Dell T5500 motherboard/system upgrade!

There were only a few motherboards that were dual socket and supported any overclocks (EVGA SR-2). I don't think you will find them for 200 euros ...

t1M1,


1. If the motherboard, CPU's, cooling, PSU, and case are changed, then the project is not an upgrade, it's actually a new system. But the T5500 is a very good design, of very high quality, and there are worthwhile improvements,

2. EUR 200 may not be enough to improve only the CPU's.

3. The RAM is PC3-10600R, which is DDR3-1333 ECC registered and of course at lower speed than current 2133, so that is one limitation to improvement.

4. The PSU is very generous- 875W and if you look into the wiring bundles, there are a number of spare connections, two 6-pin, two 4-pin Molex and one or two others. With the Molex, you can use a splitter to convert it to two or to another kind of connection.

My suggestions would be:

1. Probably the most noticeable improvement would be to change the Quadro 2000 to a used Quadro K620 (2GB). These do have only one DVI and one DisplayPort howevver. In the US, these are selling used for $90-120.

2. If the system does not have and SSD for the OS and programs, that would be an important improvement.

3. Find a good, used PERC H310 RAID controller. These are PCIe cards that connect SAS and SATA drives to much faster bus and disk performance is converted from 3GB/s to 6GB/s. In the US, these are selling used for $50-80. This is a dramatic improvement for the cost. Be aware that you have to install and setup the H310 first and then reload the OS.

4. Watch US Ebay and look for a good bargain on a pair of Xeon X5677. These are 4-core @ 3.46 /3.73GHz and sell for as little as $50-$75. This is reducing the number of cores, but increasing the clock speed from 2.66 /3.06GHz.There is also the X5687 which 4-core @ 3.6 /3.86Ghz- the highest speed LGA1366 of all- and these cost about $90-120. If you use CPU rendering, changing to 4-core may increase rendering time- as core count is so important. You can use the the X5680 6-core @ 3.33/ 3.6GHz- about $180-200 in the US or the X5690 6-core 3.46 /3.73GHz, but they cost about $250-300 each in the US- too expensive.

If you are lucky and patience and can buy from the US- check if the seller will send to CH- then you might be able to do all these things but EUR 200 may still not be enough. If you changed the GPU and RAID controller, will make the most noticeable difference.

The T5500 is beautifully made, extremely reliable, have very large power supplies, and the LGA1366 Xeons some of the best ever. I have a T5500 for rendering and just today I'm adding a PERC H310 and in a few days a 2nd Xeon X5680. It's a basis for very good system and given your budget, the only chance for success is to focus on selected changes to the current system.

Alles in Ordnung,

BambiBoom

1. HP z420 (2015) > Xeon E5-1660 v2 six-core @ 3.7 / 4.0GHz > 32GB DDR3 ECC 1866 RAM > Quadro K4200 (4GB) > Intel 730 480GB (9SSDSC2BP480G4R5) > Western Digital Black WD1003FZEX 1TB> M-Audio 192 sound card > 600W PSU> Logitech z2300 > Linksys AE3000 USB WiFi > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440) > Windows 7 Professional 64 >
[ Passmark Rating = 5064 > CPU= 13989 / 2D= 819 / 3D= 4596 / Mem= 2772 / Disk= 4555] [Cinebench R15 > CPU = 1014 OpenGL= 126.59 FPS] 7.8.15

2. Dell Precision T5500 (2011) (Revised) > Xeon X5680 six -core @ 3.33 / 3.6GHz, 24GB DDR3 ECC 1333 > Quadro K2200 (4GB ) > Samsung 840 250GB / WD RE4 Enterprise 1TB > M-Audio 192 sound card > Linksys WMP600N PCI WiFi > 875W PSU > Windows 7 Professional 64> HP 2711x (1920 X 1080)
[ Passmark system rating = 3490 / CPU = 9178 / 2D= 685 / 3D= 3566 / Mem= 1865 / Disk= 2122] [Cinebench R15 > CPU = 772 OpenGL= 99.72 FPS] 7.8.15

with Quadro K4200:
[ Passmark system rating = 3585 / CPU = 9346 / 2D= 683 / 3D= 4708 / Mem= 1850 / Disk= 2202]

