Studio XPS 435MT & 435T Overclocking potential - BIOS upgrade?

Went through the entire thread today. I have a 435MT since 2009. Never interested in OC or RAM upgrade. My system never had the high-fan noise that was reported with the earlier models.

The only sore point in the ownership has been the graphics card. I have a separate thread on the same. The 4850 ran incredibly hot and eventually started showing artifacts after two years.

I am still using it since the second card that I purchased - the XFX 6670 (I purchased last August) eventually started "not working". I had to try blowing hot air with a blower and it used to start working again. (Someone told me that it would be a crystal frequency mismatch.)

Then eventually this stopped working too. However the card worked fine on some systems and not on others. So it was pretty confusing where the problem was - card, mobo, or PSU.

Now it is time for me to get money back from the dealer and go for a new card. I am considering another 6670 since it runs cooler and is sufficient. The other option 6750 is more power hungry, hotter and more expensive - but more powerful today. Maybe I could go for it, if I get a good deal.

Nothing else to report.

Hi argvargc.

A few items I have learned with my XPS 9000, 435T. Graphics card that came with mine, ATI 4xxx series, never really found out what it was, other than a Dell issued item. Graphics were "buggy" after a 2 hour period of running. Problem I found was heat not being extracted from the case, Googling the manufactures numbers on the power supply turned up a unit that was a potential fire hazard. Since the case supports only a 92mm fan in the rear and a 120mm up front, with no way to increase air control, the system was re-cased into a Antec 300. A HIS 5xxx PCIe X16 2.1 card was purchased and installed as also, a Corsair TX650 power supply. Memory remains a 9GB as Dell shipped it, but replaced with Crucial. Your AtI 6670 requires at the least a 400 watt PSU. Memory serves me correct most of these systems were shipped with a 450 watt PSU. At 80% efficiency, and I am high here, that would be a 360 watt PSU. The figure is more like 65-70%. Bottom line not enough power. My rule of thumb is to equip with 100 watts more than the system needs, including the percentage factor. The PSU lasts longer, because it does not have to work as hard. System runs cooler also is the next advantage.

The taller # cards do consume physical memory especially with high demanding graphics in games. I am not a gamer but have seen much of this in systems brought to me for repair. I saw temps in the 50C range before these changes in my own, with very little load. Average running now is 32C. Never see over 40C. System has run flawless for about 18 months. It just celebrated it's second birthday here. G

Yeah, I-VOL,

I agree. I'd been asking that, too. I'd also like to adjust some of the voltages a .02, too. I imagine Dell doesn't want anyone to change the bios for the headaches their clients and customers may cause. Sarcasticly, my thoughts are, they think the computer will last too long and their interest is to sell you a new one.

I did cram a larger psu and pcie3 video card in the xps435mt. I changed everything at least once except the mobo & cpu. I do keep a spare mobo for good reason.

For 4 years I owned the xps435mt, the biggest problem I dealt with is heat. Though mobos usually take high heat better than moving parts, high heat changes conductive metals in due time. I was getting temps over 175f+. I cook eggs at those kind of temps. Good voltage will make solid connections, stay cool. Low voltage, if it can't make the connections, jumps, burns across electron gaps creating heat. Heat also loosens moecules and after a time, they're not so conductive as they once were. Complicated chipset designs have their heat signatures, too. I got my temps down. But not without new fans and heat sinks. If you can shut down heat, electronics will last a long, long time.

Yeah, I-VOL, it makes me wonder if Dell did these non-adjustments so the computer would wear out sooner and we would buy a new one. Ford Motor Company did it back in the 60s to the 80s. They said, "We're not in the business of spare parts or fixing cars. We're in the business of selling cars".

Has anyone tried using the Intel XTU (maybe older 2.1 version?) to overclock either the 435T/9000 or 435MT?  XTU does overclocking outside the BIOS.

Seems most of this thread ends with conclusion they can't be overclocked, but I believe this was before the Intel eXtreme Tuning Utility came out...

Say on. I'm reading.

