Worth Souping up an old workstation?

So my work is getting rid of a couple Dell T7500 workstations. Specs below

two Xeon E5606 CPUs 1366 socket
12 gigs of DDR 3 1333 mhz ram
500gb 7200 HDD
Nvidia Quadro 4000 (Motherboard actually has 2 pcie 16x 2.0 slots and numerous x4 and x8 slots as well)
1100w PSU

So iv been thinking about building a PC to play Andromeda on when it comes out. My current laptop just wont cut it. I guess my thought is, could I stick an Nvidia 1060 and Samsung 850/960 SSD in the T7500 and be good to go? I'm only planning on 1080p gaming in the 45-60fps range.

The E5606 seems to be my main hickup, its single core scores are pretty pathetic.
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E5606+@+2.13GHz&id=1247

Would it be worth sticking a Xeon X5677/X5687 in you think? I can get them pretty cheap (around $50ish)
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+X5677+@+3.47GHz&id=1310

Single core is a lot better, but still behind even the modern I3s

Not sure what to think from the sys req for Andromeda anyhow

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/mass-effect-andromeda-pc-specs-announced/1100-6448201/

The single core speeds for the AMD cpus are pretty much in line with what the Xeon X5677 has, but the Intel CPUs are way ahead (25%ish). I'm also not sure how multi core intensive MEA will be.

Am I also right in assuming that running two X5677 would not give me much for game performance?

 

If you can get it for free (or at very low price), then by all means go for it.

Here are the supported CPUs for Precision T7500: http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/19450933

So yeah you can even upgrade to 6-core LGA 1366 Xeon.

The advantage of X5677 and X5687 is clock speed (in addition to decent IPC), that's what most games care about.

However, if you want dual CPU setup you'll need two identical CPUs, otherwise leave one CPU socket empty. Most games just can't properly use two CPUs anyway so no reason to waste money for dual CPU setup if gaming is your only goal.

A single X5677/X5687/X5660/X5670/X5675 should suffice, but be aware of higher TDP of these chips, especially X5677 and X5687 which are 130W parts, a 50W jump from E5606. You may need a beefier cooler.

Also you can sell the Quadro, that thing can fetch some cash for you. The PSU is certainly powerful and I'd assume it has a 6-pin power connector for GTX 1060.

As for the storage, the SATA ports on the motherboard is limited to SATA II, unless it has RAID card installed, so you won't use the full speed of SSD, in such case Samsung SSD just isn't worth it. How about a cheaper alternative like SanDisk X400?

 

I was thinking I might grab something like this.
https://www.amazon.com/Best-Compute...qid=1489100530&sr=1-8&keywords=pcie+to+sata+3

I guess a X400 would work. I tried a crucial in a work laptop and had major issues with it... which had me running back into the samsung crowd since iv had great results with them.

I was toying with getting two X5677 (seem to be much lower priced then the X5687) since I do a fair bit of Solidworks CAD and some FEA work from home. More cores would probably be better for that, but I want the higher clock/IPCs of the quad core options. So you don't think having an older CPU will hurt my performance much?

Yea i hear you on the CPU coolers, the ones in this system seem pretty apathetic. The PSU is a monster, il have to look at the rail amperage when I get the chance, though I doubt that will be an issue.

Also what do you guys think of the AMD 480 (8GB) vs a 3GB 1060? Price seems to be about the same. Seems like the 480 is a no brainer?

 

Not sure if a SATA card will work in your Precision since I haven't used one, but doesn't hurt to try cause it's cheap, and you can RMA it if it doesn't work. And yeah both X400 and 850 Pro are solid choices.

From what I know, Solidworks is single-threaded so favors high IPC. Nehalem is strange that it sucks at low speed but rocks when clocked higher, so while Nehalem's IPC isn't as good as that of newer generations, it makes up with high clock speed. I personally have a Latitude E5510 which is a Westmere-gen laptop (Westmere = Nehalem with CPU die shrink) with Intel integrated graphics, all my CAD models in my final uni year were done in this machine.

This is my Latitude running Solidworks 2016, with one of my models opened, had to turn off AA to prevent stuttering but otherwise it works well.

