Intel DX58SO -> 221 max Host Clock Frequency? Why?

Hello, guys!

This is my first post... My name is Georgi, I'm 24 years old and im a hobbyist overclocker.

Decided to get into the real world of overclocking by entering my favourite OC website

Now about my post...

I decided to build myself a water chiller and overclock...

But then I bumped into a stop. While I was trying to reach 5ghz on a X5660 Xeon,

the motherboard bottlenecked me at 221 "Host Clock Frequency".

I am 99% sure it's the motherboard. Why:

-> I have isolated the ram and cpu and the mobo crashes at 221-22.

-> I did not see an entry with a higher hcf than what I manage to reach.

-> I am actively cooling the motherboard with air.

-> I am supplying more than enough steady current with a high end power supply.

-> I am supplying more than enough voltage (I even maxed out the IOH and QPI/Uncore voltage)

-> I am not using the watter chiller yet, I just turn it on to cooldown the water from time to time - no condensation.

-> I am using the latest BIOS.

-> I have tried different memory and CPU's. Even a new GPU.

-> I have been moving my overclock with 4Mhz increments steadily and logged my every attempt untill I hit this wall. I managed to reach 4.71Ghz and hit the wall.

-> I hit 4.71 on 221fsb. CPU voltage was as low as possible. I ran ~10 minutes prime95

and one of the cores was stopped due to an error in Prime. I increaced voltage on the CPU first -> same thing. I increaced the voltage of the ram and IOH + QPI/uncore (even maxed them out) - same thing. I eliminated the memory out of the equasion - same thing.

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So... Does this confirm my dislike towards intel? Did they intentionally cap their extreme series motherboard, to overclock only their "Extreme series" processors?

Is the board really that bad as they say it is?

Any suggestions are strongly appreciated.

Try increasing the PCIe frequency to ~110 MHz. Nehalem architecture had a BCLK wall at 222 MHz and one workaround is to increase the PCIe frequency

Try increasing the PCIe frequency to ~110 MHz. Nehalem architecture had a BCLK wall at 222 MHz and one workaround is to increase the PCIe frequency

That is the reason I registered here. Thank you very much!

Hope it helps

I managed to go up to 103 mhz on the PCIe ... there is something wrong, i need to investigate.

But I reached 223 bclk So I guess it works...

You may need to do a hardmod to get higher PCI-e Freq, I will try to look for one for your board.

EDIT : Couldn't find one.

i could go higher on pci-e on ati gpu´s then on nvidia ones.

If your board has an option for "QPI Slow Mode" or a really low multiplier for the QPI Frequency (6x, 8x, etc... can't really remember what the number is), this can help too.

Assuming that your motherboard can run higher PCI-E frequencies, the other two items that are going to limit you to lower PCI-E frequencies are your hard drive and your PCI-E GPU. To get around one of these, use a PCI GPU and test to see where your hard drive fails--this is usually around 115-120MHz, in my experience. Be careful though, as this can corrupt the Windows/Operating System install.

When I'm running BCLK of 250+, I'm usually using PCI-E frequencies of 130-140MHz.