NEW XPS 730x Owner's thread

Try this - BCLK at 200 - Clock mult at 16 - and Mem at 8.  These setting will get you 3.2 for CPU and 1600 for the ram.

Yes, it will work.  Although I'm not presently running those settings, I have used them in the past and it works.  I'm not running it now because I couldn't notice any difference in performance over 1284MHz.

Hey Mark, I have my EVGA 295 CO-OP in the bottom slot, which is number 1 on the Dell XPS 730X MOBO,  the number 2 slot is the next slot up in the middle and would be the second GPU slot, the top slot next to the PSU is number 3 and would be used for the third GPU, but as the 295 CO-OP is a dual, the second card in slot number 2 makes it a SLI Quad and maxes the MOBO lanes.

Best,

Darrell WV

Slot 1 the bottom one is x16 - slot 2 the middle one is x8 and - slot 3 the top one is x4.  So if you wanted to get another GTX 295 it will on run at x8 half the speed compared to the x16

That is incorrect.  Two of the PCI-E lanes are x16 and one of them is a PCI-E x4.  Referring to the diagram, #17 and #19 are the x16 slots with #15 being the x4 slot.  The other PCI-E are x1 lanes..

DELL XPS 730 & 730x Motherboard Diagram

Hey Mark, I have my EVGA 295 CO-OP in the bottom slot, which is number 1 on the Dell XPS 730X MOBO,  the number 2 slot is the next slot up in the middle and would be the second GPU slot, the top slot next to the PSU is number 3 and would be used for the third GPU, but as the 295 CO-OP is a dual, the second card in slot number 2 makes it a SLI Quad and maxes the MOBO lanes. Best, Darrell WV

Hey Mark just like Darrell posted but also remember this.  Slot 1 the bottom one is x16 - slot 2 the middle one is x8 and - slot 3 the top one is x4.  So if you wanted to get another GTX 295 it will on run at x8 half the speed compared to the x16.  Also if you did decide to do a SLI with 2 GTX 295's you can use the Third Slot for a dedicate a Physic card.  The 9800GT work really good from what I have read.  Good Luck.

[quote user="xfaega"]Slot 1 the bottom one is x16 - slot 2 the middle one is x8 and - slot 3 the top one is x4.  So if you wanted to get another GTX 295 it will on run at x8 half the speed compared to the x16

That is incorrect.  Two of the PCI-E lanes are x16 and one of them is a PCI-E x4.  Referring to the diagram, #17 and #19 are the x16 slots with #15 being the x4 slot.  The other PCI-E are x1 lanes..

DELL XPS 730 & 730x Motherboard Diagram

[/quote]

According to the MOBO Diagram it doesn't specify what each PCI-E is.  It only has this

Dell XPS 730X

But according to all the reviews they are saying that they are all X16 Slots 19, 17, 15 ( But remember they are only going off the specs that Dell has provided them ) .  To justify for my input on CPU-z version 1.52.2  had them at X16, x8, x4 when I had them all populated.  So I take it CPU-z is incorrect.  I'm not willing to stick my head out and make my self look like a fool without solid data.  I won't be able to provide picture's because I sold my three 9800GT's to help pay for my GTX 295.  If they are all truly x16 then that is great because even the most expensive MOBO don't all have Tri PCIe x16.  I also would have bought 2 GTX 295 and put them in a SLI configuration if I had know that.

Thanks for reposting this, it was buried so deep in the old thread that I could not find it again and had not saved the information.

Best,

Darrell

[quote user="PH3N0M"] [quote user="xfaega"]Slot 1 the bottom one is x16 - slot 2 the middle one is x8 and - slot 3 the top one is x4.  So if you wanted to get another GTX 295 it will on run at x8 half the speed compared to the x16

That is incorrect.  Two of the PCI-E lanes are x16 and one of them is a PCI-E x4.  Referring to the diagram, #17 and #19 are the x16 slots with #15 being the x4 slot.  The other PCI-E are x1 lanes..

DELL XPS 730 & 730x Motherboard Diagram

[/quote]

According to the MOBO Diagram it doesn't specify what each PCI-E is.  It only has this

Dell XPS 730X

But according to all the reviews they are saying that they are all X16 Slots 19, 17, 15 ( But remember they are only going off the specs that Dell has provided them ) .  To justify for my input on CPU-z version 1.52.2  had them at X16, x8, x4 when I had them all populated.  So I take it CPU-z is incorrect.  I'm not willing to stick my head out and make my self look like a fool without solid data.  I won't be able to provide picture's because I sold my three 9800GT's to help pay for my GTX 295.  If they are all truly x16 then that is great because even the most expensive MOBO don't all have Tri PCIe x16.  I also would have bought 2 GTX 295 and put them in a SLI configuration if I had know that.