However, there's one problem on cooling: The beefier stock cooler is tall (it's a tower cooler) and may violate the space for CPU riser board, meaning you may need to give up dual CPU setup if you wanna use a 130W TDP CPU and a big stock cooler. Not sure if aftermarket cooler fits the screw holes, need to check. Otherwise dual 95W 6-core CPUs (like X5670 and X5675, 2.93GHz and 3.1GHz respectively) are also viable solutions.

If you can get an RX 480 8GB at similar price of a GTX 1060 3GB, then sure get it, head to head in DX11 and stomps the "Green" card in DX12. Just don't get the reference version, and get the one with 8-pin power connector if possible.

 

Yea Solidworks always seemed a little more single threaded. I have not done any heavy rendering for a while, will have to try that and see if it will make use of multi core CPUs.

I was looking at this card https://www.amazon.com/XFX-RADEON-G...ements=p_n_feature_four_browse-bin:6066318011

Not sure what the difference is between a reference/non reference model. Will have to look that up. Also I think the X5677/X5687 are Westmere too.

Hehe I did a lot of Solidworks on a lowly ATI X1400 graphics in UNI. Worked surprisingly well! Only place the gpu just would not work was when working with high detail 500+ part assemblies. Which was often, once you started adding nuts/bolts/washers to a project it gets big fast. Is there any specific CAD/science based benchmark to compare GPU perofrmance? I would be kinda curious to see how a RX 480 would stand up to the old Quadro 4000 for workstation applications.

 

That's the reference card, the cheapest one that is, 6-pin power connector and blower fan gives it away.

Reference RX 480 cards had a problem of drawing too much power from PCIe slot and in some cases, caused the slot to be fried, it has since been patched with Crimson 16.7.1. Non-reference RX 480 cards didn't seem to have such problem. I think both are safe now though.

As for benchmarking GPUs on workstation load, you have SPECviewperf, or the good old professional softwares like AutoCAD, Solidworks, Maya.

P.S. That price though

 

So something like this is probably better then? Cant see if its the 8 pin or 6 pin connector

https://www.amazon.com/MSI-RX-480-A...TF8&qid=1489162201&sr=1-2&keywords=rx+480+8gb

Its about 210 vs 189 after rebate, which is not too bad. Still, seeing how the cheapest 1060s 6gb are going for 240+ for comparable performance, seems like the 480 is a good value right now.

 

That MSI card is a non-reference design, with 8-pin power connector and a different PCB.

Like I said, both reference and non-reference cards are fine now, though non-reference cards usually have better cooling. Can't go wrong with both.

 

So I was comparing specs between the rx 470 and rx 480. I'm not seeing a huge difference though when comparing the 4gb rx 480 to the 4gb rx470, am I missing something?

Right now I can get
MSI Armor G 4GB 470 for $140
Saphire Nitro 4GB 480 for $170
Saphire Nitro 8GB 480 for $189

 

That'll depend on whether you'll make use of 8GB of graphics memory. The Xeon X5677/X5687 will bottleneck RX 480 a little bit but not very noticeable.

RX 470 is about 10% slower than RX 480, about the same as GTX 970 and sometimes GTX 1060.

It's you to decide how much you wanna spend. I'd go for RX 470 based on price/performance, but if you're gonna get a new build in 1-2 years and transfer the graphics card to the new one then RX 480 is a better choice.

 

I'd get the RX480... More futureproof and just better!

 

So just a little update. Iv been surprised to see that Andromeda seems to be using both of my quad core cpus in the dual cpu setup. I still have the two E5607 in there and between the two (all eight cores running at 80-90%) of them they seem to be keeping up with the MSI RX 470 I got. Iv been running andromeda at all high settings at 1080p. I also picked up a freesync monitor, so that may be helping from a perception standpoint too. Iv only seen some very minor stutter in a couple cut scenes, other then that its been buttery smooth.

I will get my fps monitor up and running next time I play so I can actually see what kind of fps I am getting.

 

That's a very good news, seems like some of the latest games can finally make use of more than 4 cores, and more importantly, 2 CPUs at the same time.

Just hope it'll be the same for Ryzen...

 

I wouldn't doubt it, multi-core is the way of the future and eventually devs will have no choice but to get on board.

 

Wow great news! Hopefully more games in 2017 follow suit!