Dell Workstation Owners Club

[TechyTed]

Sounds like you got a great deal for $60.

The T7500 Dual Xeon configuration is generally not overclockable. A few single CPU configurations ...factory unlocked chips...are somewhat overclockable. Check the “Throttlestop on desktops” thread for exact details on some W35xx and W36xx CPUs that overclock on T3500 motherboards.

Many Third party X58 motherboards from Asus, Gigabyte, MSI allow higly overclockable Xeons through BIOS settings. But those tricks dont work in the Dell precision line.

There are some rare reports of people who claim to have suceeded with FSB type overclocking on T5500s or T7500s but solid info on that approach is lacking.

I am running a X5675 in my T5500 single CPU configuration and its quite peppy for what I am doing at the moment.

For around $60 you could get an X5680 on eBay and install it single CPU config. I know that doubles the cost, but for gaming, it would give you a 30% single core speed boost, which is probably as good as you can expect from overclocking. You could probably sell your matched X5650s and CPU riser card and make money on the deal.

 

[jeanpat]

Communication between T5500 <-> GTX 960. The bandwidthTest program from CUDA sample yields:

 

[Retrorockit]

Hi! I just registered to say that I've found a $60 Dell Precision T7500 with a Dual Intel Xeon X5650, Radeon HD 6870 card, 6GB Ram, and no HDD. I bought a 1TB HDD, upgraded my card to a HD 7870, and everything runs perfectly fine except for Wii U and CEMU emulators. For some reason, my PC is super duper weak with emulators and I was wondering if my old CPU is the culprit? If so, is there any way for me to overclock it? My mobo is a stock one and not a X58 unfortunately and I don't have the budget to replace it. My Dell mobo is 06fw8p with bios updated to latest.

As TechTed says overclocking is a single CPU game. Also since the unlocked 1CPUs have the memory controller on the CPU the RAM capacity and type used will change also.
The fastest 2 CPU is the X5687 4 core Westmere EP 3.6GHz.
https://ark.intel.com/products/5257...r-X5687-12M-Cache-3_60-GHz-6_40-GTs-Intel-QPI
The memory capcity of 288GB means RDIMM are supported which can save you a bunch of money if that's what you already have. So if 8C/16T is enough for you then that's what I would suggest.
Also 6GB of RAM means 3GB/CPU. 12GB would be the absolute minimum I would run, and 24GB would be much better I think. 6GB is pretty much a shipping configuration for 2 CPU. I would fix that first. maybe your CPU isn't the problem.
There's a guy at OCN overclocking the T7500.
https://www.overclock.net/forum/5-i...rclocking-dual-xeon-dell-precision-t7500.html

 

[TechyTed]

Agree on the T7500 6gb RAM configuration being a potential bottleneck. If you run 6gb on each CPU, three 2gb DIMMs each, you should have the triple channel memory going and 12gb should really be enough for 90% of the games out there today. That config could go to 24gb easily.

....
There's a guy at OCN overclocking the T7500.
https://www.overclock.net/forum/5-i...rclocking-dual-xeon-dell-precision-t7500.html

I saw that thread but wonder about the validity of the claims. What version of SetFSB? Which PCIe to SATA adapter? Lots of unanswered questions. Overall system stability would seem rather unlikely, but who knows? Maybe some brave T5500 or T7500 owner will give it a shot! (Grin)

 

[david carey]

Dammit you are lucky , that is a steal ! Dual x5650 , Nice . No way to over-clock , but with two of them , Why would you want to ?

 

[lexluthermiester]

For some reason, my PC is super duper weak with emulators and I was wondering if my old CPU is the culprit?

That would be no. CEMU is stronger on NVidia cards and both of the cards you listed are fairly old. GTX 660, 670, 680, 760, 770 and 780 will work great with that system, will run CEMU great and can be had used for $150 or less on eBay. If you want to stick with a Radeon, anything in the "R9" series will work, though you have to look up prices. Rest assured, it isn't your CPU's.

The X5650 6 core CPU is plenty powerful for CEMU. The chipset for that board is very likely the E5520 as the E5500 wasn't officially compatible with the X56XX series Xeons(IIRC, someone correct me if incorrect), and is technically better than the X58 in many respects. You got a good deal on that system. The real upgrade you need is a video card as mentioned for the purpose above and maybe another 6GB(3x2GB) of ram(make sure you get matching ram specs). However, if you stick with what you have, you still have a damn decent system which should last you a while.

