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Here are some porn.

The Gigabyte EX38/X48-DS4 DDR2 board, The EX38/X48-DS5 and EX38/X48-DQ6 boards are identical to the DS4 just other cooling and 2 more SATA ports.

My main machine (the one I'm typing this from) has a GA-EX38-DS4. Excellent board with a full set of legacy ports. Can't run the nicer Xeons though. Hopefully I get a few more years of service out of it. Maybe I'll upgrade when Skylake comes out or something.... or not.

NJRoadfan wrote:

Skyscraper wrote:

Here are some porn.

The Gigabyte EX38/X48-DS4 DDR2 board, The EX38/X48-DS5 and EX38/X48-DQ6 boards are identical to the DS4 just other cooling and 2 more SATA ports.

My main machine (the one I'm typing this from) has a GA-EX38-DS4. Excellent board with a full set of legacy ports. Can't run the nicer Xeons though. Hopefully I get a few more years of service out of it. Maybe I'll upgrade when Skylake comes out or something.... or not.

The GA-EX38-DS4 is the same board the the X48-DS4 while the earlier (non E) X38-DS4 is a bit different.

Dont try to flash the X48-DS4 BIOS though as Gigabytes dual BIOS finds a mismatch and wont post unless you desolder the second BIOS chip. There is no other way as I understand it to make a "crossflash" while keeping dual BIOS functionality other than desoldering the second BIOS chip and flashing it outside the computer and then solder it back after flashing the X48 BIOS to the main BIOS chip.

After the crossflash your X38 northbridge is transformed into a X48 northbridge... as they are the same, Intel just changed the name to sell more...

The battle rages on!

I managed to get to the goal post!... or so I thought.
I finally managed to get 4275 MHz stable with acceptable V-core to keep the temperature in check without much noise.

I had to increase the CPU drive strenght from 800mV to 900mV and I had to set CPU GTLREF1 to +3% while keeping GTLREF2 at normal, CPU skew at 50ps and Northbridge skew at normal.

Voltages in the BIOS

Memory: +0.4V = 2.2V
V-Core: 1.4375 V (Real voltage 1.4V idle, 1.38V-1.39V load)
PCI-E Voltage: +0.2V = 1.7V (I think this is the same as PLL Voltage on other boards)
VTT: +0.35V = 1.45V (No pull down of the rising edge of the clocksignal from V-core to VTT for this CPU, I will trust the VTT as an absolute limiter of the clock signal instead)
Northbridge: +0.35V = 1.55V

And the fruit of all labor... wait a minute... isnt this 3dmark score lower than the one at 4.2 GHZ?!?
I made no changes when it comes to straps and/or memory timings but the CPU score is much lower...

Then I tried all FSB settings from 467 MHZ to 475 MHz, the scores keeps rising until 474 MHz then drop alot at 475 MHz.
I have found a strap setting beyond my control that changes at 475 MHz FSB. Not much I can do about it other than be happy with 9*474 = 4266 MHz.

Frybench at 4275 MHz, a worse score than at 4200 MHz...

Frybench at 4266 MHz, a better score that should be in the same ballpark as some newer i5 systems running at stock speed.

The EX38's BIOS allows the faster FSB settings regardless, no need to cross flash. I wonder if adding the missing SATA connectors is all that is needed to get those ports working. The AHCI BIOS for the "Gigabyte SATA2" chip is still present. Seems like a silly way to cut costs.

Just a little OT question - does the (modded) Xeon Dempsey work with socket 775 boards? I'm familiar with the Core2 Xeon 771 -> 775 mods... but it seems noone is using these Netburst ones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Xe … 65_nm.29.5B4.5D

It would be nice to run these in 775 board as a much cheaper replacement of a Pentium D EE.

havli wrote:

Just a little OT question - does the (modded) Xeon Dempsey work with socket 775 boards? I'm familiar with the Core2 Xeon 771 -> 775 mods... but it seems noone is using these Netburst ones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Xe … 65_nm.29.5B4.5D

It would be nice to run these in 775 board as a much cheaper replacement of a Pentium D EE.

I think they would run but perhaps not in all motherboards.
I would try Intel 975X, 965PE or P35 rather than P45 or nForce 780i/790i.

A Dempsey with 1066 MHz FSB would probably be best as 667 MHz isnt a common FSB on socket 775 boards

I have a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3 modified to support 771 Xeons. I gues I'll give it a try.
Agreed - 667 FSB Xeon might be problematic, probably BSEL mod would be necesary.

Extreme necro, but i'm doing this for future reference:

Just tried my QHZK xeon 5050 (dempsey) engineering sample on my asus p5k-vm. Worked straight away, no issues with fsb. runs at the native 667mhz.

Oh - and the dempsey chips i've tried work just fine, even ES. microcode is a bit of an issue though. it won't stop it from working, but it's a pain to put it in the bios correctly.