Nameless LGA 775 build

[Avacado]

Alright. I am sure with all of the luck disaster I have had this past year with builds that this should be smooth right?

 

I wanted to build a LGA 775 that I can trace my enthusiast roots to. The intent is to get the whole thing on water and dominate. We'll see how that goes. There are a few components I have had trouble finding. Namely Mosfet waterblocks. 

 

Build list:

 

1.  Board - EVGA Nforce 790i
2.  CPU (I bought a few) - Q6600, Q8200, E8400, QX6850.
3.  RAM - G.Skill F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ 9-9-9-24, Mushkin Blackline PC3-12800 7-9-7-24
4.  GPU's - 3 x EVGA 660Ti's
5.  I'll do the rest later.

 

 

[Avacado]

Some parts

 

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by Avacado

[pio]

Looking good so far!

[schuck6566]

If you have issues, I have a good q6600 you're welcome to if needed. It came on a board I'd bought for a xeon mod build a few years back.

[tenchimuyo93]

Bring back memories of my DFI/Q6600 build. First one that wasn't used or spare parts.

[Avacado]

I have had family in town all week/end. Have not had any time to play with it. 

[Avacado]

So, it works! Looks like the MOBO came with a Q9450 in it. Not too shabby. I wanted to install Win 7 because at some point I want to bench the dual GTX290's that I have and it won't run on win 10 anymore. Right now the FSB is running un-linked and out of spec. Have to get Tri-sli enabled for the 3 GTX660's. 

 

I looked so damn hard for a thumbdrive with win7, but did not have one. Busted out the old DVD drive and did it the old fashioned way. 

 

 

 

The Tuniq is coming all the way from Canadia. Plan to get it going along with the Q6850. I picked up a few socket 771 Xeons and shunts to mod on @pioneerisloudrecommend. I bought a few extra shitty ones to test my filing skills first. 

Edited December 12, 2021 by Avacado

[pio]

I just hope the 790 SLI board is compatible with the Xeon mods, that was one thing I wasn't sure on was board compatibility.  I always ran the Intel series boards back then (for the mods), 965p, p35 and p45 boards.

[Avacado]

2 hours ago, pioneerisloud said:

I just hope the 790 SLI board is compatible with the Xeon mods, that was one thing I wasn't sure on was board compatibility.  I always ran the Intel series boards back then (for the mods), 965p, p35 and p45 boards.

It's all good if it doesn't. I literally have no other projects going atm. So I can dedicate to this one.

[Avacado]

SLI up and running. Dropped in the Extreme Quad for the unlocked multi. Not pushing it yet, but will. I got impatient waiting on the Tuniq. I am impressed by how responsive this system is given it's age. Haven't played any games on it yet. Would still make a beast of a media rig. 

 

 

 

Edited December 13, 2021 by Avacado

[pio]

3.6GHz on a 65nm Core 2 Quad......man that's not a bad chip.  And under 1.40v?  That's basically an unlocked Q6600 G0 if I'm not mistaken, so damn good overclock on it so far!  Your early quad rig is quite a huge step up from the one I built lol.  That's one seriously mean retro rig.  Love it!

I was very pleasantly surprised by how well my Phenom I 9850BE rig runs too in 2021.  Seems like ANY quad core CPU is still at the very least "usable" today.  Let me know if you get bored and want to run Left 4 Dead 2, Killing Floor, or any other era appropriate titles that I might have lol.  It's one thing to build it and see it run, its entirely different enjoying a game on it.

[schuck6566]

15 hours ago, pioneerisloud said:

I just hope the 790 SLI board is compatible with the Xeon mods, that was one thing I wasn't sure on was board compatibility.  I always ran the Intel series boards back then (for the mods), 965p, p35 and p45 boards.

 

13 hours ago, Avacado said:

It's all good if it doesn't. I literally have no other projects going atm. So I can dedicate to this one.

The 790i is happy with the xeon mod, for an example here's a striker II Extreme with a x5470 OC'd to between 4.5-4.6Ghz with a pair of 980ti's running.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti video card benchmark result - Intel Xeon Processor X5470,ASUSTeK Computer INC. STRIKER II EXTREME

WWW.3DMARK.COM

---

Intel Xeon Processor X5470, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti x 2, 8192 MB, 64-bit Windows 7}

@Laithan will recognize his machine & score I'm sure

 

[mouacyk]

X5470 is absolute cream of the crop for this board. At stock voltages, I was able to run at 4GHz. With about 1.425v, it was  able to push 4.4GHz for benches.

[Avacado]

Delete

 

 

Edited December 14, 2021 by Avacado

[Avacado]

 

So then the X5492 and X5472's I bought should be winners. Fingers crossed.

 

Edited December 14, 2021 by Avacado

[Avacado]

[schuck6566]

On 14/12/2021 at 12:17, Avacado said:

 

So then the X5492 and X5472's I bought should be winners. Fingers crossed.

 

The problem with the x5472 and x5492 is that they are already 1600MHz cpu's so the OC headroom is slim to none.

[Avacado]

Fair point. X5470 purchased. 

 

So small update. 1 of the 660Ti's is faulty, was getting errors running benches in tri-sli even though it seemed to be working fine. After inspecting each individually I found it was really messed up. Not to worry, got another one coming. 

 

Not able to boot the Muskin's at rated timings @1600. Not sure what is going on there. Tried running 2 sticks and CPU at default speeds, no joy. 

