Is it worth putting a second xeon in a proliant?

[wrb123]

i recently got an HP Proliant ML150 for $20 that i am planning on using as a daily use non-gaming PC. the HP part number is 380187-001. i believe the CPU that's in it now is a 3.0GHz Deon, but im not sure if it is a 1MB or 2MB cache. i think it is 800mhz bus. would there be a noticeable speed and performance increase if i add a second CPU in the empty slot? does it have to be matching exactly? same amount of cache, etc? i found a few 3ghz xeon processors on eBay and pricewatch for $5 to $20 but i don't want to buy the wrong one. how can i tell for sure which one is in my computer already? thanks.

 

[king smp]

download CPU-Z.Google it it is freeware.
Also Everest Home Edition by Lavalys is a good freeware hardware checker.
the processors have to match.
You might need a VRM (voltage regulation module) to run the second chip.
it looks like they used alot of 55xx series in the ML150
And Yes on multi-threaded applications which many more are nowadays (Photoshop,video/audio encoders,format converters etc) you
will see a very noticeable improvement.
Also Windows and Linux OSs will benefit because the OSs are multithreaded.
BTW $20 for that tower is an awesome deal. I am envious.

 

[wrb123]

thank you for your reply. i still need to get a monitor so i can't check the exact CPU specs with software yet. it only has 1gb of ram so im thinking of getting more. Max seems to be 8gb. and then i need to get a decent video card but im not sure what will fit in one of the empty slots. can i use any VRM? how do they connect to the CPU/motherboard? thanks! i was surprised at the price myself - going out of business sale at a computer shop.

 

[king smp]

This the users guide from the link Malmental gave you.
http://bizsupport2.austin.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00260539/c00260539.pdf
I believe it is a PCI-E video. card.
Look for a Nvidia 7000 series GPU (7600gt,7900 ect) GTs the best.
You can still do some gaming if interested and the price point is cheap for these cards. Get at least 256mb card.
some systems dont need a different VRM. IF you do they usually sell the chip and vrm as a upgrade bundle.
The VRM in mine went in like a memory chip does with two side locking retainers. real easy.

 

[king smp]

also you really need to hook up any kind of monitor right now so you can use those programs.
Did they include an Operating System or is the Hard drive wiped?
It looks like the computer came with Server 2000 as standard.
A good investment would be getting a system builders Windows 7 32 bit enterprise or ultimate for the computer. It needs to be enterprise or ultimate to take advantage
of the second chip down the road.
Definitely upgrade ram.at least one more gig.two more gigs would be best
.I wouldnt go more than that since i dont believe those chips are 64bit capable.
(you need 64bits to see more than 4gb.
They might be so double check.

 

[wrb123]

thanks again for the replies! ill check out those video cards. are there many different pci slots these days? last time i built a computer pci was new and we still had isa! now i hear things like pci e, pci x, pci express, etc.

it does have win 7 ultimate already installed, but i believe a 32bit version.

why would they list 8gb ram max for a 32bit machine?

 

[king smp]

" can i use any VRM? how do they connect to the CPU/motherboard? "

They use specific VRMs to to the model of motherboard and computer so it would have to be a HP VRM (again I am not sure if that model does require a VRM) you would have to check the support documentation in the link that Malmental gave you.

 

[Timop]

Why 7000 series? Any PCIe 2.0 card and below would work just fine. An entry level HD4650 is great if not a little overkill.

Also, I wont put any more money on this, even with 2 Xeons, it would be no more than a Pentium D 3Ghz, which get beat badly by a ~$30 Athlon X2.

 

[wrb123]

i looked carefully at the motherboard and don't see anywhere such a thing could possibly be placed and from looking at the documentation i don't see a need for it. the HP motherboard is part # 370638-001.

it has a sata cage where you seem to just slide a hard drive in through the front. can i just use any sata hard drive? do i need some adaptor, or does the connector just line up when i slide it in?

im confused by the pci slots available. i see a lot of 512mb video cards but they mostly say pci express 2.0 - is that the same as pci-e? pci-x? the pci differences are confusing to me.

