Velocity Micro Edge Z55: Core i7-940 with CrossFire 4870
by Matt Campbell on December 12, 2008 2:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Overclocking
One big upside to the problems we encountered is that we spent a long time tinkering in the BIOS and, therefore, we spent quite a while testing the limits of the system. Particularly since it was my first experience with Core i7, I wanted to see how far the Edge Z55 would go.
We easily hit 3.8GHz with the Core i7-940, at a BCLK of 190MHz. The huge limiting factor was not the motherboard or CPU but the Intel heatsink, as temperatures would quickly shoot to 100°C (the thermal throttling point) under load.
Keeping QPI close to stock is important for stability; anything above around 6.8 GT/s (or 3400MHz in CPU-Z) and stability was compromised. We did boot and idle at desktop at almost 7.9 GT/s, but any load situation would crash.
Heat prevented us from doing much testing at 3.8GHz, but we did run through the CINEBENCH CPU tests.
Pricing and Warranty
As configured, the Edge Z55 retails for around $3600. The Core i7-940 alone retails for around $570 right now, and the Intel motherboard around $260 - already we're over the $800 mark. Accounting for a quality aluminum case from Silverstone, drives, fans, etc., the cost rolls up to around $2400. This is a quite a large premium, even accounting for items like the "free" games, but a 40% margin is fairly typical for high-end system manufacturers and they are close to this mark. It does include some intangibles for the customer, like the customization steps Velocity Micro takes in the case to make their product stand apart, and the time spent in testing and customizing the operating system.
When it comes to product warranty support, Velocity Micro has an advantage here as their technical support personnel are the actual system builders. Any problem with a system is referred back to the person who constructed and tested it, by hand, in the Virginia office. This is impressive for a company of their size. 24/7 Technical Support is not standard but available as an upgrade, and provides an on-call technician for "emergency" problems only such as no-boot situations. Though we had our share of problems with our system, the people we talked to were very knowledgeable, burned each system in with custom scripts of blended small/large runs in Prime95 and had a good understanding of BIOS tweaks. One gripe that we have is that the standard warranty offered is a 1-year depot service only. On higher end gaming systems such as this, the level of investment is deserving of a 3-year warranty. This is an available option and costs an additional $169 including on-site support, but we hope this is a point that Velocity Micro tries to convey as an important choice to the more uninformed buyers.
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gohorns79 - Thursday, December 18, 2008 - link
I just ordered a Z55 system from VM. I usually build but I just don't have the time anymore so I'm leaving it to the pros. I'm very excited about it. If you would like to hear my first impressions of an actual system (not a review system) let me know and I can take some pics and describe the experience.gohorns79 - Thursday, December 18, 2008 - link
I just ordered a Z55 system from VM. I usually build but I just don't have the time anymore so I'm leaving it to the pros. I'm very excited about it. If you would like to hear my first impressions of an actual system (not a review system) let me know and I can take some pics and describe the experience.Mario Cifaldi - Monday, December 15, 2008 - link
Hey guys. This was a very exhaustive review and I really enjoy seeing this kind of depth in testing and documentation.Some things I need to point-out that can easily go overlooked:
Cooling:
The stock HSF used in this review was all that was ‘available’ at the time this review system was constructed. The only other aftermarket coolers that were available were not suitable for this case as there were risks of clearance issues or they were simply too loud (as seen with some of the server coolers for 1366). This is all we had to choose from. Options were extremely limited here but rest assured we are very aware of thermals and requirements as well as how much further these CPU’s can go. This is what the Overdrive PC brand caters more to. In the end, the stock cooler sufficed and suffices for this system and current shipping systems running 3.2GHz as it stays well-below Tjunction.
Scope:
This was not ever intended to be an extreme overclocker nor were we trying for greater speeds than 3.2GHz. This was a very simple OC on a mid-range system. Because we are also selling this system retail (with the stock cooler), we cannot offer speeds outside of that for the same SKU so that is why we did not dial-up this system’s speed any higher for this single review.
Networking:
The ‘fixed’ IP on this system was simply for my internal connectivity needs and is not a standard on (any) VM/OPC systems. This was a trivial point as I understand but I just wanted to clarify that this was specific to these two review machines.
Memory Batch Codes:
As far as the batch code of memory (where we sent in a duplicate set), this was a simple mistake from the result of assuming the first set I sent was code ‘045’. I felt I was certain I explained this ‘045’ code to Matt but apparently there was a mis-communication. Because I was certain the first batch code must have been ‘045’ due to similar memory issues we’ve seen in-house with this batch code, I felt confident that I sent a new code of ‘051’ out to Matt. This was a simple mistake and obviously I would not knowingly send a duplicate code intentionally.
Memory Voltage:
1600MHz Corsair memory requires 1.8V’s to support ‘stock’ speeds and I dialed the memory voltage at 1.9V’s due to a 10% OC. Logical. As far as Intel’s warning about voltages beyond 1.65V, we have yet to see any issues with exceeding this and in the interim, we’re not offered too many options for (not) using voltages beyond this point if the customer requests 1600Mhz memory.