I had this posted on the old thread so I will just copy it here so you can see what the speeds are of the lanes and see that 3 PCI-E slots running at X16 each is only done with the Nvidia 200 chip and it slows the system down not speed it up because it must pause a lane to send on another at x16.  In other words 2 lanes are shared. Remember that the i7 northbridge does not have the 48 lanes which would be needed. Click the link and read the review.  Oh and my Windows Index is 7.7 , 7.9 , 7.9 , 7.9 , 7.7

  The XPS 730x Mobo PCI-E slots will run at x16,x16,x4 with Dual SLI and x16,x8,x8 with Tri SLI(order from bottom to top on Mobo). The bandwidth on the PCI-E 2.0 at x8 is 4gb/s. A GTX 280 only uses 2.1GB/s, 2.4 GB/s for the GTX 285 and 3.9GB/s for the GTX 295. Go download GPU-Z and you can see the lanes being used.

 Here is a review of a true X16,x16,x16 Mobo VS one like ours with X16,x8,x8. Read it before you go buying a new Mobo.http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/eclipse-plus-n200,2332.html 

Also check this out. This helps explain it:

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It seems many threads all over the internet has/had/have asked this same question all over.

was tweaktown's review really truthful ? sadly.. it wasn't.

Difference between 16x PCI-e vs 8x PCI-e in CrossFire/SLI ?

Answer: None

Here is why.

PCI-e 2.0 16X = 8GB/s total bandwidth
PCI-e 2.0 8X = 4GB/s total bandwidth

ATI:

HD 3870 = 1125mhz (dual piped - 2.2 GB/s data rate) = 2.2 GB/s total data rate
HD 4650 = 500mhz (dual piped - 1 GB/s data rate) = 1 GB/s total data rate
HD 4670 = 1000mhz (single piped - 2 GB/s data rate) = 2 GB/s total data rate
HD 4770 = 800mhz (quad piped - 3.6 GB/s data rate) = 3.6 GB/s total data rate
HD 4830 = 900mhz = (dual piped - 1.9 GB/s data rate) = 1.9 GB/s total data rate
HD 4850 = 993mhz (dual piped - 1.9 GB/s data rate) = 1.9 GB/s total data rate
HD 4850 X2 = 993mhz (dual piped - 1.9 GB/s data rate)(times 2) = 3.8 GB/s total data rate
HD 4870 = 900mhz (quad piped - 3.6 GB/s data rate) = 3.6 GB/s total data rate
HD 4890 = 975mhz (quad piped - 3.9 GB/s data rate) = 3.9 GB/s total data rate
HD 4870 X2 = 900mhz (quad piped - 3.6 GB/s data rate)(times 2) = 7.2 GB/s total data rate

So as you can see, the 4870 X2 will be hurt in an 8X condition and why the 3870, 4650, 4670, 4770, 4830, 4850, 4870, 4890, and 4850 X2 will not be hurt in performance at all.

Nvidia:

8800 Ultra = 1080mhz (dual piped - 2.1 GB/s data rate) = 2.1 GB/s data rate
9600 GT = 900mhz (dual piped - 1.8 GB/s data rate) = 1.8 GB/s total data rate
9800 GTX = 1100mhz (dual piped - 2.2 GB/s data rate) = 2.2 GB/s total data rate
GTS 250 = 1100mhz (dual piped - 2.2 GB/s data rate) = 2.2 GB/s total data rate
GTX 260 216 = 999mhz (dual piped - 1.9 GB/s data rate) = 1.9 GB/s total data rate
GTX 275 = 1134mhz (dual piped - 2.2 GB/s data rate) = 2.2 GB/s total data rate
GTX 280 = 1053mhz (dual piped - 2.1 GB/s data rate) = 2.1 GB/s data rate
GTX 285 = 1242mhz (dual piped - 2.4 GB/s data rate) = 2.4 GB/s data rate
GTX 295 = 999mhz (dual piped - 1.9 GB/s data rate)(times 2) = 3.8 GB/s total data rate
GTX 285X2 = 1242mhz (dual piped - 2.4 GB/s data rate)(times 2) = 4.8 GB/s data rate

So as you can see, the GTX285 X2 will be hurt in an 8X condition and why the 8800, 9600, 9800, 250, 260, 280, 275, 285 & 295 will not be hurt in performance at all.


