Xeon E5-1660 v3 processor review from AliExpress: overclocking the Chinese way

Platforms based on obsolete Xeon processors and Chinese motherboards, which are sold in abundance on the well-known cross-border trade platform, is a truly immense topic.
We touched it twice and both times made sure that the server processors of 7-8 years ago do not look competitive at all against the background of modern CPUs.
However, as it turned out, this is far from being the end of the story.
Finally and irrevocably convince the adherents of old Xeon that the processors with microarchitectures which are four or five generations behind are not able to provide the level of performance typical of the current Core and Ryzen, we have not succeeded yet.
Every time the adherents of CPUs from the past begin to appeal to the fact that among numerous Xeon for LGA2011-3 platform we should choose some other model, so that it would be able to get on the same level with Core i5 and Ryzen 5, if not with Core i3 of Alder Lake generation by its performance.Frankly speaking, it becomes more and more difficult to believe it, because we tested quite a few different models of Xeon E5 v3 and v4 series.
Among them were both comparatively high-frequency and multicore variants, processors both on Haswell microarchitecture and on Broadwell, and all of them were notably losing in performance to modern low-cost CPUs.
However, so far we haven't tried to overclock server processors from AliExpress, and such a claim from fans of old Xeon really seems justified.
We did not want to leave anything unsaid in our tests, so we decided to return to the topic of Chinese server CPUs once again and see if overclocking can somehow help them.
At the first glance, overclocking of old Xeons does not seem to be useless: low clock frequency is really one of the factors restraining their gaming performance.
But it should be mentioned straight away that overclocking of old Xeon is not the same as overclocking of modern overclocking CPUs.
Firstly, most Xeon E5 v3 and v4 have a locked multiplier, which is logical for server processors.
Therefore, a special Xeon model will be required to increase the frequency above the default value.
Secondly, the majority of Chinese LGA2011-3 motherboards, which are currently available on the market, either do not support overclocking at all or support it rather conditionally.
So in addition to certain processor models, you also need a special board.
And only using a combination of the right equipment will it be possible to overclock Chinese Xeon.So to get an overclocking platform based on Xeon you will have to spend a bit more effort and money.
But we went all this way and are ready to tell you if the result is worth the money invested and if an overclocked Xeon from 8 years ago can be considered as the \"terror of modern CPUs\".⇡#Xeon with overclocking: what is itAlthough the statement that there were instances with an unlocked multiplier among previous generations of Xeons sounds rather strange, it is true.
Nowadays, Intel no longer allows such oversights, but in 2014, when Haswell-EP server processors appeared on the market, some of the released models did turn out to be capable of overclocking.
Apparently, this happened because Intel used the same semiconductor blanks for Xeon E5 v3, designed for single-processor configurations, and overclocking Core-X.
Obviously, the company expected that no one would think to overclock Xeon, but eventually this hidden feature became known, and now it is the source of inspiration for some fans of systems on old server CPUs.Based on the above, it is easy to conclude that overclocking may have the Xeon E5 1600 v3 series - they are maximum similar to the high-performance desktop models.
These processors are based on a simple semiconductor chip LCC (Low Core Count) and can not work in pairs (and fours), because they lack the interprocessor bus QPI.
And among the Xeon E5 1600 v3, you do find a few models with an unlocked multiplier: the six-core Xeon E5-1650 v3 and the eight-core Xeon E5-1660 v3 and E5-1680 v3.
In fact, these models are similar to well-known to enthusiasts Core i7-5930K and Core i7-5960X Extreme Edition with the only difference that they have a slightly different purpose, so they were released in much larger quantities, which are now sold on the Chinese aftermarket for relatively low prices.
For example, six-core Xeon E5-1650 v3 can be found on AliExpress for 4-4, 5 thousand rubles, Eight-core Xeon E5-1660 v3 sells for 6-7 thousand rubles, and Xeon E5-1680 v3 costs about 11.5-13 thousand rubles.
The most popular solution for budget builds in this range is Xeon E5-1650 v3, but we chose more expensive for detailed study

Intel Sapphire Rapids-SP server processors with HBM2e memory will be up to three times faster than their Ice Lake-SP predecessors

Intel at the International Supercomputing Conference has shared fresh details about its upcoming 4th generation Xeon Scalable server processors, also known as Sapphire Rapids.
Processors of this series will be available in two versions: standard and with HBM2e memory.
There were fresh details about the latter.Image source: IntelThe standard variant of Sapphire Rapids processors has a chip design of four XCC crystals.
The area of each chiplet is about 400 mm2.
The crystals will be interconnected by an EMIB bus.
These processors will have 10 EMIB interconnects and the total standard Sapphire Rapids-SP processor package area will be 4,446mm2.
Sapphire Rapids-SP HBM variants will be able to offer up to 64GB of HBM2e high bandwidth memory in the form of four 16GB stacks each.
Given the increased number of chips on the substrate of these processor models including HBM2e memory, these processor versions will have 14 EMIB interconnect points.
The total packaging area of Sapphire Rapids-SP HBM will be 28% greater than the standard variant and will be 5,700 mm2.
Intel says the EMIB channel will offer twice the bandwidth density and four times the power efficiency compared to standard packaging designs.The company also shared performance data for Sapphire Rapids-SP with HBM2e memory.
According to the manufacturer, the next-generation Xeon processors deliver twice the metrology performance of Xeon Ice Lake-SP chips, and they are more than three times faster in the YASK benchmark, have twice the performance in openFOAM (a platform for numerical simulation of continuum mechanics problems), and are more than three times the performance in CloverLeaf.
In addition, the company claims that Sapphire Rapids-SP with HBM2e memory will offer twice the performance in fluid dynamics calculations (Ansys Fluent) and twice the performance in ParSeNet.
Recall that Sapphire Rapids-SP processors will get up to 56 cores with support for up to 112 virtual threads.
They will work with 8-channel DDR5-4800 memory, support up to 80 PCIe 5.0 lanes, and their maximum L3 cache capacity is 105 Mbytes.