that boot with lower than 1.45V though. If the CPU can do high VL6 then probably it can do and high Uncore but not all the times. It depends on the CPU. In the OS through GTL all you have to do is to raise the VRING to 1.45V-1.5V in able to get high Uncore.
12.   RTLs.
You can change the RTLs but not manually only changing the IOLs manually.
IOLs to 1 will bring the RTLs all the way down to what the board is capable of until now.
You need to change the IOLs at every channel. Set the option at manual mode and change the  primary and secondary timings only for channel A and then change the IOLs to each channel manually.


13.   Use both 8pin and 4pin cables for CPU Power otherwise with heavy load the system maybe will be shutting down.

14.   You don’t need extremely high VSA and VDIMM. VSA between +0.25-0.35V should be enough to drive the mems high. +0.25-+0.3V should max your mems on most cases. VDIMM 1.55-1.65V is ok. I was able to do even C11 with 1.6V.




15.   Few times you will see codes like 72, 74, 50, 51, 60, 8A. Try to press the reset button few times. There’re times that doing it it passes the training. Especially when you change the RTLs and you get 8A try it for sure. It doesn’t happen on latest bios so often.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/g46ggra2mtkvv4z/F4f.rar?dl=0


16.   X99 MemTweak, GTL
https://www.dropbox.com/s/546fstudskrtpb8/GTL%202.1%20B15.0129.1.rar?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/op86rsq2ikubgcl/MemoryTweak-X99%20B14.1218.1.rar?dl=0

Highest bootable VL6 cannot be overridden through software. Same value that your CPU won’t boot from bios if you set it through software it will shut down.


17.   Please be careful! The VLs can affect your CPU cold bug so make sure that when you change you don’t hit the cold bug earlier than before. If you have this problem try higher or lower VL3 (usually higher helps). If VL3 doesn’t fix your problem then try the same for VL6.
Also, different bclk affects the cold bug too, so try this as well. Almost all the CPUs are ok with 127.5 bclk and PCI3.

18.   Make sure that you’re using proper insulation around the memories area and also put some paper towel around the PCH cooler. The way that worked best for us was a layer of plastidip, then a layer of Vaseline and  paper towel.

Available link for download

Read more »