With Quadro 4000
[ Passmark system rating = 3339 / CPU = 9347 / 2D= 684 / 3D= 2030 / Mem= 1871 / Disk= 2234]

Pending upgrades: 1. PERC H310 PCIe SAS /SATA RAID controller, 2X WD Black 1TB (RAID 1)(Converts disk system from 3GB/s to 6GB/s) 2. Add CPU/memory /fan rise and 2nd Xeon x5680 +6GB RAM

Hi Bambiboom,

In the process of building one of these systems for a simple cad/cam machine at work. It apparently can take the 5600 series chips so I put in an offer for a couple of 5677's as the current CPU's are the E5620's. Will I need the copper heatsink for those?

I picked up a quadro FX 4800 but wondering if maybe would have been better off with a quadro 4000? Perhaps both of these are overkill for our purposes, as we don't really do modeling, just 3d programming and milling. What would be the specifics on ram, does the different types of ram really make a big difference or just splitting hairs? It's got 12gigs at the moment. PC is in the mail as I speak.

Thanks for your help, great info!

Cheers, Kirk

An M4000 is much more powerful card than an FX4800. You will have to see how it works with your FX to see if you need more.
Is the 12GB you have 6x2GB? You want RAM distributed to both sockets.

Hello Kanewolf

"An M4000 is much more powerful card than an FX4800. You will have to see how it works with your FX to see if you need more."

Yes, will be testing once the system gets here.. The M4000 is a $950+ card though, The Q4000 or Q5000 can be found for $100-150. only paid $80 for a brand new quadro FX4800, hoping it has plenty for our needs but I guess like you say we still need to test.

"Is the 12GB you have 6x2GB? You want RAM distributed to both sockets."

Not sure, machine is on it's way. I am guessing they are 6x2 though. I may opt for the 24GB for about $50.

My main question is still though do I need the performance dell copper heat-sinks? I went ahead and purchased a pair of X5677 3.46GHz CPU's for $140. I wonder if this board already has them as stock or not? I guess I will find out. The current cpu's are the E5620 2.4GHz...

Thanks for the replies Kirk

Kirk3,

The Xeon X5677 is the fastest 4-core LGA1366- 3.47 /3.73. Yes, you should change the heatsink from the Aluminium one to the Copper tube form. I also received the T5500 with an E5620, and when changing to X5680's, I changed to the uprated Steel /Copper heatsinks.

If you're programming the cutting/milling sequences, the T5500 should have more than adequate computer power. An aerospace model-maker that made some wind -tunnel models for me has a quite large CNC router - well, the table is 3m X 3m and programs and runs *.STL stepping sequences and also an 80W laser using a single quad-core 2.66GHz Precision T3400 with a Quadro FX 1800. It's miraculous it works as he leaves the side panel off for cooling and the thing is choked with dust.

If you're only using this system as an industrial control, even though the sequences may eventually be 3D actions, the input and output is effectively all 2D. The good news for your FX 4800 purchase is that the older series Quadro FX typically have higher 2D performance than many current GPU's. The highest 2D score on a T5500 in Passmark is 693 for a Quadro 5000 and No. 2 is an FX 4800 at 690. The highest 2D for a Quadro 4000 is 635, for a K4000- 617 and a GTX 680 only 517. I tried the K4200(4GB) in the T5500 and it's 2D score is 682- good for a modern worktation GPU, but not as a good as an FX 4800. These are all quite close but it shows that if you don't need 3D speed, the older series are better value. They were designed before 3D CAD was so dominant. I have an FX 4800 in a Precision T5400 (2X Xeon X5460 @ 3.16GHz) and the Passmark 2D score is higher than for the Quadro K4200 (4GB). However, the K4200 3D score is 4X the FX4800.

Be aware that there is a special Solidworks "partnered" driver that was written for the FX4800 that can run x128 anti-aliasing and that is fantastic for modeling or industrial control. As you may know, Solidworks will create STL files and even sheet metal layout sequences from the models. This makes the points in a radius 8X closer together than if you run at x16.

