Gigabyte P55A-UD6 & 870 ES

[Buckeye]

Had a chance to bench a 870 ES CPU on the P55A-UD6, was not a whole lot better than the 860 ES. As I compared this 870 ES to other retails I can see this chip requires a fair amount more of vcore as the OC is upped and still does not like extreme cold very much.

All of this was done on SS Phase and as I got to around 4.6ghz it was really stressing the Phase unit because of the vcore need to boot and run benches.

Cascade operation was just to painful as it seems to CB not to far past what Ss Phase could do so I would have to shut down the 2nd stage to get it to boot, then fire it back up and heaven help you if you had crash and had to reboot. While I was at -100c it really didn't seem to help much and this chip was very unstable so I stopped Cascade operations.

If this seemed like a good chip I would have gotten some DICE but I didn't think it was worth the cost of DICE to even mess with this CPU.

So here are some screens of how it all went down, starting at 4.0ghz and going as high as it would take me.

4.0ghz 2D runs
http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/4937/87040ghzaaa.jpg (http://img121.imageshack.us/i/87040ghzaaa.jpg/)

4.0ghz 3D runs with 2x 260gtx's in SLI
http://img188.imageshack.us/img188/1888/87040ghz3daaa.jpg (http://img188.imageshack.us/i/87040ghz3daaa.jpg/)

4.4ghz 2D runs
http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/2120/87044ghzaaa.jpg (http://img14.imageshack.us/i/87044ghzaaa.jpg/)

4.4ghz 3D runs 2x 260gtx's in SLI
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/8054/87044ghz3daaa.jpg (http://img689.imageshack.us/i/87044ghz3daaa.jpg/)

4.6ghz 2D runs
http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/351/87046ghzaaa.jpg (http://img163.imageshack.us/i/87046ghzaaa.jpg/)

4.8ghz 2D runs
http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/5508/87048ghzaaa.jpg (http://img69.imageshack.us/i/87048ghzaaa.jpg/)


Final notes:
I compared my results with the AnandTech results seen here
http://www.anandtech.com/GalleryImage.aspx?id=7111

I see that they are usin a few different RAM timings than I have so I will try and see if I can get the ones they used on mine and what the results might be. They do not seem to show there RAM speed tho. I did take mine up to 2000mhz but it did not seem to help so I went for tighter RAM timings which did help me out. My chip would simply not boot at the vcore they used :(

[Buckeye]

I am not sure what is going on with these CPU's I have tried. I see boostedevo was hitting 5ghz with 1.5vcore, mine would not even boot unless I was close to 1.7vcore which was just to much load for SS Phase.

Sometime wrong with the ES CPU's or board, I dont know, maybe its just me.

I did get a Dominator GT 2000mhz RAM kit were I could really tighten up the RAM timings and thats what I used on these last runs, but getting to 2000mhz was not easy, where as on my other Dominator 1600mhz kits I could get to 2000mhz easy but could not get the RAM very tight.

So in the end of all this I am scratching my head going crappy ES CPU's or something wrong with the board, I don't know. The more I see what others are doing I am begging to think something is up with the MB as 2 ES CPU's now are doing pretty much the same thing.

Just to add here...

One of the 860's had some burnt pads and stains all over the back and not even cleaned the tim completly off.

The 870 I used here had black marker with a date writen on it and that went back to July I think it was, will have to pull CPU off and double check that.

These ES's that I have gotten have clearly been around the block a few times.

So it could also just be the board, I don't know.
This chips freak at the thought of going colder than a SS Phase so no Cascade or LN2 as the cost for that to run at DICE temps plus how baddly they have been running on Phase just doesnt make sense.

Thinking my Dominator 1600 RAM just wasnt cutting it anymore I went and purchased the Dominator GT 2000mhz kit which was costly and tbh that didn't even help much. But I throw this new kit on my MA790FXT-UD5P and 965 C3 and they sing like crazy.

Then its possible I am just horrible with these P55 boards, which is prolly true. All I know is I have been fighting this board and CPU's for weeks and not getting anywhere fast.