Dell Precision T5500 CPU upgrade

[tsefreeflow]

I have been researching this and since I am not so computer hardware savvy I think I must ask. It has the 0D883F mobo with the E5504 cpus (x2). I want to upgrade to the fastest and most cores possible. I considered buying a used T5500 and swaping the cpu's (cheapest option), but there are so many different cpus in used T5500's even though finding the mobo specs only show compatibility for 5500 series cpu's. Found a used T5500 with the X5650's (x2) and are six cores which would be great for my work in Maya and multiple 3D and picture/video editing work. This might be the best option so I can swap the cpu's to my system, but I am unsure of what would actually need swapped. The 6 core cpu's are TDP 95w and the E5504's are 80w. Anyone know if this is feasible at all? and what I would need to swap over? I am not even sure if the mobo is the same as the used one, but it looks like it in the pictures. Can I run a TDP 95w cpu on my mobo that now has 80w cpus?
Thanks a bunch

 

[tsefreeflow]

Well I finally found that there are 2 different mobo's for the T5500. 0D883F (mine bought in early 2010) and 0CRH6C which replaced mine from July 2010 and on. Looks like mine accepts 5500 series cpus (damn it) and the other does the 5600 series up to 6 cores per cpu. So now my questions is: If I buy a used T5500 with the 0CRH6C board and the dual 6 core processors, could I just transplant my hard drives, ram and graphics card from my T5500 to the other one with the newer mobo? I am assuming with this transplant, it would boot up just like mine now but under the new mobo and stuff. This would allow me not to have to re-install everything (software) on the newer computer. Is this correct thinking or am I completely off my rocker here? Thanks

 

[Ubrales]

Welcome to Tom's Hardware Forums!

Hardware-wise if the motherboard and the CPU matches yes it will work after you transplant all the disk drives, PSU, and other stuff. What you have essentially done is build a new computer. This is where the software issues arise.

Software-wise you will have to re-install all your programs. This includes the OS. Microsoft will not permit you to use the OS (Windows) from the old computer to be transferred to the new computer. You will need to purchase a new Windows license.

 

[bambiboom]

tsefreeflow,

I can understand your interest in improving on the Xeon E5504. On Passmark benchmarks, the CPU score is 2791, and id ranked No.582 of about 1700,about the equal of a Core2 Quad Q6600. This was really a server CPU made to control data transfer and extreme reliability. The E5504 is also not hyperthreading.

When considering a CPU upgrade I like to consult the Passmark chart according to the socket, which in the case of the E5504 is the FCLGA1366. have a look at >

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/socketType.html#id4

> in which you see the highest rated 5500 series Xeon is the X5570 2.93 / 3.33. Whereas a pair of E5504's scores 5048 and is no. 133 among dual CPU's, dual X5570 scores 9773 and is No. 62, Tthe clock speed increase is not large, but the 3.33 turbo and hyperthreading give is a computational score that is nearly doubled.

The question is whether it's enough for Maya, one of the most demanding applications. A pair of X5570's has about the same computational power as a single Xeon E3-1240 V3. Still, the performance with the X5570 may be good enough that you could add years onto the use of your T5500.

It's a pity you can't plug in the 6-core X5680, but it is one of the best older Xeons. If do you buy another T5500, or even if you changed the motherboard, you would have to reload all your software, although it's possible you could do a "repair install" with Windows 7. These take quite a lot of running time- the last one I did took about 4 hours- but can save full reinstalllation of all the sotware, files, and configuration. Back up all files first of course.

When I thought recently about replacing my T5400, I had thought to buy a T7500 with X5680's or buy a T7500 with minimal processors and add X5680's-either way I'd decided this was a CPU I'd like! as it turned out, I decided to have a faster single CPU system for modeling and the T5400 could sit in the corner and render.

The X5570 is 95W, and sounds like a high rating, but later T5500's were sold new with two 130W X5680's, along with high power GPU's of the day. Changing to either of these CPU's should present no problem to the T5500 power supply, which is 875W. A T5500 with two X5680's and a Quadro 5000 was by the way, about $9,500 new!

Cheers,

BambiBoom

HP z420 (2014) > Xeon E5-1620 quad core @ 3.6 / 3.8GHz > 24GB ECC 1600 RAM > Quadro 4000 (2GB)> Samsung 840 SSD 250GB /Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > AE3000 USB WiFi > HP 2711X, 27" 1920 X 1080 > Windows 7 Ultimate 64 >[Passmark system rating = 3923, 2D= 839 / 3D=2048]

Dell Precision T5400 (2008) > 2X Xeon X5460 quad core @3.16GHz > 16GB ECC 667> Quadro FX 4800 (1.5GB) > WD RE4 500GB / Seagate Barracuda 500GB > M-Audio 2496 Sound Card / Linksys 600N WiFi > Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit >[Passmark system rating = 1859, 2D= 512 / 3D=1097]

2D, 3D CAD, Image Processing, Rendering, Text > Architecture, industrial design, graphic design, written projects [AutoCad, Revit, 3ds Max, Vray, Solidworks, Inventor, Sketchup, Adobe CS, WordPerfect, MS Office]

 

[Maciej Klamecki]

E5540 is
Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology ‡ Yes

look on http://ark.intel.com/products/37104/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5540-8M-Cache-2_53-GHz-5_86-GTs-Intel-QPI

regards
matt

 

[bambiboom]

Maciej Klamecki,

Yes, the Xeon E5540 is hyperthreading, but the CPU under discussion is the Xeon E5504, which is not hyperthreading.

http://ark.intel.com/products/40711/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5504-4M-Cache-2_00-GHz-4_80-GTs-Intel-QPI

The E5504 does however have "Virtutalization Technology" and in my experience with the Xeon x5460 (4-cores, 3.16GHz), the virtualization CPU's are read as having threads double the core count. The benchmarks for virtualization processors though are not as high as for hyper-threaded.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

 

[Maciej Klamecki]

"..........transferand extreme reliability. The E5540 is also not hyperthreading."