A couple of years ago I had to snap a line to a torus and it was not possible to have it precise- and the display was deceptive at x16. It could not find the exact tangent perpendicular. The x128 driver solved it and I would expect it to cut/mill smoother radii = less finishing. There was actually a special model of FX 4800 for Solidworks called the CX, which I think cost originally about $1,600. If this is strictly a 2D system, you made an excellent choice.

A couple of days ago, I added the 2nd X5680 to the T5500 and the CPU score changed from 9178 to 14731, among the top CPU scores for T5500's. The average score for dual X5677's is 11701, but in the top T5500: 12324.

I am very fond of LGA1366!

Cheers,

BambiBoom

Hello BanbiBoom,

Thanks for the extensive detailed reply. All good news so happy to hear it. Yes we mainly use little known program called CNC XR6 which does both cad and cam and there is some 3d viewing and some 3d tool path preview stuff that could possibly benefit. We primary make highly detailed 3d molds for one vendor and lots of other mill and lathe work for a company called thermo scientific that produces radiation detection equipment.

But since I found the T5500 at such a bargain price I thought it would be a no brainier to upgrade from the old dual core XPS workstation we currently use.

Do you happen to know for sure if this particular board has the stock non-performance heatsinks? Wondering if it may already have them as stock since it came with the 5600 series vs the earlier board that only supports 5500 series CPU's.. It has not arrived yet but trying to get all the upgrade parts handy by the time it gets here. I guess I could always run it by the vendor that sold it and see if they happen to know..

Anyways, thanks for your time and info and the good news!

Cheers, Kirk

Kirk,

The T5500 system should exceed the performance need, but that's a positive as is the very high reliability of these systems in difficult conditions. But, again, a very good choice.

One addition that you might consider is placing a layer of foam filtering material between the bezel /faceplate and the grille on the front of the case, or lining the interior of the front grille. This shouldn't be so dense as to seriously reduce the air flow, but can help keep the interior cleaner. As the air is drawn into the case, dust can start to choke the space between the plates of the CPU cooler and the airflow is reduced. Only a little detail.

As for the CPU cooler of your future T5500, there were two motherboard series that correspond to Xeon X5500 and X5600 series. I think that the CPU cooler could have been the plain Aluminium one or the Steel / Copper on either series. My T5500 has the later motherboard and arriving also with the original E5620 had an Al heatsink. Probably, the heatsink was selected according to the thermal load of the CPU. The E5620 is only 80W- that must be among the lowest power requirements and my expectation is that your system will have the Al cooler. The X5677 however, is at the top, same as the X5690 6-core: 130W- so it gets the Steel /Copper.

If you are lucky, your T5500 may arrive with a PERC 6/i RAID controller as mine did. I didn't expect it. If so, these can create very fast disk systems. I made a mistake and did not configure an SSD on the 6/i correctly and the performance was poor. I removed the 6/i and have PERC H310 which should be signficantly better, but wasn't really necessary as the 6/i is so good. The 6/i are very inexpensive to buy also- sometimes only $15 in the US or 12-15EUR. There are two versions, and the workstation one has a low profile heatsink and bracket and the PowerEdge server one a very high heatsink and no bracket. I'm going to install the 6/i and the 146GB and 300GB 15,000RPM SAS drives plus another 300GB I bought in a Precision 390 that was given to me and that should wake it up! The 390 responded very well to upgrading with a Xeon X3230 4-core @ 2.66 and the Quadro K600 that arrived with my HP z420.

Sorry for such long posts, but upgrading these older high quality systems is worthwhile. The Precision TX500 series systems are such good value, and there are several really excellent LGA1366 CPU's I'm thinking of finding a really inexpensive T3500 and as a game seeing how much I can improve it for the least amount of money. I've always wanted to paint the front faceplate of one if these satin black too,..

If you think of it, I would enjoy knowing how you progress with your project.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

Hello bambiboom,

Computer has arrived. Thanks to your help I have everything on hand and ready to go. Looks like one of the heastinks, (the one one the main board is indeed aluminum, the other on the satellite board is copper. The ram I found was a steal, it's BRAND new Samsumg, came in a sealed tray, and even has heatsinks installed! 24 gigs for only $55 shipped. So that looks great.