Hello:

Not familiar with the software you are referring to but,  Foxconn built these boards for Dell, there were 2 flavors. The MT board is different than the 435T-9000. There are some quarks about them and the OS. One example is a few years ago I installed a SSD in mine. The OS could not be cloned, not complete. My system was a refurb, built early 2009,  you can see there were problems from the get go. I did for a while run a i7 940, original was a 920. My board went away a year ago, I replaced it with a used one. BIOS A16 did away with using DDR3 1333Mhz memory in the middle of 2010. These systems were supposed to be their "gamer boxes". Less than a year later Dell purchased Alienware from the founders. This is business and I do understand it.

Never been unhappy with mine after the changes were made. It compliments the other hand full of X58 systems I own.

After 2009, I never seen Dell issue a bios upgrade for little 435. It needed to have the voltage turned up. The first year I owned the 435mt, it crashed a lot. I kept a spare 0R849J board and 920 processor lying around just in case it kacked. Lol. It came with an AMD HD4950 video card, a small 350w psu and the x58. That combination just cooked. I recall replacing the psu three times, the video card twice and adding extra fans, 2 just for the chipset. It sorely needed the voltage turned up.

I was fortunate to get the 435 model that included the huge heatsink and fan. It kept the processor cool. Now days, I use it for watching videos, work and Emails. Runs great for that.

I figured Dell is doing business like every other business. Their in the business of selling computers, not fixing them or spare parts.

In 2013 I wrote about my plan to purchase my third graphics card. Actually I did purchase a Sapphire graphics card - primarily since there were reviews that it consumes less power and also does not heat up much.

I am happy to report that the card is still working fine, though I really do not stress the computer much except while doing some video encoding in Adobe Premiere - maybe a few times in a month.

Last week I did a good clean up of the system with my vacuum cleaner.

I also removed the heatsink+ fan from the CPU and applied new Arctic Silver paste (my very first time) after 7+ years.

The overall temperatures in the case have gone down and there is less noise in the system

While playing games, I simply use an external 35 Watt fan which blows air from the side of the case (which is kept open since last 2 years). That instantly reduces the temperature of the GPU by 10 degrees. The only con is the noise that this 35 Watt fan produces. :(

In another thread I read about NB cooling and that has caught my attention.

The current version of Intel's eXtreme Tuning Utility (XTU) seems to allow for "overclocking" Turbo Boost, even on OEM motherboards like Dell's. 

Overclocking with Intel's current Extreme Tuning Utility (XTU) doesn't seem to work on a 435T/9000 with hex core processors, although this may be related to Turbo Boost not working with hex core processors.  With a hex core W3690 XTU shows Turbo Multipliers, Turbo Boost Current Max and Turbo Boost Power all as enabled.  But no matter what they're set to, the actual Max Core Frequency never goes above 26x or 3.46 GHz (the non-Turbo multiplier/frequency).  Below is screenshot from XTU version 6.4.1.15 (dated 10/30/2017) running on a 435T/9000 with a Xeon W3690 and default, unchanged XTU settings.  Under "Core" on the top, what's grayed out can't be changed, but what's blue can.

Quad core Bloomfields with unlocked multipliers might be overclocked with XTU on the 435T/9000 and the 435MT because Turbo Boost works on both machines when used with quad core Bloomfields. 

On the other hand, XTU has enough bugs when used with the 435T and 435MT (even with quad core processors where Turbo works) that I really can't recommend using it.  Bugs include:

• Values shown for "Turbo Boost Current Max" and "Turbo Boost Power" are wrong (they're switched).  In the above XTU screenshot Power should be 130 W (the TDP for the CPU) and Current should be 110 A.
• If you enable the display of individual Core Frequencies the values are wrong.  For example, when 3.46 GHz should be displayed, 2.60 GHz is instead.  (Multiplying by 1.33 would correct it - note multiplier is 26x and bus clock is 0.133 GHz.) 
• "Turbo Boost Current Max" and "Turbo Boost Power" are grayed out for 435MT with a W3580 (they shouldn't be - it's an unlocked CPU and the 435MT supports changing this).  Without being able to adjust this overclocking the Multiplier will throttle, making it mostly pointless.
• Changes to "Multipliers" settings are ignored for W3690 on 435T (yes, 435T has a bug with Turbo, but the multiplier can be changed, regardless).

