Discussion i7 Extreme Edition + Dual GPU Build Log

[NightHawkRMX]

I was having a conversation with a friend, and it went a bit as follows:
Friend: "You need to join the X58 party if you haven't already"
Me: I really dislike the pricing of X58. $75 for a 12 year old board, no thanks."(paraphrasing)

Then it hit me, I had another friend that was really into X58, I wonder if he would have anything.
Turns out, he did.

i7 960+stock cooler+msi x58+18gb ddr3 for $100 shipped (after some negotiation)
Then I happened to be browsing eBay one day and saw a person parting out an X58 pc. Selling things like a very fancy asus rog x58 board, an i7 990x, and a 3 stick kit of Corsair Dominator. I bought out the auction for the 990x so I didn't lose it. paid $69 for it. Nice. I just bid the min for the ram and ended up winning it for $15 (with $8 shipping).
I picked up the GTX590 for like $70 on FB.

Current Specs:

Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 990x 6 core
Corsair A70 Dual 120mm Tower Cooler
MSI X58A-GD65 ATX Motherboard
24gb (6x4gb) DDR3 1600
Corsair Airflow Ram Cooling Kit
EVGA Classified GTX590 (Dual GTX580 SLI)
NZXT S340 Red+Black (already owned)
Segotep 600w 80+ Gold PSU (had lying around)

The ram came in today. I have yet to thoroughly test it, I will get to that once my storage comes. Sadly, BOTH of the fan bearings for the cooler appear to be shot, and this was not mentioned in the listing. The top fan barely spins and is very stiff. The bottom one spins fine but is very loud.

As for storage, I purchased 2 Samsung 830 Series 128gb SSDs today. One for this system, one for my Sandy Bridge PC. Period correct drives (circa 2011, close enough), but also top tier for the time.

https://imgur.com/IqRmRZ3

View: https://imgur.com/IqRmRZ3

https://imgur.com/I9g10kq

View: https://imgur.com/I9g10kq

https://imgur.com/DLyunsN

View: https://imgur.com/DLyunsN

https://imgur.com/i5MNQ9z

View: https://imgur.com/i5MNQ9z


I have some future plans.

1. Upgrade the PSU. The Segotep is "fine" but I don't like any amount of ugly cables.
2. Fix the fans for the ram.
3. Upgrade storage even more. Get rid of the ancient 2tb Barracuda in my NAS, and put it in here is my first idea, but replacing a data drive in my nas is not as simple as it should be given how it is set up, so that might wait.
4. Perhaps get another GTX590 and have 4 way SLI? I tried to buy 2 of them from a seller who had many, but sadly the seller had already sold all but 1 by the time I messaged them.

 

[Eximo]

Cool. I kind of miss my i7-960, it was fun to overclock, eventually settled on 3.67Ghz at 167 BCLK, but I think after a few years of the memory at 1.65 volts it started to burn out and would only support dual channel. Paid $300 for the ram for that thing when I bought it. If it blows up on you I have a maybe okay Rampage Formula III sitting around, haven't gotten new memory to try it out.

I had a pair of ASUS GTX580 DCUII in mine, was a beast of a power hog (though not the CPU, actually undervolted that thing)

I also have one of those memory coolers, but mine also had fan problems after about a year. Should be sitting in a box somewhere.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

I don't have much experience ocing this gen of CPU.t On experience was with an i7 940, Asus X58 Sabertooth, and an old Corsair 240mm aio. I don't recall what settings I used, but I remember taking it up to something like 4.1ghz just for a short period of time via base clock. It wasn't very stable but it worked somewhat.

I will oc this 990x, but I really hope I don't kill it.

Failures of this generation of CPU seem pretty common. The friend that wanted me to get an x58 pc has a i7 980x that will not run stable unless heavily overvolted.

I wonder if your case was the memory controller, ram, or the board itself?

 

[faalin]

The good old X58 days, now those were fun days.

Ran a i7 950 @ 4.6Ghz 24/7 and 4.9Ghz during the winter for benchmarks
Asus rampage 3 extreme board
12GB Mushkin Enhanced ridgback 6x2GB 1600Mhz 6-8-6-24
2 Zotac GTX 480 amp edition

I later moved to a i7 980x @4.4Ghz and multiple version of GPUs
2 580's
4 670's superclocks
3 780 ti classifieds

 

[NightHawkRMX]

I went ahead and repasted the GPU(s).

That was not a fun one to take apart. The thermal pads fell to pieces too.

Will have to see what temps are like.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

The good old X58 days, now those were fun days.

Ran a i7 950 @ 4.6Ghz 24/7 and 4.9Ghz during the winter for benchmarks
Asus rampage 3 extreme board
12GB Mushkin Enhanced ridgback 6x2GB 1600Mhz 6-8-6-24
2 Zotac GTX 480 amp edition

I later moved to a i7 980x @4.4Ghz and multiple version of GPUs
2 580's
4 670's superclocks
3 780 ti classifieds

That's quite the overclock. This cooler got a 2500k to like 4.8 all core, so it's decent, but not the best by far. I might get 4ghz out of it.