 

[king smp]

I was wrong about 5500 series.
It would probably be a Gallatin Xeon if it is at 800mhz FSB.
Probably has 2mb L3 cache as an educated guess.
I recommended 7000 series due to fact it can be found cheap used on ebay or craigslist and OP is not looking to game.
Really wouldnt spend too much on system.
If OP got a second chip/vrm for about 30 USD and a used 7900gt for about 30 and added a gig of ram for about 20 than with the orig 20 it would add up to 100 bucks for cheap decent browser,ripper,encoder machine.
My dual Xeon Prestonia 3.2 can stream Netflix,watch tv on USB tuner,browse with two IE windows,outlook open and play video on WMP all at the same time using about 50 percent cpu.(i tried it for fun).no lag.
I can encode and burn a 700mb avi with DVD Flick in an hour.
I play Crysis Warhead at 30-35 fps on 1280x1024 res.
Cost me around 180 USD total for tower.
Bang For Buck Baby!

 

[Timop]

I was wrong about 5500 series.
It would probably be a Gallatin Xeon if it is at 800mhz FSB.
Probably has 2mb L3 cache as an educated guess.
I recommended 7000 series due to fact it can be found cheap used on ebay or craigslist and OP is not looking to game.
Really wouldnt spend too much on system.
If OP got a second chip/vrm for about 30 USD and a used 7900gt for about 30 and added a gig of ram for about 20 than with the orig 20 it would add up to 100 bucks for cheap decent browser,ripper,encoder machine.
My dual Xeon Prestonia 3.2 can stream Netflix,watch tv on USB tuner,browse with two IE windows,outlook open and play video on WMP all at the same time using about 50 percent cpu.(i tried it for fun).no lag.
I can encode and burn a 700mb avi with DVD Flick in an hour.
I play Crysis Warhead at 30-35 fps on 1280x1024 res.
Cost me around 180 USD total for tower.
Bang For Buck Baby!

800Mhz is either Nocona or Irwindale, Gallatin is 533mhz, but either way, even my $100 Athlon X2 system with a 8600GT would whoop your dual CPU-sever pretty bad. Still Bang for the buck much? lol.

His system has 2 PCIe slots available, so the most logical thing would be getting a cheap GPU (~8400GS-ish) and get the system up and running. He'll have enough power for surfing/internet/movies, maybe another stick or RAM for 2GB, but anything more would be just throwing money in a hole. You can build a pretty nice system with $200 now.

 

[king smp]

i looked carefully at the motherboard and don't see anywhere such a thing could possibly be placed and from looking at the documentation i don't see a need for it. the HP motherboard is part # 370638-001.

it has a sata cage where you seem to just slide a hard drive in through the front. can i just use any sata hard drive? do i need some adaptor, or does the connector just line up when i slide it in?

im confused by the pci slots available. i see a lot of 512mb video cards but they mostly say pci express 2.0 - is that the same as pci-e? pci-x? the pci differences are confusing to me.

PCI-X- used in servers and workstations-not compatible with PCI-E
PCI-E info - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express

That tower is probably PCI-E x 16 standard as an educated guess .
Not sure about sata drive-might might be a hot-swap bay.

 

[wrb123]

i appreciate your honest advice, but i seriously don't see how building a PC that cheap is realistically possible. i can't even find a DVD burner for less than $17, cases are like $30, HD $50, video card $40, power supply $30, that puts you at $170 without any CPU or motherboard ...

 

[king smp]

800Mhz is either Nocona or Irwindale, Gallatin is 533mhz, but either way, even my $100 Athlon X2 system with a 8600GT would whoop your dual CPU-sever pretty bad. Still Bang for the buck much? lol.

His system has 2 PCIe slots available, so the most logical thing would be getting a cheap GPU (~8400GS-ish) and get the system up and running. He'll have enough power for surfing/internet/movies, maybe another stick or RAM for 2GB, but anything more would be just throwing money in a hole. You can build a pretty nice system with $200 now.