This should be a clear message to anyone wanting to do multi-gpu setup's, people with PCI-e 2.0 @ 16x-16x-8x or 16x-8x-8x or even 8x-8x-8x bandwidth should have no bottle neck for any single gpu cards in the market, aside from the double gpu cards like 4870x2, and incoming GTX285x2.

a quick example:

Which is better performance in fps/gaming, 16x-8x-8x w/ PCI-e 2.0 motherboard vs 16x-16x-16x w/ PCI-e 2.0 motherboard vs 8x-8x-8x w/ PCI-e 2.0 motherboard:
Code:

1x 4870 1GB @ 16x slot
1x 4870 1GB @ 8x slot
1x 4870 1GB @ 8x slot
vs
1x 4870 1GB @ 16x slot
1x 4870 1GB @ 16x slot
1x 4870 1GB @ 16x slot
vs
1x 4870 1GB @ 8x slot
1x 4870 1GB @ 8x slot
1x 4870 1GB @ 8x slot

Winner:
Draw, no difference in fps. Although some 16x-16x-16x boards with n200 chipset's has fps drops in games which is reviewed many times but no drops in benchmarking (3dmarks,vantage). If your board is PCI-e 1.0 then that would be a huge difference

I was contemplating taking my 965 OC to 3.85 with 2 GTX 280's from Double SLI by adding a third 280 moving to triple SLI.  I recieved a lot of discouaging comments here with the overall theme "Don' t bother, you won't see any significant performance gain."  Well, of course, I had to try it anyway, and got a significant performance boost according to 3d Mark Vantage. FWIW

Double SLI: 3DMark score 23550,  GPU 19971 CPU 50935

Triple SLI:    3DMark score 29061,  GPU 25502 CPU 49982

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

XPS 730x 965 H2C liquid cooled Windows Vista SP2 64-bit Ultimate
Intel X58 chipset
CPU-Intel Core i7 965 extreme @ OC 3.85 MHz
Dell CPU Liquid/TEC Cooling ATX Unit
Triple nVidia GeForce GTX280 1024MB-SLI, no OC
6GB Multi-Channel DDR3 at 1866MHZ (3x2GB DIMM) running at 1700MHZ 9-9-9-24-C1, no OC
(4)-  300GB WD 10,000 rpm Velociraptors-Raid 10
(4) - 1.5TB Seagate Barracuda 7200 drives in Sans Digital eSaTA tower
Dual DVD Drives: 6x Blu-Ray Burner(BD/DVD/CD) + 16x DVD-ROM
Creative X-FI Titanium sound card
Creative Turtle Beach gaming headset
Logitech Z 5500 5.1 speaker setup
Power supply-1000 watt
Auxillary Power Supply-Visiontek 450 powering one of three GTX 280's
Dell HD SP2309W monitor
Samsung Syncmaster 2233RZ 120hz 3D ready 22' LCD monitor 1680X1050
Nvidia Stereoscopic 3D

xfaega, I have a similiar rig as yours, but with my settings, I only get 3.85MHz  what are your specific BIOS settings that gives you a stable 4.06MHz. (I gotta break the 4.0 barrier).  Also I have the Corsair 1866 and according to a rep at Corsair support, the 730x 965 with OC can only get up to 1700 by turning on XMP Support because of a Dell limitation . Was he right?  If not, what memory settings do you use, had how high can you get the memory to clock?  Thanks.  - Jay

XPS 730x 965 H2C liquid cooled Windows Vista SP2 64-bit Ultimate
Intel X58 chipset
CPU-Intel Core i7 965 extreme @ OC 3.85 MHz
Dell CPU Liquid/TEC Cooling ATX Unit
Triple nVidia GeForce GTX280 1024MB-SLI, no OC
6GB Multi-Channel DDR3 at 1866MHZ (3x2GB DIMM) running at 1700MHZ 9-9-9-24-C1, no OC
(4)-  300GB WD 10,000 rpm Velociraptors-Raid 10
(4) - 1.5TB Seagate Barracuda 7200 drives in Sans Digital eSaTA tower
Dual DVD Drives: 6x Blu-Ray Burner(BD/DVD/CD) + 16x DVD-ROM
Creative X-FI Titanium sound card
Creative Turtle Beach gaming headset
Logitech Z 5500 5.1 speaker setup
Power supply-1000 watt
Auxillary Power Supply-Visiontek 450 powering one of three GTX 280's
Dell HD SP2309W monitor
Samsung Syncmaster 2233RZ 120hz 3D ready 22' LCD monitor 1680X1050
Nvidia Stereoscopic 3D

3 PCI-E slots running at X16 each is only done with the Nvidia 200 chip

Thanks for clearing this up.  Also I don't see Dell's 730X MOBO having the Nvidia 200 chip on it since is was only exclusive for the EVGA E759 Litmited Edition MOBO for a while.  Like I said before allot of the review that were made for the Dell XPS 730x specs came straight from Dell.  So they were only going off what they were given.  As as cheap as Dell MOBO are I don't see this MOBO being able to handle the Tri X16 if it could.  So many BSOD and other problems report for this MOBO show the instability that wouldn't support the suppose specs out there for this System.  Anyway I'm happy with one GTX295 and it does what I need it to do.

