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The Gigabyte Bios is an American Megatrends implementation. There is a 3D bios options, but we usually bypass this to get into the traditional style interface.
The System interface details the processor installed, the clock speed, base frequency and bios revision.
The Bios Features panel allows for adjustment over boot options and optical/hard drive priorities. Some intel settings can also be enabled/disabled here.
The Peripherals menu can be used to enable and disable various onboard controllers, such as the LAN, SAS and Audio chips.
Power management and Save & Exit menus are self explanatory, with the option to save and load pre-configured bios options.
An overview of the Intel E5 2660 processor, with the eight physical cores, clocked at 2.2ghz in non turbo. This processor isn't unlocked, after all Intel want the business customers to spend more money if they need a higher clocked chip.
The M.I.T. section of the bios is fully featured, ideal when overclocking an unlocked chip such as the Core i7 3960 Extreme Edition. Sadly we could only push the motherboard to 103mhz via the BCLK/PCIe setting, for a 100mhz increase. The motherboard defaulted to 1,600mhz so we had to manually select the XMP profile of the G.Skill ARES memory to get the correct speeds (2,133mhz 9-11-10-28).
To be fair, a Xeon chip is not sold to run in an overclocked state, as the target business audience require complete stability and cool running temperatures 24/7/365. Still, we had to try.
System validation is available over here.
That is one insane motherboard. very impressive featureset. not that expensive either, I was factoring in £400 before I got to the conclusion.
That GSKILL ares memory looks like it was made for the board.
Good results, not for me, but I can appreciate the workstation desire for this. over £1,000 for the chip puts it firmly in the market for rendering and video work.
Shame they cant be overclocked, but I see their more expensive Xeon’s cost quite a bit extra so wouldnt make much sense for them logistically.
These are great chips. they will always be locked out. the pro market doesn’t want unlocked chips, instability ALWAYS occurs with overclocking.
Still I understand your point. would be nice to see performance at 4.5ghz. would be interested myself to see the headroom. 8 cores might heat up more than the 6 core 3960 and 3930. although im sure 4.5ghz would be possible with the H100.
mega review Zardon – ive always loved Xeon processors. we adopted 6 of the new E5 2670 in our business for the network and serving clients.
Our IT guys are always singing their praises for being 100% solid. personally im not into overclocking so id be happy with one of these, if I could justify the cost. 3930 is next on my list, but ill run it stock speeds.
Is the C606 chipset also suitable for a normal non-xeon build? I am planning on using this board for a future build since it is cheaper than most high-end X79 board, and I don’t really trust the first generation of X79 boards.
This board works with 2011 slot processors, including the 3930 and 3960, yes.