The machine is a BEAST! Heavy and solid as a rock. HUGE power supply, OMG. Done lots of builds from scratch and really impressed with the dell design and infrastructure inside this one. The dual CPU setup is NUTS! : ) Easy to disassemble as well. Can't wait to take it out for a spin. I wonder if I need an updated bios for the new CPU's to post? I guess I will find out here soon. More to come.

Cheers, Kirk

Thanks again for your help!

Kirk,

Thanks for the update. Sounds as though you're having a good start.

"Infrastructure" is a good term for the TX500 series Precisions - beautiful construction. I quite like the heavy metal faceplate, which I call the 1959 Rambler Ambassador style and prefer to the TX7600 and TX800 series that was more modern and the interior was more orderly, doing away with the elaborate plug-in riser board for the second CPY, but those lacked that solidity and symmetry - a classic. I also never liked the vertical optical drives, but the current ones have returned to horizontal .

Optional diversionary content: > [ A couple of years ago I was planning to buy a T7500 and upgrade and remodel. My plan was to cut out the horizontal bars of the front faceplace in the lower portion and replace them a row of miniature Doric columns- I found good molded ones. Then I''d paint the faceplate satin black, the columns bright red and in the center, use a stencil to paint "T VII D" which is T 7,500 in large Roman numerals in light grey. The number for 5500 though might be misinterpreted: "VD" . If I find the orphaned T3500 of my dreams I might do it, but the T5500 faceplate is like new- so good I'd rather have it. By the way, I ended up buying the T55000 instead of the T7500 because it's almost exactly the same height as the HP z sitting next to it, plus I never say myself needing 192GB of RAM nor having 5-6 HD RAID configurations.] <

Having a E5620, made the AL heatsink predictable and likewise the CPU /memory/ fan / riser arrived with a Steel /Copper. Mine also had a PERC 6/i and Firewire card. I tried to get the PERC to work but the performance was poor and took it out. I learned subsequently that the problem was that I was trying to run an SATA Samsung 840 SSD with an SAS Seagate mech'l drive and that design didn't like mixing SATA and SAS especially without firmware update. That was also designed before SSD's were common. There are number of T5500's on Passmark with very high disk scores using the PERC 6/i.

Anyway, I bought the PERC H310 (NOS $60) that was an option in the TX600 series and some of those scores are astoundingly high. At the moment I'm trying to get up the nerve to add the H310. I've made a system restore image of the HP z420 and I'll install the H310, and use the "restore to dissimilar hardware" feature of the restore software (EaseUS ToDo Backup Advanced Server). When the target drive is selected, the H310 drivers are loaded form a USB drive and I've done it correctly, the T5500 should become a clone of the z420. I'm allowed to load the software on two systems as long as they are not used simultaneously . Then I can run renderings or problems in Matlab or Mathematica on the T5500 while continuing 3D modeling, graphics design,and etc. on the HP.

I recommend updating the BIOS to the latest version which I think is A012 from 2012 or 13. That is available as a very easy *.EXE program at dell.com\support as is the user manual PDF which I also highly recommend. Also, if you call Dell, give them the service tag numbers and they'll send a free reinstallation disk of the original software. I have to say Dell is miles ahead of HP in the clarity and efficiency of their customer support. They're like Rolls-Royce and want to have as many of their high end products working as possible, regardless of age.

You mentioned buying RAM and only this afternoon, I decided to buy more RAM for the T5500. I currently have 6X 4GB on the motherboard and I used the 3X 2GB that arrived with the system on the 2nd CPU board. However, going from 24 to 30GB introduced an asymmetry that caused the Passmark memory score to drop noticeably- that is, CPU 1 was running 24GB and CPU 2 was running 6GB and it was "less happy" about it. I checked T5500 memory scores and the highest scores were for 24 or 48 GB. My plan is to buy 3X 8GB for the 2nd CPU board so I'll have 24 / 24. Looking in the User Manual Dell after the fact, it mentions that if there are larger size modules added, place them on the daughter board first. I never read manuals first and there it was, waiting.

