Intel Xeon W3503 - Overclockable? If so, how?

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Psynaptik

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Dec 22, 2013
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I've got the above chip on an Intel X58 motherboard.

I recently inheritied a Dell Precision T3500 workstation for free. I don't have any money for new parts at the moment so I'm limited to overclocking in order to get the most for the time being.

It was easy to overclock the Quadro FX 580 graphics card and I saw significant improvements. But I'm having trouble with overclocking the Intel CPU.

At the moment it's speed is 2.4Ghz (this is stock speed). I've downloaded Intel's Extreme tuning utility but it won't work with my chip (doesn't seem like it works with many anyway), and I've fished around in the BIOS (which was all graphical and mouse drivern which felt a bit weird!) but there're no options for fiddling with the CPU.

Have I missed something here, is there another program out there that could help me, or is it simply not possible. I'm sure I've read in one or two corners of the web that people have really cranked up the speed on these chips, but I can't find out how they did it - and needless to say those forum posts are pretty old (the machine itself is about 2 years old).

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.
 
Solution
bungz
The prices will vary, the 1366 Xeons aren't particularly expensive because people tend to go after the i7 versions, not all enthusiast 1366 motherboards support the Xeons you see so they have limited appeal.


I would say have a look around and see if the games you play take advantage of the extra cores, IMO if you can slot in a W3520 for £35 it would be a good deal, its basically a Xeon version of a i7 920 and is still a great all round chip.

There should be a dell manual on their site if you drop the service tag into the support section on dells website, from there you should find out how to change the CPU. Most dell stuff is pretty modular, cant see it being very difficult!
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bungz

bungz

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Aug 7, 2013
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Pretty sure the motherboard in the dell will be locked down, so you will not be able to overclock.

The chip itself would overclock if you had a suitable enthusiast X58 chipset board but they are very pricey 2nd hand and likely wouldnt fit into your T3500 chassis!

Your best bet as the W3503 is just a dualie would prehaps get a cheap quad core Xeon for the 1366 socket, maybe a E5507 or similar? They go for peanuts 2nd hand. Just check the dell supports it.

Edit:

Seems it should do:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/p/19406351/19952506.aspx
 
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Psynaptik

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Dec 22, 2013
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Thanks for replying.

According to that thread that you've linked the W3520 is the equivalent to an i7. That seems a little strange that an i7 equivalent could cost so little (it's only about 35 pounds on ebay), but it would fit in my board. Would it be that big an upgrade - I'm not using this computer as a workstation, I'm using for as much gaming as I can get out of it (which is saying that much I know), but it seems good so far for DOTA/LoL and Indie games.

The E5507 seems quite expensive at the moment - they're over 100 pounds on ebay.

So, is it worth getting the quad core you suggest for gaming, and will it be easy to remove one chip and refit the other chip in there? Looking inside the case of the precision t3500 it all seems pretty complicated for a case. I did use to build my own PCs, but that was about 8 years ago or so....
 
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bungz

bungz

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Aug 7, 2013
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The prices will vary, the 1366 Xeons aren't particularly expensive because people tend to go after the i7 versions, not all enthusiast 1366 motherboards support the Xeons you see so they have limited appeal.


I would say have a look around and see if the games you play take advantage of the extra cores, IMO if you can slot in a W3520 for £35 it would be a good deal, its basically a Xeon version of a i7 920 and is still a great all round chip.

There should be a dell manual on their site if you drop the service tag into the support section on dells website, from there you should find out how to change the CPU. Most dell stuff is pretty modular, cant see it being very difficult!
 
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Psynaptik

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Dec 22, 2013
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Okay, thanks for answering. Dead hard trying to find info out there on this chip - it definitely does have limited appeal!

I'll think about buying the W3520 then. Many thanks!

Oh, final question - what makes it a 'xeon' version? And if I bought the W3520 and put a new graphics card in there (I'm thinking AMD 7790 or similar from the article on this site), would I then have a half-decent gaming PC? Obviously not Metro 2033 on full at 100FPS, but still.....
 
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