Would be happy to help you out further, should you need it.

As TechTed says overclocking is a single CPU game.

Not always. There are some dual-CPU socket 1366 mobo's out there that support very carefully controlled overclocking, but they are rare and expensive. Would be kinda fun to play with one though.

 

[techiee]

Thank you all so much for the advices and replies!! Yeah all in all, it does seem like the RAM is the culprit in having slow performance on emulators. Luckily, I found a couple of these with various memories and I'm looking forward to buy the 16GB variant sometime this week. If I buy the RAM, could I combine it with the RAM that I have or do I have to remove it all?

That would be no. CEMU is stronger on NVidia cards and both of the cards you listed are fairly old. GTX 660, 670, 680, 760, 770 and 780 will work great with that system, will run CEMU great and can be had used for $150 or less on eBay. If you want to stick with a Radeon, anything in the "R9" series will work, though you have to look up prices. Rest assured, it isn't your CPU's.

Ahh. The people around my city sell Nvidia cards pretty expensively. AMD's on the other hand is a mix. Couldn't find an RX or R9 under my budget unfortunately so in the end, I found the best card I could ever afford with best performance possible with a 80 dollar budget and got that 7870 for 70 (Saved $10 ). Surprisingly, that 7870 still kicks massive ass and it still has driver support! As for its compatibility with CEMU, I have to guess it's my combination of 2GB VRAM and my current 6GB RAM that's the real culprit. Like you said, the X5650 should be powerful enough to run CEMU. According to benchmarks, the stock should at least be near equivalent to a i5-2500K.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Luckily, I found a couple of these

The following set would actually serve you better as it's actually a triple-channel set;
https://www.ebay.com/itm/12GB-3X4GB...RECISION-WORKSTATION-T5500-T7500/161176438347
$11 cheaper as well.

 

[Retrorockit]

Triple channel memory is a big plus with these systems. That means sets of 3 matching modules, or pairs of 3 sets of modules. Thats's why 12 GB or 24 GB are suggested. 16GB isn't a triple channel comfiguration. If you're running 2-6Core CPUs with Hyperthreading you have 24 threads running on 6GB RAM. 256MB of RAM per thread.
You could possibly put alll 6GB on 1 CPU, and add another 6GB to the 2nd CPU. But I would check the Dell Manual to see if that's a supported configuration.
Since you have 2 CPUs and they each have a separate memory controller you will probably need at least a 6 module kit.
Here is the manual showing supported configurations.
https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/common/precision-t5500_setup guide_en-us.pdf
6x1GB + 3x2GB isn't shown but doesn't break any rules either. It might be worth a try if money is tight. You could always add another 3x2GB if it doesn't work. Then add 3x4GB later.
But IMO if your running 24 threads 24 GB isn't too much.
These do have the ability to run 2 channel, and "Flex Mode" with mismatched RAM but there is always a perfomance hit.

 

[TechyTed]

The following set would actually serve you better as it's actually a triple-channel set;
https://www.ebay.com/itm/12GB-3X4GB...RECISION-WORKSTATION-T5500-T7500/161176438347
$11 cheaper as well.

Thats the exact set I bought for my T5500 single X5675 CPU configuration.

Memory was brand new and it worked perfectly.

 

[david carey]

Anyone running these machines with 8 GB modules ?

 

[lexluthermiester]

Anyone running these machines with 8 GB modules ?

I'm not, but it is possible. Was thinking of doing so and looked into it.

 

[Retrorockit]

I came across something that might be fun to play with. The Nvidia Tesla C1060 4GB 512bit DDR3 video processor card. It's 187W. 2 slots wide and has no video outputs.
Basically a dedicated CUDA/ PhysX card. It's DX10 but there are Win7/8 drivers for it. Dell# Y155M. It was an option on the T5500. I'm seeing these for as low as $60.
I might stick one in a T3400 LGA775 to see what happens. In Windows it needs an Nvidia GPU, In Linux it can pair with an AMD card.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I came across something that might be fun to play with. The Nvidia Tesla C1060 4GB 512bit DDR3 video processor card. It's 187W. 2 slots wide and has no video outputs.
Basically a dedicated CUDA/ PhysX card. It's DX10 but there are Win7/8 drivers for it. Dell# Y155M. It was an option on the T5500. I'm seeing these for as low as $60.
I might stick one in a T3400 LGA775 to see what happens. In Windows it needs an Nvidia GPU, In Linux it can pair with an AMD card.

