Inexpensive upgrade to a Xeon W3530 for HTPC...

[Shyatic]

Hi all,

I have an old Dell T3500 with a W3530 processor in it, and it is well... slow for any tasks like Handbrake or transcoding video.

What would be a cheap upgrade to that which would allow me to re-use the RAM (if possible -- I have 24GB in that machine), and step up on CPU intensive tasks? Or is it not worth upgrading?

Thanks for any advice!

 

[schmuckley]

L5639;IF your machine will run it.

 

[Shyatic]

L5639;IF your machine will run it.

I'd rather move away from the entire board and platform... it's quite old and I'm okay investing a few bucks on an i3 that outperforms the Xeon for tasks like Handbrake and transcoding. Question is, should I go Haswell? No? What's the best bang for the buck?

I currently have a i5-2500 @3.3Ghz as my main desktop PC, so I'm not sure whether I should upgrade THAT and give the components to my HTPC, or just buy something cheaper for the HTPC use.

Thanks!

 

[schmuckley]

You could do that;I guess.
Anything less;eh.
If you want to go really cheap: High-clocked Haswell dual-core or i3 and cheap motherboard.
Something is to be said for a true quad-core though.
or a true 6-core.

 

[Shyatic]

How about something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...=Combo.1548263

Looks very cheap, and 6 cores with a high clock. I've been out of the AMD world for some time, but perhaps it will do the job? I can buy a cheap graphics card to supplement it (though.. I might already have that).

 

[Shyatic]

Also, I'm using 4GB DDR3 PC3-12800 (6 of these) on the T3500... would they be able to be re-used?

 

[schmuckley]

you could reuse RAM..
6 cores with way less IPC ..clock means nothing.
It's really 3 cores with somewhat better-than-Intel Hyperthreading.
A 4 GHZ Thuban is on par with a 5Ghz one of those.
I doubt any i3 would outperform L5639, tbh.
I'm thinking:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116895 CPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813138395 Mobo
or:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon-...BZJ-/301091336159?pt=CPUs&hash=item461a712fdf

5450 ddr3 1gb would be OK for GPU

 

[sm625]

I dont think any i3 is fast enough to outperform what is essentially a first gen i7. Not in handbrake. You should try to find a Xeon W3670/W3680/W3690. I think they will work in your system as a drop in replacement. You'd have to verify that for yourself of course. If you can get that for cheap then you'd have a 6 core 12 thread that would at least match a haswell i7 in handbrake.

 

[Burpo]

For handbrake & transcoding, XEON X5650 6 CORE 2.66GHz 12MB 6.40GTs is a drop in replacement you can do for around $100. Price is right & nothing like 6 cores & 12 threads doing your work, very quickly..

 

[Shyatic]

For handbrake & transcoding, XEON X5650 6 CORE 2.66GHz 12MB 6.40GTs is a drop in replacement you can do for around $100. Price is right & nothing like 6 cores & 12 threads doing your work, very quickly..

Got a link? It's $1000 on newegg

And what about the AMD processor above? As I said, I haven't been in the AMD world in a long while... plus, it has USB3 which this board doesn't have and I would love to use.

 

[Burpo]

I know this guy will take $115 as I already bought 1. He may go lower.. You can sell yours for 1/2 that, this becomes painless & easy..
http://www.ebay.com/itm/AT806140043...US_Server_CPUs_Processors&hash=item1e85c041da

add one of these too.. under $100 total if you sell your chip..

http://www.ebay.com/itm/3in1-USB-3-...t=US_Drive_Cables_dapters&hash=item27cc0206a5

http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-Port-USB-...rnal_Port_Expansion_Cards&hash=item4d0228cad7

 

[gwalk55]

For handbrake & transcoding, XEON X5650 6 CORE 2.66GHz 12MB 6.40GTs is a drop in replacement you can do for around $100. Price is right & nothing like 6 cores & 12 threads doing your work, very quickly..

thanks for the info..were you able to reuse your original heatsink with the new cpu?