need help upgrading my cpu

[Kaitlin Kaschak459]

ok so my uncle gave me his old hp Z400 desktop for free when he bought a new pc right now it has 12 gigs ddr3 ram a 475 watt 80 bronze proprietary psu and the stock xeon W3520 2.66 cpu. what i want to know is which processor would be my best upgrade option in terms of playing pc games? riht now the 750ti gpu that i put into the pc is doing well but the slow cpu speed really holds me back, here are my cpu upgrade options which is best also the cpu will be liquid cooled

Intel Xeon Processor W3565 3.20 GHz, 8MB cache, 1066 memory, 4.8 GT/s QPI, Quad-Core, HT, Turbo

Intel Xeon Processor W3670 3.20 GHz, 12MB cache, 1066 memory, 4.8 GT/s QPI, Six-Core, HT, Turbo

Intel Xeon Processor W3680 3.33 GHz, 12MB cache, 1333 memory, 6.4 GT/s QPI, Six-Core, HT, Turbo

Intel Xeon Processor W3690 3.46 GHz, 12MB cache, 1333 memory, 6.4 GT/s QPI, Six-Core, HT, Turbo

i know it seems stupid to upgrade old tech but i my self love to tinker with old tech and this pc runs quite well for older tech so what cpu do u recommend and wheres the best place on the net to get said cpu for a decent price

 

[Rogue Leader]

Get the 3690 if you're getting one, it will cost you around $250 on ebay if you can find one, the 3670 and 3680 seem to be around the same price may as well get the fastest one. I've seen the 3680 refurbished for $250 at tiger direct. The 3565 you can get for around $100 used. All processor were discontinued years ago so new ones likely aren't around.

First off why liquid cooling? You can't overclock it, just use an air cooler, if you buy a liquid cooler you'll add another $100 to the price for what? Secondly the W3690 is double the speed in a raw benchmark, however I am not sure how well that will translate to gaming performance. Technically its up there with some quite fast processors, but games are not designed to take advantage of the hyperthreading and things like that, that make it so fast. That said I don't have a system to test and give you real number, but conventional system wisdom says this may not be worth spending too much on, you may be at the point of diminishing returns.

 

[Kaitlin Kaschak459]

why liquid cooling because if i dont use liquid cooling i will have to buy a special air cooling cpu cooler as from what i have gathered hp did many of the parts proprietary including the cpu cooler meaning theres a cooler designed for low ed low speed cpus and a cooler for high end high speed cpus if i use an aftermarket spu the bios will tell me im using a low poer cpu coller to cool a high power cpu

The Z400 has a mainstream CPU heatsink, for <= 95W processors, and a performance CPU heatsink for > 95W processors

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-PCs-Workstations-and-Point-of-Sale-POS-Systems/HP-Z400-Processor-amp-HSF-Upgrade/td-p/5043241

 

[Rogue Leader]

why liquid cooling because if i dont use liquid cooling i will have to buy a special air cooling cpu cooler as from what i have gathered hp did many of the parts proprietary including the cpu cooler meaning theres a cooler designed for low ed low speed cpus and a cooler for high end high speed cpus if i use an aftermarket spu the bios will tell me im using a low poer cpu coller to cool a high power cpu

The Z400 has a mainstream CPU heatsink, for <= 95W processors, and a performance CPU heatsink for > 95W processors

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-PCs-Workstations-and-Point-of-Sale-POS-Systems/HP-Z400-Processor-amp-HSF-Upgrade/td-p/5043241

If you decide not to purchase the HP heatsink there are many air cooling solutions that are likely far more efficient than the HP "high performance" heatsink. The Coolermaster Hyper T2, TX3, 212 Evo, The CRYORG H7, and many others. There is no reason at all to buy a liquid cooler for this.

 

[Kaitlin Kaschak459]

thing is hp uses a proprietary cpu cooler thats wired diferently then ur average cpu cooler

 

[Rogue Leader]

thing is hp uses a proprietary cpu cooler thats wired diferently then ur average cpu cooler

If thats true (which I doubt) then a liquid cooler isn't going to help you. I looked up the performance heatsink it looks like a standard 4 wire plug, I just don't see them having different wiring, but if they do then you would need to get their heatsink instead of a liquid cooler. Incidentally otherwise it looks like any high end big heatsink I posted.

 

[Kaitlin Kaschak459]

thing is hp uses a proprietary cpu cooler thats wired diferently then ur average cpu cooler

how about this? http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Z400-Liquid-Water-Cooled-Heatsink-NEW-Kit-507696-001-/331649976477?fromMakeTrack=true

 

[Rogue Leader]

Well that will do it. I had assumed you meant some sort of aftermarket solution.

In any event this upgrade will then cost around $325, in terms of its game performance I just don't know that you're going to get a boost thats worth the money. There will definitely be a noticeable improvement, I just want to tamper your expectations, in terms of a year or so form now you may want to have saved the money to get something more suitable for gaming in the long term.