CPU Upgrade on Dell Precision 690

I've inherited a Precision 690 and I'd like to upgrade the CPU - would love to go dual quad - well something faster than what's in there right now: single dual-core Xeon Dempsey.

I talked to Dell and they said the motherboard I have only supports adding another Dempsey dual core at over $500 ... I was wondering whether 2 Xeon Dempseys in there would be faster than a brand new Intel/AMD quadcore. Can I / should I scrap the Dell mobo/cpu/ram and get something off Newegg? Does anyone know whether that case is ATX or some kind of Dell proprietary thing? Probably should get new case if that's the case.

Suggestions much appreciated.

It's a BTX case (and BTX motherboard of course). Not exactly "Dell proprietary", but it might as well be. Just getting an ATX case won't fix anything since you also have the BTX form factor motherboard.
You should be able to get another Xeon Dempsey for about $165 if you shop around. Xeon 5063 3.2Ghz
The socket 775 version would be the Pentium D 940 3.2Ghz (about $88 currently) and you should be able to find benchmarks to compare that with the current quads.

Hmm, interesting... I guess my primary motivation is to make this a video editing machine. I've got a new camera using the new AVCHD format and I'd like to get a quad core on there.

For my home computer I upgraded to a AMD 940 Phenom Deneb Quad and it seems to handle that AVCHD video a lot better than the 6400 AMD I had in there.

Would an ATX board fit in that case? I think I can convince my boss to get me new mobo, cpu and ram ... prolly not new computer. Since I got an AMD at home, I'd like to try one of the new Intel chips at work...

Thanks for the advice.

You'll want to check the chip set, of course, but if it's Socket LGA 775 it might support a Core 2 Duo CPU... Almost any C2D CPU would beat a single core Dempsey.


~ n8