Overclock E5-1620 V1 with Z-620 BOOTBLOCK V1

[Calaudude]

I tried with XTU but CPU seems locked there

I saw from other sources that E5-1620 is basically unlocked and can be overclocked with XTU

any help how its done 100% correct?

[BambiBoomZ]

Calaudude,

As far as I know, the only Xeon E5's that may be overclocked using Intel Extreme Tuning Utility are:

E5   -1650 v2 / -1660 v2 / 1680 v2

E5   -1650 v3 / -1660 v3 / 1680 v3

Using XTU, the single thread performane can be significantly improved.  The average Xeon E5-1680 v2 has an average Passmark single thread mark of 2101, but when overclocked using XTU to 4.3 on all eight cores, it makes up to 2373.  Our friend Brian1965 is running one at 4.7 which scores over 2500- that's recent gaming unlocked i7- terrority and similar to a new Xeon W-2145, which is $4X.

There are no E5- first version processors that are unlocked.

Besides the three unlocked Xeon E5 v2's, there are other advantages to switching a z-X20 to a 2013 boot date Version 2 motherboard : higher clock speeds,  up to 12-cores instead of 8, and 1866 speed RAM to 1600.

Changing motherboards to the 2nd (2013 boot block) version in the z420 and z620 is very easy and today the V2 boards are not very expensive as they only work in that z-series HP.

BambiBoomZ

[Calaudude]

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/xeons-with-an-open-multiplier.15983/

looks like  

e5-1xxx are all unlocked

[BambiBoomZ]

Calaudude,

Yes, the E5-1600's are unlocked on X79 motherboards, but not on the C604 chipset. There are E5-1620's running at 4.6GHz on ASUS P9X79 LE ($275-300 these days), and undoubtedly with strong liquid cooling, but in an HP, it's strictly a 3.8GHz.

1. For comparison, on Passmark, the highest z620/ E5-1620 CPU mark on a z420 is 9605.  The highest Passmark CPU mark for an E5-1620 is 11630 @4.6GHz (=+21%) on an ASUS P9X79 LE

2. Advantages of E5 v2: In my HP z420 runs an E5-1620 v2 at standard clock speeds with a 10689 result  (XTU does not support the E5-1620 v2). That means that the standard speed z420 performance for an E5-1620 v2 is +11% to the fastest z620 E5-1620 and -9% to the fastest E5-1620 on that expensive X79 motherboard.

3. E5-1650 v2: Changing to a V2 motherboard has a lot of advantages - up to 12 cores instead of 8, higher clock speed, 1866 RAM) and especially good value is the E5-1650 v2. The top CPU mark for an E5-1650 v2 in a z620 is 13485 which is at stock speed. For some reason, there are no overclocked E5-1650 v2's in a z620. However, in a z420 - which has a motherboard very similar to the z620 and uses the same BIOS, running an E5-1650 v2 @ 4.2Ghz on all cores has a CPU mark of 14664. In my view, an E5-1650 v2 (about $100) on a Version 2 motherboard (about $90-$100 in the US (1.19) plus z420 liquid cooler (about $60), plus front case fan (about $20), plus 16GB DDR3-1866 ECC ($?) is a better cost / performance solution. That would = +66% to the fastest z420 E5-1620.

4. The best time/ cost/ performance solution of all would be to buy a z420 with an E5-1650 v2 already installed. In the US, this can cost as little $200-$300 with minimal specification. Selling the original system would go a good way to fund the new one and putting the new one is order would require less time and effort than upgrading the original, plus the total expenditure would be less. 

BambiBoomZ