OOoo, nice! If you do anything that can use Cuda or GPGPU, you will get a very respectable boost in performance!

 

[dorsetknob]

There are some dual-CPU socket 1366 mobo's out there that support very carefully controlled overclocking, but they are rare and expensive. Would be kinda fun to play with one though.

EVGA SR2 comes to mind

 

[Retrorockit]

"OOoo, nice! If you do anything that can use Cuda or GPGPU, you will get a very respectable boost in performance! "
I saw one review by a guy who had one paired with a GTX980. He said his FPS didn't go up, but it never dropped off either. I just ordered one for my toy box.

 

[TechyTed]

I saw an HP Z400 listed on eBay with one of those Tesla C1060 installed. Wasn't sure what software would take advantage of it. I think a few games used the Physx boost for special effects, but I was guessing the additional Cuda cores for engineering tools would have been the justification for having it in a workstation.

 

[lexluthermiester]

EVGA SR2 comes to mind

Asus also made a few very good ones.

I saw an HP Z400 listed on eBay with one of those Tesla C1060 installed. Wasn't sure what software would take advantage of it.

There are a ton of Audio/Video/3D editing/rendering suites that will use Tesla cards as well. So if you do any video editing one of these will cut your rendering times in half or better.

 

[Retrorockit]

I saw an HP Z400 listed on eBay with one of those Tesla C1060 installed. Wasn't sure what software would take advantage of it. I think a few games used the Physx boost for special effects, but I was guessing the additional Cuda cores for engineering tools would have been the justification for having it in a workstation.

Apparently there are a lot of scientific programs that need the parallel math processing and continuos output a GPU can provide. Racing sims like GTA5 and iRacing use it also.

Asus also made a few very good ones.

Asus made some good 2 CPU LGA1366 but ASFAIK the EVGA SR2 is the only fully unlocked 2 CPU board. It can overclock even the locked Xeon CPUs.
http://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/5194576

 

[Deleted member 178884]

Evga sr-2 is expensive as hell now, I've seen some with custom loops and dual x5690's at 5ghz which is crazy

 

[dorsetknob]

there are a few members here at TPU that own SR2's some even own multiple Boards

 

[sepheronx]

I see I can pick up locally a Dell T3500 with a W3550 (I think that is what it is) with 12gb of ram, 1x 256gb SSD, some crappy GPU for $160 CAD. I am thinking of purchasing it, maybe offering something like $140 for it and purchasing a X5680 and putting in a 1060 3gb GPU.

What do you guys think? It sounds like a good deal (very cheap, RAM and SSD alone would be costly).

You cool dudes with the x5680 and other potential machines, could you compare some games for us vs the newer processors if you got them? I would appreciate it. If none of you can, I understand.

 

[Retrorockit]

I see I can pick up locally a Dell T3500 with a W3550 (I think that is what it is) with 12gb of ram, 1x 256gb SSD, some crappy GPU for $160 CAD. I am thinking of purchasing it, maybe offering something like $140 for it and purchasing a X5680 and putting in a 1060 3gb GPU.

What do you guys think? It sounds like a good deal (very cheap, RAM and SSD alone would be costly).

You might look around in the Throttlestop Overclocking Desktop PCs thread. Depending on what your plans are for it there are some interesting options there.
https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/throttlestop-overclocking-desktop-pcs.235975/

Re: The Tesla CUDA cards, I found a newer 3GB Fermi card Tesla C2050 for $60 so I grabbed that one also. DX12 makes it still relevant.

 

[sepheronx]

yes, but how good are those cards for games? I assume pretty lousy, right?

 

[TechyTed]

I went with an X5675 upgrade (from an E5520). Upped the base CPU by 800mhz and went from 4/8 cores/threads to 6/12 cores threads. Cinebench CPU score was about double (over 700). For a $40 CPU off eBay not bad.

The sweet overclockable Xeon for the T3500 seems to be the W3680. As Retro pointed out the Throttlestop thread shows 4 + ghz is possible without much drama.