Edited December 18, 2021 by Avacado

[pio]

Extremely early DDR3 memory controller.  Did the Core 2 boards even run DDR3 1600 speeds?  I thought it was the original Core i7's that first started hitting 1600 speeds with Intel?  Maybe try 1333 speeds to see if its a board limitation?  I don't know for sure, I never ran DDR3 on the Core 2 systems.

[Avacado]

4 hours ago, pioneerisloud said:

Extremely early DDR3 memory controller.  Did the Core 2 boards even run DDR3 1600 speeds?  I thought it was the original Core i7's that first started hitting 1600 speeds with Intel?  Maybe try 1333 speeds to see if its a board limitation?  I don't know for sure, I never ran DDR3 on the Core 2 systems.

The EVGA 790i Supports 1600 and even 2000 in 2 of the 4 slots. I have run the 4 sticks of Muskin mem at 1733 and did not have any crashes. Just not able to run the specified timings of 7-9-7. Though I did not run any mem tests. 

Edited December 19, 2021 by Avacado

[pio]

39 minutes ago, Avacado said:

The EVGA 790i Supports 1600 and even 2000 in 2 of the 4 slots. I have run the 4 sticks of Muskin mem at 1733 and did not have any crashes. Just not able to run the specified timings of 7-9-7. Though I did not run any mem tests. 

Gotcha.  I wasn't sure, but figured I'd try to help anyway lol.  The timings on those are pretty tight, you might need more voltage to the IMC perhaps?  Idk, all my setups (so far) have the IMC on die so my old tinkering is a tad different than what you're playing with.

As others stated already, the X5470 is absolutely one of the best Xeons you can mod into these old 775 boards.  It's a 333 / 1333 FSB chip with a 10x multiplier.  Very easy 400 FSB to get to 4GHz with it.  Good 775 boards can do ~450-500 FSB.  That 10x multi really does help a TON.  I had mine at 4.2GHz on a 965p board on a proper loop back when I did it.

And I saw that picture of the rig together.  Holy brick man!  That's one CHUNKY  rig!!!  

Edited December 19, 2021 by pioneerisloud

[schuck6566]

13 hours ago, Avacado said:

The EVGA 790i Supports 1600 and even 2000 in 2 of the 4 slots. I have run the 4 sticks of Muskin mem at 1733 and did not have any crashes. Just not able to run the specified timings of 7-9-7. Though I did not run any mem tests. 

Alot of people have issues getting the memory "up to speed" if you will because that was with the early ddr3 for nvidia that used higher voltages and the boards are defaulted to that to start. (the sticks made for the nvidia 790i chipset = 1.7v 2000Mhz with a green heat spreader) Other 2000Mhz memory was 2.0v at the time. Might be why the newer 1.3 volt memory has issues?

[Avacado]

Had a bit of time to work on the rig tonight. The X5470 arrived and is modded and installed. I attached the CPU block, NB and SB blocks. There was 1 mosfet block, but of course the other did not fit so I had to make one. I will be attaching a 25mm fan to the cpu mount that aims over the 1 mosfet block that is not on water. 

 

The 4th 660Ti also arrived and survived a Cloudgate run. I think it's safe to transition it to water. Once complete, all the blocks should be installed and ready to go. 

 

Before:

 

 

Crafting Mosfet B heatsink. 

 

 

After with all blocks installed. 

 

Edited December 28, 2021 by Avacado

[Laithan]

On 13/12/2021 at 10:58, schuck6566 said:

 

The 790i is happy with the xeon mod, for an example here's a striker II Extreme with a x5470 OC'd to between 4.5-4.6Ghz with a pair of 980ti's running.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti video card benchmark result - Intel Xeon Processor X5470,ASUSTeK Computer INC. STRIKER II EXTREME

WWW.3DMARK.COM

---

Intel Xeon Processor X5470, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 Ti x 2, 8192 MB, 64-bit Windows 7}

@Laithan will recognize his machine & score I'm sure

 

 

Just learned about this thread. Build is looking great!

 

Ahh those were some fun days! Yeah the X5470 isn't unlocked but it has a 10x multi which is "good enough" for most overclocking needs and runs @ 1600Mhz bus with no issue at all (and even higher). 

 

Getting above 1600Mhz with 4 sticks is tricky and usually requires the right memory and 1.5v on the NB (where the memory controller resides for this generation) which produces a ton of heat, but possible. The nice thing is that you can clock the memory speed and CPU bus seperately (unlinked).

 

These 790i Ultra chipsets were definitely ahead of their time and IMO stand out among one of the best ever made (not to be confused with the 780 chipset). 

 

I'm glad to see they are still getting some love in 2022 (close enough to say that )

 

Good luck!

Edited December 29, 2021 by Laithan

[Avacado]

2 hours ago, Laithan said:

 

Just learned about this thread. Build is looking great!

 

Ahh those were some fun days! Yeah the X5470 isn't unlocked but it has a 10x multi which is "good enough" for most overclocking needs and runs @ 1600Mhz bus with no issue at all (and even higher). 

 

Getting above 1600Mhz with 4 sticks is tricky and usually requires the right memory and 1.5v on the NB (where the memory controller resides for this generation) which produces a ton of heat, but possible. The nice thing is that you can clock the memory speed and CPU bus seperately (unlinked).

 

These 790i Ultra chipsets were definitely ahead of their time and IMO stand out among one of the best ever made (not to be confused with the 780 chipset). 

 

I'm glad to see they are still getting some love in 2022 (close enough to say that )

 

Good luck!

Indeed. Going to run 2x4GB sticks. These just came.

 

 

Not worried about heat. I have the NB/SB and VRM 1 under water. I was actually looking at clearances to delid. Should be fun.