Hi guys,
Ive recently purchased 2 xeon 5355’s and the above motherboard. I dont seem to be getting good results when it comes to rendering compared to my single quad core qx6700 system.
Running winxp 64 on both systems. Service pack 2.
Am i missing something in bios or maybe a microsoft fix ?
Cheers
Steve
Does anyone know how to setup the correct chipset drivers for this motherboard ???
Hi
does the Motherboard cd not do it automatically ?
Hi
to be honest it all should work fine… but perhaps the Bios needs an update to make full use of the cpus? i would check the supermicro site for some updates
Well you have 2 quads there fore 8 cores.
Do you see all 8 cores showing up in the task manager.
At rendertime (not you Natty 
) do you see 8 buckets rendering the image, and also are all cores hitting 100% during rendering?
Is it faster? or slower than your old quad.. post times of both is possible.
When its working properly, your new setup should be about twice as fast.
also you may want to download something like sandra lite from sisoftware and run a couple of test, just to check everything runs as it should.
and keep an eye on your system temperature during rendertime, if the cpus start running too hot that might result in a significant slowdown.
Thanks for the responses.
I can see all 8 cores being used when rendering using vray. They are all hitting 100%. The cpu temps are both showing about 48 degs. In fact, it feels like the heatsinks are hardly getting warm at all when i touch them.
Also, i rung supermicro and the tech guy said the bios doesnt address any performance issues…so he recommended not updating.
This is the test I did on both computers.
http://www.stevesideas.net/benchmark/test.max
System 1: Intel core quad cpu @ 2.66ghz. (6700) : 170 seconds 
System 2: 2x Xeon 5355 @ 2.66ghz (8mb cache) quad core : 536 seconds 
What the hell is going on. These xeons should be faster surely. Dont a lot of people use these cpus in their render farms..
WTF… wow.. the new system should be around 80-90seconds… not 536s.
hmmmm
Download and run cpuz
http://www.cpuid.com/download/cpu-z-143.zip
Just make sure everything looks right.. mhz.. fsb..etc..
Everything looks fine (to me anyway): Does that core voltage look high to you ? It says on the cpu box 1.32v max Core voltage..althought when i check the voltage using superdoctor ( a supermicro daignostic tool) it tells me the cpu voltage is 1.31 which im more inclinded to believe.
Yeah its all good.
The qx6700 is only showing as 1600mhz as it lowers the multiplyer when not loaded to save energy.. kinda neat actually.
Ahh.. ok try superpi mod that will calc a single cpu in floating point operations.
Run it on the 1M test and post results for both.
Test results are:
1M calcs
Single Quad core: 20 seconds
Dual Xeon 5355: 20 seconds
What are your RAM and HDD(s) specs for each computer? 3GB switch for both?
Also, JIC, what video card and power supply?
We had some hard to crack issues that we eventually traced to our power supply in one of our comps a while back, we were underpowered because of our video card, and it made the system slow and unstable.
8gb on my quad core system.
4gb on my dual xeon system.
Dont need the 3gb switch…xp64 recognises max ram for both without that.
I have an nvidia 7800gt installed. I was thinking of taking this out to see if that made a difference.
The power supply is a hyper type R Mk II Series 680w.
I have three power cables going to the board…one large main power link, 1 4 pin 12v lead and an 8 pin 12v lead. I also have space on the board for a standard power cable insert, but i think you only attach that if you dont have the 4 pin lead.
Ok, I took out the video card and decided to attach that lead to the mainboard…Still no difference.
I checked the cpu voltages and temps whilst it was rendering, and they were 1.3v and the temps were both about 42C…is that quite low.
Just did a test that was also featured online (the architecture scene):
http://www.tech-report.net/articles.x/11443/6
My dual xeons rendered the scene in 16mins 41. It should be around 170 seconds.
My quad core rendered in 226 seconds…about right.
If anyone at least has a dual xeon 5355 system can I please post a test scene to see what times you are getting in comparison to me. I really need to know if my cpus/motherboard are slow…I need to get them rma’ed asap if they are.
Cheers
It’s safe to say that something is wrong, there is no way it should be 4x slower that the single quad.
I can’t remember if it has been asked but what speed is your memory running at? Sometimes if set to auto it can get it wrong, you might try setting it manually.
My next guess is that they are getting hot and stepping down, maybe try reseating the fans? Did you apply thermal grease or is it using a pre applied pad? Not sure about your MB specifically but you might try turning off the speed step stuff.
Strange your superpi results are exactly as they should be. Means atleast the Floating point calculations are spot on with your CPU’s.
Maybe its something weird with vray, try this benchmark scene.
http://rapidshare.com/files/69590545/VrayRC3\_Max8\_Benchmark\_01.rar
Also try a plain bruteforce render DMC for both 1st and 2nd bounce. That rules out any funnyness with LC passes or IR map. Do it on a simple scene tho just to be sure.
I would also run a few benchmark programs outside of vray. So see if its the cpus in general or something specific to 3dsmax/vray
You could try 3dmark and just run the cpu tests.
Or some video encoding tests perhaps.
Just downloading now. Will try that test in a sec.
Just to answer the questions.
My memory speed is 667 mhz. I dont think I can set the speed for the memory in the bios on the supermicro board I have. I can only change the voltage.
Also, i have re-seated the cpus already. Thermal (silver) grease was applied. The heatsinks (even under full load) dont really get hot at all. I have passive heat sinks with fans strapped to them.
SuperPI only tests single cores at a time. The results are the same for both systems.
Dont think its possible to turn off stepping on this motherboard either.
The memory was getting hot, but I put a fan over them and now they are keeping pretty cool to touch.
Ok. Here are some benchmark results from siSoft sandra. Cpu tests.
AS you can see all tests show the xeons about 2x faster.
And here are the results from the benchmark for vray:
And this is a simple scene with just brute force. Rendered out at 1500x1000 on both systems. (quad a lot quicker)
By the way, all the time these tests were running (under full load), the heatsinks remained pretty cool and the temps on the superdoctor app (by supermicro) said the cpus were around 40 - 48C.