Show me a decent parts list from an online source (newegg,tiger direct etc) including case,psu,video card,ram,mobo.sound card,dvd-rw,200 gb HD,chip,heatsink for 200 dollars total.
I Dare You.
I really doubt your system cost you 100 bucks TOTAL.
BTW my XFX 7600gs OCd beats an 8400GS easily in Video Card Stability Test by Freestone.
Also my system clobbers my daughter Athlon 64 X 2 1.8ghz in benchmarks.
I can provide screenshots sometime when I am bored.
Give you credit though you are right it is not an Gallatin.
I am tired,human and make mistakes.

 

[king smp]

i appreciate your honest advice, but i seriously don't see how building a PC that cheap is realistically possible. i can't even find a DVD burner for less than $17, cases are like $30, HD $50, video card $40, power supply $30, that puts you at $170 without any CPU or motherboard ...

Very true.
Obviously there is much more powerful hardware out there but to put together a decent new system runs around 400-500 for name brand parts.
Certain things like power supplies you definitely dont want to go cheap on.
A decent mobo/cpu/cooler combo alone will run around 150.

If you are a shrewd shopper.
Using ebay and craigslist.
You can put together a decent tower for about a 100 bucks with what you got now,
It can pretty much do anything a newer tower can do (except hard core gaming) just a little bit slower.
It will be a nice officework,browser,dvd ripper/encoder,photoshop,light duty gamer etc for cheap.

 

[Timop]

Show me a decent parts list from an online source (newegg,tiger direct etc) including case,psu,video card,ram,mobo.sound card,dvd-rw,200 gb HD,chip,heatsink for 200 dollars total.
I Dare You.
I really doubt your system cost you 100 bucks TOTAL.
BTW my XFX 7600gs OCd beats an 8400GS easily in Video Card Stability Test by Freestone.
Also my system clobbers my daughter Athlon 64 X 2 1.8ghz in benchmarks.
I can provide screenshots sometime when I am bored.
Give you credit though you are right it is not an Gallatin.
I am tired,human and make mistakes.

Video Card Stability Test isnt a recent tool and its performance benchmark isnt widely sccepted, besides your OC 7600GS will run alot hotter and louder than a passive 8400GS, while lacking hardware decode.

Also, my build, though some used parts and freebies, came out to be $105, and the 8600GT destroys the 7000 series.

Heres the $200 build with all new parts:

G-Skill 2GB DDR3 RAM $25
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231393

Gigabyte case $15
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811233062

Samsung Burner $17
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151176

PCP&C 310W PSU $15
http://www.directron.com/s31x.html

Segate 250GB $38
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-7200RPM-Internal-ST3500418AS-Bare/dp/B001VKYA5E

ASrock N68C $42
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157204

Athlon X2 250 $59
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103903

Total: $211
You should probably be able to lower the cost even more in a while after the nice Combos starts to come back.

 

[king smp]

Touche.
That is a decent parts list (for all lowend equipment (i wouldnt use that power supply and BTW it is out of stock) .
Video card stability test is older and is widely accepted with many published scores I have seen it used on many websites including the Dell forums.
The 7600gs is HDCP compliant and has MPEG-2 decoder and I got it for 25 bucks.
Also BTW the 2gb Gskill is $25 for 1 stick (hard to run dual or tri channel with one stick)
Give you credit that is a nice choice for a cheap case.
The POINT is the OP can put together a decent tower for around a HUNDRED dollars or so.
Why dont you try answering the OPs questions instead of attacking me.
That is the point of Toms isn't it?!

 

[Timop]

Lol, sorry if that sounded like an attack, just wanted to point out that ~$200 *can* build a decent system with all new parts; You and the OP did request this. My apologies if that didn't come out in the right way.

