Xeon x3230/ddr2 vs dual Xeon quad core x5550/ddr3 1333R

[tommyb13662]

So my old system HP XW4600 I thought was getting outdated was running an lga775 xeon 3230 Quad core@3.33ghz (bsel mod to 1333FSB) with 4gb DDr2 ECC 4-4-4 8 timing . (2) 7200RPM seagate 250gb drives in RAID 0, win 7 64. Powercolor HD 7870XT running @900/1500 because the 475watt PSU could not power it without black screen crashes. Is why was running @ 900mhz/1500mhz and -15% power. was running stable.

On ebay for $215 I bought TWO (2) DELL T5500 dual xeon x5550 2.66 with hyperthread and turboboost to 3.06. LGA 1366 with 12gb ddr3 pc3-10600 3 channel 2gbx6 9-9-9 24. 2GB per-channnel and 6gb per CPU. Upgrades with the new sysytem also included dual 80GB SSD SATAII 3.0GB/s in raid 0. Also now have (3) seagate 250GB in raid 0. dual 80's are win 7 pro plus games/benchmarks However running benchmarks/games the new system does not surpass my old system.

The old system was running a 475watt psu which did not have enough grunt to power the HD 7870XT powercolor myst edition 2GB at 100%. So I was running it @ 900mhz and -15% power settings via catalyst control center. Stock Its 975mhz boost from 925mhz. With the new system and 875 watt PSU no issues also can overclock to 1100/1600Mhz.


So I took the video card from the old system and plugged it into the new system with 875 watt PFC power supply... the old system on say Heaven benchmark 4.0 was 2000+ish new system with brand new win 7 pro and drivers only installed.... heaven benchmark 2000+ish...

This is even with a video overclock to 1100/1600 vs 900/1500 on old sysytem. i have been reading forum after forum the LGA 775 systems were bottlenecked by new video cards. So i spent my tax refund setting up the new system and there is zero

Also x3230 was @ 90% running games like Bf4, Skyrim HD 4k textures with lots of other HD mods, Diablo3, Starcraft 2 . The new system is roughly 20% max CPU. I read all over saying that the Lga 775 systems bottle necked newer video cards... but man this looks like its not the case. Did i waste money? Or wtf is the bottleneck now??? basically its core 2 quad vs 1st gen I7...

 

[faalin]

I would have to say that your 7870xt is the bottleneck. Looking at this benchmark from tweaktown it seems your score is on par with their test setup that is using a i7 3960x http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/5158/sapphire_radeon_hd_7870_xt_tahiti_le_2gb_with_boost_overclocked_video_card_review/index5.html

 

[James Mason]

SSDs won't improve game performance beyond shortening loading times.
Why are you using server processors for a gaming rig?
The bottle neck could be your RAM, 1333 is okay for gaming, but it comes in at the minimum level.

 

[faalin]

the new computer is faster then the old one, the only thing that stayed the same between the two rigs is the videocard. If your scores are close to the same between the rigs then its the videocard that is the bottleneck. As for dual cpus games wont use them, we are just now getting into the age of using multiple cores let alone using multiple cpus. best use for it is to unload physics to one of the cpus during gaming, but im not sure you can do that with amd cards.