CrossFire and Smack Over:
We’ve seen anomalies with this new Intel board and CrossFire and most have been resolved with PCI Latency adjustments as I explained to Matt. At the time this replacement system shipped, there were no anomalies with CrossFire and all graphic tests passed 100%. This is apparently an intermittent issue and we’ve made Intel aware of it recently. I hope it’s implied that we would not have shipped another system with issues right-out-of-the-box having been afforded the opportunity to resolve the first system with a replacement.
I’ll continue to follow this thread if anyone has questions or comments and again VM thanks AnandTech for such an in-depth look at our organization and systems. :)
BikeDude - Monday, December 15, 2008 - link
(is this the right Quote tag? The toolbar in the editor seems broken for the past few days)Thanks for the followup Mario.
The article mentioned "PCIe latency". I guess you were misquoted. (happens a lot of course) I apologize for believing otherwise.
If PCI latency adjustment helped, then I would postulate that there are some timing issues somewhere that are not what they should be. Either issues in the driver (did you observe any BSODs?) or the hardware itself. It is not supposed to be so finicky! After all, why should a PCIe device be bothered with adjustments that only affect devices on the PCI bus? It makes absolutely no sense. Intel and/or AMD has some serious homework to do now if you have observed this anomaly in several systems.
Mario Cifaldi - Monday, December 15, 2008 - link
I have had to hand-tune several of the Smack Over boards for "PCI Latency" to stabilize the graphic anomalies seen in CrossFire mode. From time to time I would see a BSOD after letting the anomalies run for a period of time. This issue was never isolated to be an OC'ing issue either. Both cards run 100% fine by themselves in the top slot, but enabling CrossFire on both cards has required PCI Latency adjustment of 128-248 depending on the pair of cards used.Here is a revision to the sentence you mentioned above: "We’ve seen anomalies with this new Intel board and CrossFire. Most of these anomalies have been resolved with PCI Latency adjustments as I explained to Matt."
BikeDude - Sunday, December 14, 2008 - link
[quote]Diving back into troubleshooting, the first thing we tried (after removing one of the 4870s) was altering the PCIe Latency Timer setting in the (updated) BIOS, which Mario had previously told us is very problematic with ATI cards and specifically CrossFire setups.[/quote]First of all, I was surprised, because I thought the days of tweaking latency settings were long gone. After all, with PCI the latency setting would dictate how long a given device were allowed to control the bus. With PCIe, I thought each device had separate serial lanes to the chipset and that latency settings were now obsolete.
So obviously I do not have the necessary insight into what goes on in the PCIe world, but I do find it odd to start tweaking such settings when the graphics is FUBAR already during POST. IMO, no setting in the BIOS should be able to FUBAR the graphics cards. That smells of either a broken motherboard or broken graphics cards. (besides, back in the day, the latency setting mostly affected sound cards that depended on delivering a steady stream of audio to the speakers -- I do not recall hearing of corruption issues with GPUs... Only pure fps performance issues)
If tweaking PCIe latency settings did any difference at all in that situation, then I would chalk it up to dumb luck. I would certainly not use this as my first troubleshooting step in the future. Something is very, very wrong in that situation. Me thinks Mario has come across quite a few bad ATI based cards, and that instead of changing them for a batch of good ones, some bandaid was applied and now they hum along by sheer coincidence.
And temperature issues? In a new rig like this? Intel's CPUs have, for a long time now, boasted of speedstepping technology that would slow down the CPU in case of overheating. So even mentioning the possibility of an overheating CPU causing issues... [quote]inadequate CPU cooling (also likely)[/quote]
I feel the article is a bit weak on theory and quite strong on "let us see if some gum will solve this". Please start from square one with this one. I want to know if Mario's suggestions even made any sense at all.
ikjadoon - Friday, December 12, 2008 - link
Hi, guys. I own an Overdrive PC, the Core2.SLI. Definitely hand-built by the same Mario Cifaldi Anandtech talked with; the guy is the epitome of the enthusiast crowd. He was selling the Q9550 @ 3.7GHz, if I recall correctly, but now, obviously he's moved onto the i7s.They have fantastic build quality; shame you didn't take some pictures of the wiring. Those outside shots don't do justice. :)
I'd chalk up some of the missing items and stability issues to being a pre-production system because these guys are the very best. Every review I've heard of Overdrive PC is absolutely glowing; now that they've merged, some of the better parts of OPC are working with VM, too, and vice-versa, hence the overclocking.
Anyways, great review.
I'd love to see an OPC review soon. :)
bob4432 - Friday, December 12, 2008 - link
maybe i have been building computers for too many years, but $4K on a computer is ridiculous. i am not trying to be a dick but honestly, who pays that much for the performance you could get easily at 1/2-1/3 the cost?4wardtristan - Monday, December 15, 2008 - link
people who havent been building omputers for many years?Nihility - Friday, December 12, 2008 - link
System restore is a necessary component of shadow copy in vista business/ultimate. As a user, shadow copy has saved my files on more than one occasion.I also find system restore is the easiest solution when your computer doesn't boot due to OS corruption or a virus. The space it takes on a hard drive today costs almost nothing (what's a few gigs?).
There's really no reason to shut it off. During benchmarks maybe but not for normal use.