But my point is investing in a LGA601 platform isn't smart, the parts are relatively hard to find and putting in better parts wont cover up the core deficiency of Netburst CPUs. Even building a system with used parts on AM2/LGA775 would give better results.

 

[wrb123]

we did? lol... nah it's cool no hard feelings

 

[king smp]

Lol, sorry if that sounded like an attack, just wanted to point out that ~$200 *can* build a decent system with all new parts; You and the OP did request this. My apologies if that didn't come out in the right way.

But my point is investing in a LGA601 platform isn't smart, the parts are relatively hard to find and putting in better parts wont cover up the core deficiency of Netburst CPUs. Even building a system with used parts on AM2/LGA775 would give better results.

It's cool. NHF.
He already bought the tower.
It only cost $20.
If he throws 80-100 dollars into it over a period of time and if he just
needs it for light duty work it would be fine.
As stated I can play Crysis Warhead,encode/rip/burn dvds,stream and record Netflix and easily handle Photoshop and MS Office 07 with my dual Xeon and I am happy.
Still making nefarious plans to get my hands on a C2Q system used without my wife kicking me out!

 

[king smp]

BTW with Nvidia a higher end prior model will match up to a lower end newer model.
ie. 6800GT beats 7300GS. A 7600GS OC'd like crazy does beat a 8400GS.
Now a higher end 8xxx like a 8600GT is a different story just like a 8600GT can match up to a lower end 9XXXGS series.
I still want a 7950GTX 512 AGP card for my system if I can find it.
An oldie but goodie (also remember ATI 1950XT?)

 

[MU_Engineer]

i recently got an HP Proliant ML150 for $20 that i am planning on using as a daily use non-gaming PC. the HP part number is 380187-001. i believe the CPU that's in it now is a 3.0GHz Deon, but im not sure if it is a 1MB or 2MB cache. i think it is 800mhz bus. would there be a noticeable speed and performance increase if i add a second CPU in the empty slot? does it have to be matching exactly? same amount of cache, etc? i found a few 3ghz xeon processors on eBay and pricewatch for $5 to $20 but i don't want to buy the wrong one. how can i tell for sure which one is in my computer already? thanks.

You would most likely think the computer would feel faster after adding a second CPU because the 3.0 GHz/800 FSB Xeons are single-core CPUs. Adding a second one would increase the responsiveness of the machine quite a bit under load.

can i use any VRM? how do they connect to the CPU/motherboard?

The VRM is probably built into the motherboard, so you likely don't need to get one and it can't be replaced.

800Mhz is either Nocona or Irwindale, Gallatin is 533mhz, but either way, even my $100 Athlon X2 system with a 8600GT would whoop your dual CPU-sever pretty bad. Still Bang for the buck much? lol.

3.0 GHz 800 MHz FSB Xeons could also be dual-core Paxvilles too, but the Noconas and Irwindales are much more common. Most Gallatins are 400 MHz FSB Socket 603 units as the 533 MHz FSB Socket 604 ones came out later and in smaller quantities. You can also get 800 MHz FSB Gallatins in Socket 478 and 1066 MHz FSB Gallatins in LGA775, but the latter two are not Xeons, they're the first three Extreme Edition CPUs Intel made.

Multi-processor (MP) motherboards are often used in servers and by power users.
The most used MP motherboards are for two processors (dual CPUs).
Make sure the CPUs run at the same voltage.
Preferably, they have the same stepping code..

DP = dual processor. These are the ones that can be either for servers or for power users.

MP = more than two CPUs. Most MP motherboards are four-socket machines (the rest are >4 sockets) and these are strictly sold for server usage, although somebody who's willing to spend the huge amount of money it costs to buy a 4-socket machine can technically use one as a desktop.

As far as mixing and matching CPUs on a DP or MP board, ideally you'd want to use CPUs with the exact same speed, voltage, cache size, core count, bus speeds, and steppings. The CPU makers' documentation will tell you how different you can get with regards to those and have the CPU still work. Generally if it will work, it will result in both CPUs only having the speed and feature set of the slower CPU, so there's no point in trying to buy a faster CPU unless it is cheaper than one that exactly matches your existing CPU.