Well, at 4.12 GHz Prime95 crashed. 

Backed off to 3.98 GHz - stable, but started minor throttling after 2 minutes.

3.85 GHz is stable and no throttling after 5 minutes.

With the Dell Studio XPS 435T/9000 running a hex core at 3.85 GHz I'm feeling a little better about the locked BIOS.

HWiNFO64 Sensor screen capture while running Prime95 below. 

I need to do more testing, but I'll post details later.

Unfortunately, in order to overclock the 435T/9000 or 435MT you'll need a high-end CPU with an unlocked multiplier. 

If you're upgrading from an i7-920 at 2.67 GHz, upgrading the CPU to a high-end quad core will give you most of the speed increase.  Overclocking the upgraded CPU may only give you an increase in speed of maybe a third to half as much again.  And, there's no guarantee how much a specific CPU can be overclocked.

Quad core processors with unlocked multiplier where overclocking works or should work in both the 435MT and 435T/9000:

Bloomfield, i7-9xx series

• • i7-975, 3.33 GHz - $95
  • i7-965, 3.2 GHz - $80

Bloomfield, Xeon W35xx series

• • W3580, 3.33 GHz - $30
  • W3570, 3.2 GHz - $20

Hex core processors with unlocked multiplier that only work in the 435T/9000 - overclocking works or should work:

Gulftown, i7-9xx series

• • i7-990X, 3.46 GHz - $280
  • i7-980X, 3.33 GHz - $165

Gulftown, Xeon W36xx series

• • W3690, 3.46 GHz - $115
  • W3680, 3.33 GHz - $80

Approximate prices are for reference and from ebay.  Caveat emptor on item quality and sellers.  Note the much less expensive prices for Intel Xeon-branded CPUs compared to their corresponding i7 counterpart.  Same performance, just they're surplus because businesses are upgrading to new computer systems.

(For more details on processors compatible with the 435T/9000, see the Studio XPS 435t / 9000 compatible processor list thread.)

Will post more when I get a chance.

Techgee,

Were you able to use the intel XTU to overclock a hex core on the XPS9000?

Is it possible to use that program with a hex core, I also noticed that the turbo boost does not seem to work on my machine - i7 990x - on an XPS 9000.

Keep up the great posts, as they are very helpful.

Thanks

XS9K,

Thanks.  I documented how ThrottleStop can be used to partially work around the lack of Turbo with the 435T.  Details here.

I'll post details on overclocking later.

So, the W3690 (equivalent to an i7-990X) processor's TDP is 130 Watts.  If I leave the TDP Limit to 130 Watts any overclock increase in multiplier over stock will throttle after awhile.  Even x27 6-core Turbo, which is within Intel Turbo spec, will throttle after 5 minutes.  But at the stock TDP Limit of 130 the motherboard's VRM should be ok and not overheat, even for 24/7 hours-long full load runs.  See chart below, which is from testing my system while running Prime95 on default "Blend" setting on all threads.

On the other hand, to eliminate throttling for overclock multipliers the TDP Limit must be increased and a lot more power will go through the 435T CPU voltage regulator.  (I'm not worried about the CPU - it's fine at 70C with an Intel DBX-B CPU cooler.)  My W3690 needs a TDP Limit of 175W to run at 4 GHz without throttling (I'm not stable at 4 GHz, but can run for 3 to 50 minutes before something crashes).  Even my stable 3.86 GHz overclock needs a TDP Limit of 165W to run without throttling.

There doesn't seem to be any VRM temperature sensors on the 435T, so I have no idea if it's ok or overheating.  I'm thinking the 435T motherboard can't 24/7 deliver 165W to the CPU without shortening it's life...