If you'd like to give the T5500 a special seasonal gift, consider having one of these:

NEW Dell USB Black Multimedia Keyboard 2-Port USB Hub Volume Play N6250 SK-8135

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Dell-USB-Black-Multimedia-Keyboard-2-Port-USB-Hub-Volume-Play-N6250-SK-8135-/311489557684?hash=item48863974b4%3Ag%3AiZgAAOSw4UtWT7op&nma=true&si=vfUqciGK4MPtoWCsop%252Fvhef6NIg%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

For some reason these are much more expensive at the moment. In Aug /Sept. they were half the price.

A keyboard that matches the T5500 quality. This may have been the original one supplied. I first had an SK-8135 with theT5400 and every since I use that model for my main system- both HP z420's have SK8135 and a Dell ODJ301 black and silver mouse. The HP items have hardly been taken out of the wrapper.

Anyway, well done and if you think about it, I'd enjoy knowing what happens as you progress.

Cheers,

BambiBoom

Greets Bambiboom,

Thanks for all the info. Yes, things are going well so far, got the CPU's and memory installed. 3 sticks on each so that's 12x12, which should suffice nicely. At first I forgot to plug in the power to the daughter board and would not boot, kind of panicked but if finally dawned on me after I had already put the old memory and cpu's back.. lol.

Thankfully all went well on the upgrade after that. I did notice there is a better board than mine that has a fan on both the northbridge and southbridge. (this only has fan on one of them). But hopefully this board will be fine as is since it's not for gaming or anything.

FX4800 card came in today just in time. Was ready to go out the door to work when I tried plugging in 2nd hard drive for storage when I hit a major setback. Apparently raid was "on" in the bios so adding that drive confused the computer thinking I was using raid. Long story short I chose to set the bios to auto-detect for raid instead of on. (not planning on using raid) But then had to re-install windows as it would not boot otherwise.

I hope I can use all 4 sata ports..(plus 5th for CD rom) as that was my hopes for storage and back up drives on sata 1, 3 and 4. Sata 0 has boot drive. Looks like the bios says 0 and 1 are configured for raid so I may have to try moving the CD rom to port 1 to use them all in non raid configuration? (if it lets me?) Anyways, long story short am nearly there. Windows updates screwed me last night after install, there we so many (225) at once- even with fresh install of SP1- that it failed and had to start over. (decided to do the "download and let me choose", option which should work, just do them a few at a time instead...as don't have time to go through slipstreaming them into an iso). Windows update is such a nightmare sometimes..

Anyways, almost done with yet another fresh re-install, hope this time all goes well! Many lessons learned. : )

Thanks for the link, didn't know they had keyboards with usb ports!

Best Kirk

Kirk,

Thanks for the update.

The ghosts of RAIDs past has me going as well. I was given two systems a year ago by an office that was closing: a Dell Precision 390 and a Dimension E520. I upgraded these with good results, and had to reload Windows on the 390 when I finally connected the 2nd 320GB drive. I didn't use the E520 for months and when I did discovered it starts up and goes through a long DOSistic conversation with itself until it declares "NON_RAID DEVICES" before it starts.

My lesson has been that it's as well to give long thought to the SATA configuration for hthe reasons we both have experienced. Ont my T55000 SATA0 is c:, the storage drive in SATA 1, and the optical drive is on SATA2. If I mae a RAID 1 for the storage I think the second drive would be SATA 4. I

I'm still hovering over installing the PERC H310- do indeed the extra complication, but as I have it and would like to learn a bit about RAID and controllers I think I'll give it a go and then regret it.

I ordered 3X 8GB of PC3L-10600R ($51) so the motherboard will have 24GB and the 2nd CPU board will have 24GB. The memory score fro the 30GB ( 6X 4GB, 3X 4GB) was lower than for the 6X 4GB alone and I noticed On Passmark benchmarks that the highest meory scores on dual CPU systems were for 24 and 48 GB- symmetrical amounts between the two CPU's.

I wasn't quite certain re" your comments on fans. Are you saying one of the motherboard versions has an additional fan or is that for the CPU riser? With the 2nd CPU board in the case, it's suddenly very crowded and if I could add an additional fan somewhere I would.

The Dell SK-8135 is a real machine's machine isn't it? - elegant steampunk. I think it reminds me of my old McIntosh tube stereos,..

Excelsior!

Cheers,

BambiBoom