While a dual processor motherboard seems like it would make a system twice as fast as a standard computer, this is not the case.
Limitations on the processor’s access to the system bus and memory will often require one processor to wait while the other is active.

That may be somewhat true on old completely-shared-FSB systems like the OP's Xeons, but it is NOT true on newer dual-processor and multi-processor motherboards. The system bus capability scales along with adding more CPUs, so you get little to no drop in performance as you add more CPUs.

In addition, until recently, few programs were written to take advantage of a multiprocessor system. Most programs will access the main processor and never send anything to the second; it was often limited to operating system processes on all but the most powerful of programs.

That may have been true for consumer programs up until about 2005, but that certainly wasn't true for professional applications at that time and absolutely is false today.

With the advent of multicore processors, many of the drawbacks to a dual processor motherboard have gone away.

So have many of the advantages, which is why the market share of dual-processor workstations sold dropped ever since the first dual-core CPUs came out and absolutely tanked when quad-core CPUs came out. Now that we have 6 cores in one desktop socket, we have AMD saying they're flat-out abandoning the dual-CPU workstation market.

it has a sata cage where you seem to just slide a hard drive in through the front. can i just use any sata hard drive? do i need some adaptor, or does the connector just line up when i slide it in?

You probably need a drive tray to put the SATA drive in. Then you can put any appropriately-sized SATA HDD in the tray and slide it in.

im confused by the pci slots available. i see a lot of 512mb video cards but they mostly say pci express 2.0 - is that the same as pci-e? pci-x? the pci differences are confusing to me.

PCI Express 2.0 is the second version of PCI Express (PCIe). The slots are the same and you can freely mix and match PCIe 2.0 and original PCIe cards and slots. PCI-X is completely different from PCIe. PCI-X is based on regular PCI and is compatible with regular PCI, except that its slots are all the big long 64-bit slots and it only works with 3.3-volt PCI cards. It also runs at much faster speeds than normal PCI does as well but can clock down if you put a standard PCI device in a PCI-X slot. You pretty much only find PCI-X slots in servers from the late '90s to mid 2000s, while PCIe slots are in desktops and servers from about 2005-on.

 

[wrb123]

thank you for all that information. it looks like there are trays in five of the six sata slots, but they have large X-shaped plastic pieces where the hard drive would seemingly go, so maybe they are just filler. pieces.

 

[wrb123]

apparently to put some sata/raid drives in this computer i need to buy a "sled" type thing that fits in this server. otherwise i could try to fabricate something myself. im fine with the current one IDE drive for now though.

as far as video card, i got a pci-express x16 ati 4350 512mb which should arrive soon to supply this 24" widescreen monitor with a decent resolution.



the cpu (using cpu-z) is "Intel Xeon, Irwindale, Socket 604 mPGA, 90nm, 0.729V, 3.00GHz, family F, model 4, stepping A, revision R0. Core speed: 2992.5MHz, multiplier x15.0, bus speed 199.5 MHz, rated fsb 798.0 MHz, L1 Data 16KB 8-way, Trace 12 Kuops 8-way, Level 2 2048 KBytes 8-way, cores 1, threads 2."

there seems to be a suitable second cpu for sale for $18 here (or on ebay): http://www.starmicroinc.net/cgi/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=IX30E8

there seems to be suitable ram for an upgrade here (2GB stick for $30): http://www.starmicroinc.net/cgi/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=2GBDDR1PC2700ER

so i suppose the question now is... assuming i will be using this box for the next several months to a year or so, should i spend $78 and have a dual 3GHz Xeon box with 4/5GB of ram, or spend $0 and have a single 3GHz Xeon box with 1GB of ram?

 

[wrb123]

"a daily use non-gaming PC" (web browsing, video watching, etc.)

won't the 512mb 4350 be enough for that? i managed to load and watch hulu with the 8mb ati rage i'm working with now.