 

[faalin]

Ran 2 480mm and a 240mm danger den black ice extreme radiators
480 for CPU
480 for GPU's
240 for motherbaord

I ran 21 Scythe Ultra Kaze 120mm 3000RPM fans, each radiator ran in a push pull config. during the winter i would use cardboard to duct air from a window straight into the radiators. During benchmarks the GPUs would stay around 3c and the CPU was 9-15c. During the summer i would drop the GHz back down and play with the bclk and multiplyer to see how fast i could get the ram, its been a while but it was just north of 2200Mhz

This was the last config before i put it in my sever rack to do file storage and backups

 

[NightHawkRMX]

I do have 2400mhz ddr3 in my sandy bridge pc. I wonder how fast I could get it in this x58 pc...

It won't post at the rated 2400mhz in my z68 board, so I doubt it will here

 

[faalin]

you'd be surprised playing with the Bclk and multiplier you can get some good speeds out of the ram. Doing a 23x173 vs 21x190 will net you different ram speeds

 

[NightHawkRMX]

If it blows up on you I have a maybe okay Rampage Formula III sitting around, haven't gotten new memory to try it out.

Cost?

 

[NightHawkRMX]

https://ibb.co/bXmjcWr

https://ibb.co/gm3GRVy

Just ran a Ubuntu live usb and checked everything. All is showing up and operating properly.

 

[Eximo]

Cost?

Probably shipping, it just decorates my shelf. Aside from doing something silly like building my own CPU cooler, I have no use for it.

I have a whole other computer sitting as well. My brother swore he was going to take it so I kept it, and kept it, now it is basically obsolete and I stole the CPU and memory and put in my HTPC. So got a Maximus Hero VI rocking an i3 and 8GB of DDR3. Probably just need to ebay a 4790k/4790 and sell it off while it is still halfway useful. Convert one of my GTX980 back to air cooling and find someone who wants to game on it.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Probably shipping, it just decorates my shelf. Aside from doing something silly like building my own CPU cooler, I have no use for it.

I have a whole other computer sitting as well. My brother swore he was going to take it so I kept it, and kept it, now it is basically obsolete and I stole the CPU and memory and put in my HTPC. So got a Maximus Hero VI rocking an i3 and 8GB of DDR3. Probably just need to ebay a 4790k/4790 and sell it off while it is still halfway useful. Convert one of my GTX980 back to air cooling and find someone who wants to game on it.

I am certainly interested. Located in USA?

We can continue in DM.

You could sell the full haswell pc for a fair bit rn mostly due to the GTX980.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

My Samsung SSDs arrived yesterday.

Sadly they are an OEM variety of the 830 series ssd, but I did open one and it appears to have the same exact chips as the retail. These just look less pretty.

I was able to install Windows but ran into some problems.

https://ibb.co/JmNyKs5

Windows decided to hardware reserve all but 3gb of my ram for some reason.
A few cmos clears and a windows reinstall later, that issue solved itself and the pc works fine.

My dvi monitor is giving me issues, so while I wait for an adapter I can't really use the pc sadly for benchmarks, so that will have to wait.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

I was able to remove the rubber plugs from the fans on the ram cooler and lubricate them. This made them silent and work properly again.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Currently messaging from the x58 pc.

I am impressed with how well the PSU handles this system tbh. Not a flinch running furmark (both GPUs at 100%) and prime 95 at the same time.

https://imgur.com/2YWxQ0K

View: https://imgur.com/2YWxQ0K


Here is R20 running on this old CPU. It about ties a 5ghz 2600k in multi. Single core is kinda pathetic.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

I am getting a WD black 1tb drive soon. Will probably be the next addition since 128gb isnt great

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Oh also, I added a top exhaust fan. Wil look for another spare fan to add as front intake.

Airflow is not bad, but there is still a ~4c GPU temperature delta from removing the side panel.

The 590 runs about like you would expect. GPUs in the mid to high 80s. This is with a fresh repaste too. It hasn't throttled, luckily.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Just purchased an EVGA GQ850W for this pc.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

My PSU arrived, as did 1tb more storage. I also received an EVGA GD600w, which is completely different from the last GD600w (2019) I had. Teardown pending.

As for the EVGA GQ 850w, it is massive and really solid. I am not a fan of flat cables TBH, but it looks a lot nicer. The sleeved fixed 24 pin honestly is much nicer than dealing with a flat 24 pin on a fully modular PSU.

https://imgur.com/8UqZDdk

View: https://imgur.com/8UqZDdk


I

 

[NightHawkRMX]

It has been awhile since I updated this thread, but since then I have been working on an overclock.

Currently I have managed 4.3ghz at +160mv offset which ends up at about 1.36v in windows under prime 95 workload.

Scores quite impressive for a computer that is (barely) over a decade old at this point.

Stock Cinebench R20
Single: 224
Multi: 1726
4.3ghz Cinebench R20
Single: 260
Multi: 2071

I will try more ocing later if I get a chance, but I mainly am running into cooling limits.

Although, I still am impressed at how well this cooler is taking a 4.3ghz 6 core extreme edition

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Since last update, I have changed this computer significantly, and now need a new profile picture.

• Swapped out the cooler for a Cooler Master ML240L (v1)
• Upgraded the ram to 24gb (6x4gb) Corsair Dominator
• Swapped the motherboard to an EVGA X58 SLI
• Added a generic USB3 card pulled from another PC
• Moved my Asus Xonar DG PCI sound card from my 2600k machine over here.
• Changed case fan config