xfaega, I have a similiar rig as yours, but with my settings, I only get 3.85MHz  what are your specific BIOS settings that gives you a stable 4.06MHz. (I gotta break the 4.0 barrier).  Also I have the Corsair 1866 and according to a rep at Corsair support, the 730x 965 with OC can only get up to 1700 by turning on XMP Support because of a Dell limitation . Was he right?  If not, what memory settings do you use, had how high can you get the memory to clock?  Thanks.  - Jay

Hey Jay,  This is my settings

>Frequency/Voltage Control

QPI Frequency - [Auto]
Memory Ratio - [Auto]
CPU Core (Non-Turbo) Ration - [24]

>Advance DRAM Configuration - No Data Needed

>Overclock Configuration

Adjust CPU BCLK (MHz)   [133]
Spread Spectrum -  [Enabled]
Adjust PCI Frequency (MHz)  [Auto]
Adjust PCI-E Frequency 9MHz)  [100]

Intel (R) TurboMode tech  [Enabled]

1 - Core CPU Turbo Ratio Limit  [30]
2 - Core CPU Turbo Ratio Limit  [30]
3 - Core CPU Turbo Ratio Limit  [30]
4 - Core CPU Turbo Ratio Limit  [30]
Turbo Mode TDC Limit Overrid  [200]
Turbo Mode TDP Limit Overrid  [220]

>Overvoltage Configuration

Dynamic CPU Vcore Offset  [=160mv]
DDR3 Memory Voltage  [Auto]
IOH Voltage  [1.20V]
QPI and Uncore Voltage  [Default]

>CPU Configuration

XXXXXX  [Enabled]
Speed Step  [Enabled]
C-State  [Enabled]

Clock Speed of 4.06.  Remember Windows does not see the OC because of Turbo Mode.  Also These setting are stable in Vista but in W7 I'm still trying to find the sweet setting.  I have been getting allot of BSOD with W7 64Bit when I try to OC even a small amounts.  I have read allot of Overclockers that have been having the same issues as I have and many recommend using 32Bit.  Those who have been using the 32Bit version of W7 haven't reported any problems.  I think I will try the 32Bit see what happens.  I will have to find a copy since I have the Product Key for both 32/64Bit.  But if I use the default setting for 3.2 and I have Speed Stepping - C State disable and I haven't had any problems yet.  But when I enable them I get the BSOD 0x0000007E ( Not enough Vcore )  and I have increased the Vcore to balance out the lack of Vcore.  For some reason they affect me in my case but it might be different for someone else.  I hope this helps you.

I have been using these settings for 6 months running complety stable in both vista and for the last month using Windows 7

 QPI Frequency-auto

Memory ratio-Auto

Advance ram config..... change 1T/2T timing to 1T

Overclock config change the following,

Base clock from 133 to 139

Turbo core ratio from 28 to 29 on all

TDC-180

TDP-200

In overvoltage config use the following settings

CPU V-Core-1.20v

DDR Memory-1.60v

I0H-1.10v

QPI and Uncore Voltage-1.20v

if you are using bios 1.05 enable C-Tech state in cpu config

All this will give you a stable overclock of 4050MHZ. I have been using these setting for 6 months without any problems at.

XPS 730x H2C
i7 965 Extreme CPU overclocked to 4050 GHz
SLi, Dual nVidia GeForce GTX280 1024MB
Core clock-702MHz,shader clock-1404MHz,memory-1269MHz
6GB Multi-Channel DDR3 at 1066MHZ (3x2GB DIMM) running at 1117MHZ (7-7-7-20-C1)
RAID 0 2x300GB(600GB) WD Velociraptor 10K 16MB Cac
Dell 19 in 1 Media Reader withBluetooth 2.0
Microsoft Windows Vista SP1 64-bit Ultimate (English)
Dual Drives: 6x Blu-Ray Burner(BD/DVD/CD) + 16x DVD-ROM
X-Fi Titanium Audio Card
Dell CPU Liquid/TEC Cooling ATX Unit
1 Kilowatt power supply
Dell 2408WFP monitor

xfaega, thanks for the lenghty explanation on your settings and sharing your the W7 OC dilema. Your specific settings were EXACTLY what I was hoping for.  Now I can only hope my system is as stable as yours, it's been a little shaky lately.  Thanks again for your generous sharing!  -Jay  (did you see my post about my success with triple SLI?)

garyehr, thanks.  That's exactly what I need and the 3Dmark screen is encouraging.  With my clunky 3.85 and triple SLI my score was 29061 but my CPU actually went down to 49982 but your CPU soared to 54864, impressive.  So with your settings I should be able to break 30,000!  (Whatever significance that will have).  Thank you so much for sharing your stable settings.  I'm sure it took you alot of time and aggrivation to get the right settings.  Thanks again for sharing. - Jay