Advice on best Hard Drive config + other stuff

jonny512379

jonny512379

jonny512379

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20 Apr 2011
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Stoke on Trent
Hello All

Well, i have sold my soul and bought an old Dell T5500 with 2 x Xeon E5620's (the price was right!).
I plan to upgrade it a little before i start to use it, but would like opinions/advice off the people here, so i dont do anything silly (other than buying the old Dell PC...).

  1. The PC is coming with an old Quadro card. I would like to ADD my (oldish) HD6950/70 to it, so I can have 3 monitors (independent), but i don't think the DELL PSU comes with the correct connections for the 6950.
    I have a goodish Antec 620watt PSU. should/could i put this into the DELL? Does it have the power for dual Xeon's? + 2 x (oldish) GPU's
    I assume I can run 2 different colour GPUs. I have managed to do this in the past (am at present, have an AMD and Nvidia in the same PC and all works OK, with a little extra config).
  2. The DELL comes with 8GM ram (in 2gb + 1gb +1gb, for each CPU). I think the Xeon E5620 are tri channel. I would like to upgrade the ram to 3x2gb and 6x2gb (for the 2 x CPUs). Can I add any DDR3 to this or does it HAVE to be ECC ram?
  3. Hard Drives:
    I have a few 1TB hard drives, so was going to install 2 of these, and am also thinking of buying a 250gb Samsung as the primary drive mainly to install win7 on (https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-191-SA&groupid=1657&catid=2101&subcat=2393).
    Am also wondering if i should buy a hybrid drive (https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-292-SE&groupid=1657&catid=1660&subcat=1893) to replace one of the 1TB drives. This drive would be used to install most of my programs to (Photoshop, office, dev software, etc.). Would i see any benefits to this?
    (the other 1TB drive if mainly for file storage).
    I don't plan to run any RAID.
  4. At some other point I will also upgrade the CPU's to hex core, but will wait until I see a bargain (do the CPU's have to be "matched" or could i run a quad and hex core CPU together?)
  5. anything else I should be thinking of or buying as an upgrade for the Dell (ideally from OCuk!)?

This PC is not for gaming. it is for software development, i will run a few virtual machines on it too (not permanently). Photoshop, triple monitor multitasking and general PC use (word, emails, YouTube, the odd HD video and general stuff...)
Hopefully i will not be pushing this PC to the max, but my faithful little dual core work PC has been working its knackers of now for too long.... and is due a good retirement, probably as a backup device.

Any advice is much appreciated!
 
1) According to Dells spec, the PSU is half decent? it might just have the connectors you need for the 6950 (dual 6pin).

2) Again the website says support for 72Gb ECC RAM, but it may not be a pre-requisite that it has to be ECC.

3) Never liked Hybrid drives, either get a proper SSD or save money and get a bigger capacity HDD.

4) More than like they do need to be a matched pair, in fact sure of it, they need to have the QPI link (communication path between both CPUs) and core count, TDP etc.


Is there a make and model of the motherboard as that might reveal more info.
 
Two GPU's up to 150w each I think, and ECC DDR3 memory only. 1333MHz I believe, and most likely better to have 6 identical modules of the same capacity.

Is your Windows 7 able to operate the two CPU's, I believe it needs to be Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate, I am sure Home and Premium do not.

You also may note one CPU missing upon boot with Windows Pro or Ultimate, though this is usually the result of adding a second CPU later. And can be solved with, Start --> Run --> MSCONFIG --> Boot --> Advanced Options --> Check detect HAL --> Reboot
 
stulid said:
1) According to Dells spec, the PSU is half decent? it might just have the connectors you need for the 6950 (dual 6pin).

2) Again the website says support for 72Gb ECC RAM, but it may not be a pre-requisite that it has to be ECC.

3) Never liked Hybrid drives, either get a proper SSD or save money and get a bigger capacity HDD.

4) More than like they do need to be a matched pair, in fact sure of it, they need to have the QPI link (communication path between both CPUs) and core count, TDP etc.


Is there a make and model of the motherboard as that might reveal more info.
Click to expand...

THANKS very much for the info!

No idea of the make/model of the motherboard yet. Bought from an auction site, and the PC is due to arrive on Tuesday, so I will know more then.
The listing didn't state these details :( (also didn't mention the GPU, but there was one in the photos, so this will be a surprise, maybe good maybe bad...)
All I know is it can take Xeon 5600 range (or assume so, as they are pre-installed :) )

So the RAM type is down to the motherboard then? thanks for this info. I read on the Intel site that the E5620 "supports ECC" and didn't know if this meant "MUST to be ECC" or not based on the CPU. The Dell spec sheet also says supports ECC ram, but does not mention non-ECC in either capacity.

I will drop the Hybrid idea after your opinions, as am going to buy a smaller SSD as the primary drive anyhow; And already have some 1TB drives too.
(can anyone say if the https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-191-SA&groupid=1657&catid=2101&subcat=2393 is the best buy and of good performance/quality?)
From the Dell spec sheet, for the T5500, it says the SSD size is 256GB (i assume this means the MAX) (or is this due to "that was the highest size available when the T5500 was made"?)

Also thanks for the CPU matched info. i had seen some hex cores Xeons selling @ around £35 a year or so ago, but now I'm looking to buy they are much more (i think partly thanks to the thread on OCuk pointing out how much of a good deal they can be on auction sites :-( )

Thanks Again
 
sastusbulbas said:
Two GPU's up to 150w each I think, and ECC DDR3 memory only. 1333MHz I believe, and most likely better to have 6 identical modules of the same capacity.

Is your Windows 7 able to operate the two CPU's, I believe it needs to be Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate, I am sure Home and Premium do not.

You also may note one CPU missing upon boot with Windows Pro or Ultimate, though this is usually the result of adding a second CPU later. And can be solved with, Start --> Run --> MSCONFIG --> Boot --> Advanced Options --> Check detect HAL --> Reboot
Click to expand...

Ta, will be windows 7 ultimate

I assume the "GPU's upto 150w" is just what the PCI Express slot can deliver, so i can add a HD6950, and give it the extra power with the 2x3pin direct from the CPU? or am i mistaken?

I have some old servers, so will look to see if they have any matched 2GB ECC RAM.. hopefully so....
If not does anyone know if OKuk sells ECC ram?
 
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