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Upgrade for Dual Xeon 2.4

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  • 16-03-2010 1:47pm
    #1
    BostonB
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,056 ✭✭✭✭


    I've an old Dell Workstation 650 with Dual Single Core 2.4 Xeon's and 4GB of RAM. It used mainly for crunching databases and encoding. Whats the cheapest machine (OC or not) I can build that will be significantly faster. The databases are around 2GB in size. I'm just interested in the hardware for now.


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    #2
    Solitaire
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 18,377 Mod ✭✭✭✭Solitaire


    Almost anything other than an entry-level Atom or Sempron would have more processing power nowadays. But you'd also have to replace the motherboard and memory as they're both obsolete as well, and there's still the question mark of whether you'd have to replace the case, PSU and drives as well. Essentially its a new build or nothing at this stage - only question is how big's your budget.


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    #3
    Komplett-Tech: Ryan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,002 ✭✭✭Komplett-Tech: Ryan


    You could always user adverts.ie to pick up some good second hand hardware. Something like a Q6600 or even a newer i5/i7 ill do great


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    #4
    BostonB
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,056 ✭✭✭✭BostonB


    Sorry I wasn't clear. I'm not going to upgrade that machine it would be a new build, used or new. I just wondered could I build a cheap > €200 number crunching machine. I'm completely out of touch of the relative speeds of recent chips. I tried to do some of this work on my laptop, core2duo 2Ghz and it was a snail in comparision to the Xeon.


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    #5
    Komplett-Tech: Ryan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,002 ✭✭✭Komplett-Tech: Ryan


    Yeah, supprisingly, the old Xeons are absolute beasts at number crunching. In my server i still have 2 x 2.8ghz dual core xeons, and have no plan to upgrade them for a while yet. For under 200euro you might find it hard to get something that will perform the same. Do you know what the model of the motherboard you have at the moment is? Is it possible to stick in a dual core xeon, and maybe some more ram?


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    #6
    BostonB
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,056 ✭✭✭✭BostonB


    The Xeon isn't mine to upgrade.They use ECC Ram 4GB max, and I don't think the Dell boards supports that much more in the way of CPU upgrades. They do multitask nicely far better then any single cpu dualcore machine I've used. I think the max you can fit is a 3.2GHz but not dual core and its not 64bit anyway.

    I was thinking maybe theres a new bang for buck cpu you can overclock for big gains, for not much money. I could use that as a headless server/cruncher on my lan at home.


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    #7
    Komplett-Tech: Ryan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,002 ✭✭✭Komplett-Tech: Ryan


    The best overclockers at the moment is the AMD 965 BE. But, its no great number cruncher even when overclocked to 6ghz. The best number cruncher out there at the moment is the I7-860 and the i7-920 for a modest ammount. But its a fair bit above the 200e mark you are looking at.

    The best bet would be a Q6600 from adverts.ie, 4 cores, easy to overclock to 4ghz on stock cooling (Although i would upgrade this to something better) Then you can just grab a 775board and 4/8gigs of ram.


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    #8
    BostonB
    Closed Accounts Posts: 18,056 ✭✭✭✭BostonB


    Sounds like a Q6600 is the way to go.


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