Whether to upgrade, and if so, what? Advise needed, and Dell T3500s

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Rodney Heatsink

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I currently game on a PC with these specs. It was donated to me because I was having trouble with my Dell T3500 that I had re purposed for gaming.

Amd Fx 6300 OC'd very stable and cool @4.6ghz , Noctua 212 evo cooler
16gigs 1600mhz ddr3 RAM
GTX 780
Corsair 700 watt PSU
Gigabyte GA990FXaUD3 rev. 2 or 3 mobo

I play Witcher 3, Crysis 3, Infestation: New Z , and Watch Dogs all at or above 60 fps. The CPU can get quite choked down at times during gaming though, depending on the game, but I would say this is it's weak point. I almost bought an FX 8350 but decided not to because I thought it would give me minimal FPS difference compared to the the price. FX is just kinda weak, especially which Ryzen, but I don't have a lot of money to upgrade.

My Dell T3500 originally had a Xeon W3565(4C,8T,3.2ghz to 3.4) which I changed to an X5660(6C,12T,2.8ghz to 3.0) because of the lower TDP. I assume games would like the higher clocked W chip?

I have often wondered if the Dell with it's Xeon would give me higher frame rates than the FX if I were to adapt my GTX 780 into it? I would have to get rid of the swinging hard drive arm, find somewhere to mount my two HDD, and get a bigger PSU..does anyone have experience with dealing with HDD drive placement after removing that arm? Any Dell T3500 gaming upgrade advise?

I see quite a few threads here about Dell T3500, and 5500 workstations being used so I was hoping for any input.


Re guarding the T3500, I quickly learned that I had to use Speed Fan when gaming because the front fans won't ramp up until the CPU is at 80C which is ridiculous. I also like many have a fan zip tied to the CPU heat sink. Speed fan is a real win for Dells ill designed cooling solution for those workstations
 
I've built quite a few "gaming" systems in Dell T3500/T5500 workstations. If you remove the HDD "arm" you can instead mount your HDD with a 5.25" -> 3.5" adapter under the optical drive. Super easy to do with like a $3 adapter.

However, I think your FX system will still be faster. 4.6GHz is a sizeable frequency boost vs 3.4GHz, and the Vishera IPC isn't that bad compared to Nehalem/Westmere where I'd expect the Xeon to come out ahead. The X5660, again, is going to struggle competing with a CPU with a 50%+ higher clockspeed.
 
It seems the urge to upgrade never really ceases.

This is kinda what I was thinking but it never hurts to ask. You sort of guessed my thoughts, my hearing/reading the lower IPC that FX is reported to have made me doubt it's strength. Is upgrading to an FX 8 core worth it given my current config in your opinion? I have no experience overclocking so I don't know what to expect in that regard but I have a really solid mobo for Oc'ing. It even has support for a 9590 but I don't know if I would want to deal with that high of a TDP.

One factor is that I only have the one GTX 780 and a GTX 750ti in the Dell and no 2.5k or 4k displays, only 1080p. Given that I am Ok with 1080p gaming, I wonder if I would be better off maybe getting an FX 8350, or 8370 and an AIO water cooler to last another year, or try buy a B350 mobo, an under $200 Ryzen, and ram? I see people still gaming on ddr2 but I feel left out not having ddr4 after it's been out so long. I was even looking at older Intell ddr4 chipsets but Ryzen is cheaper than even used Xeons that are ddr4 lga 1151 capable. Sorry, I'm rambling. I'll figure it out eventually.
 
An FX8350 probably isn't the right choice. More cores are not really a solution to Vishera's poor IPC (particularly for gaming -- for some compute-oriented tasks, they do help), nor are (slightly) higher clockspeeds (say, if you got 5GHz with a liquid cooler instead of 4.6GHz with your H212 -- that's a 400MHz boost or ~9%). I have an OCed FX8320 in one of my systems

1080P is a relatively "low" resolution by modern standards (as in, it's not 4K or even 1600P). At lower resolutions, the CPU is more likely to be the bottleneck (higher resolutions put more load on the GPU relative to the CPU). A newer Ryzen combo probably would be the best bet -- AMD claims about a 50% IPC boost from the FX CPUs to Ryzen. So, a 3.9GHz Ryzen 3 or Ryzen 5 would be basically equivalent to a 6GHz FX. Now, that's a bigger boost.
 
FX 6300 is like late 2012 stuff that never was really that good a Intel 7700K would blow it out of the water for any games.
Just get a new case and be done with it a good case 80.00-150.00 can last 10+ years or more. They are dirty cheap and look good doing it.
 
In respect to the X5660 - they are overclockable, so any difference between that and the W chip is easily erased; but I suspect the Dell board may not be capable?
If you can overclock -- with decent cooling, you can probably get your X5660 past 4GHz (I run my X5670 at 4 GHz with a hyper 212 evo at ~70 deg full load) , and the IPC is similar to the fx6300. The X56xx are still great chips. (FWIW the X5660 is identical to the i7-990X when oc'd... http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html)
 
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No overclocking allowed on a Dell workstation. I have considered getting a good lga 1156 mobo, but a new Ryzen mobo build costs about as much as lga1156 motherboards for whatever reason.. that is unless I got something used. I would love to OC a Xeon. I will keep this in mind.

Thanks for the input, I've been on the verge on spending a load of money on an FX 8 core a lot of times to end up holding off til I could learn more, am glad I waited
 
half of the swinging arm unscrews so you can mount a full size card in and have a drive or 2... I game conservatively with a T3500 that has 12gb of ram, an X5670, cheap PNY CS1311 Solid state drive and an MSI GTX 1060 6gb.. I game at 1080P/ 60hz and pretty much anything I run, will run at a near solid 60 frames on ultra.

My box has the solid state drive, a cheap re purposed 2.5" drive both mounted to the swing door with a cheap adapter holder. Have a 3.5" drive in the 3.5" bay and I could put a 3.5" drive in the extra 5.25" bay with adapter. No shortage of storage options if it's done right

I'm only in the box about $500. Running it a little under a year
 
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Thanks, I knew that it came off, or that I could remove the "arm" but I was not sure where to mount the drives. One problem I have noticed with the two Dell T3500's that I have owned is that while mounted on the arm the HDD's run a little hot for my liking. Right now C: is running right at 35C / 95F , that's not bad, but could be a bit cooler.I am sure that if they are mounted elsewhere I can make it in a more ventilated area, or add another fan.

The Xeon I have my eye on if I ever were to dedicate this machine to gaming is the X5687 or X5690, they get close to 4.0 ghz ( There is a 4c/8t and 6c/12t variant)

I wish to try the GTX 780 I have in my AMD rig in the Dell but I have to get a T5500 PSU (850 watt Dell) first if I can't find a good B stock PSU at EVGA.

I can't imagine this Dell getting higher frame rates with such a lower clocked chip as compared to the FX6300 clocked in at 4.6ghz as was stated above by another, but I could be surprised.

I'm in the "your money is gone" stage of waiting for Pay Pal to make a freakin' bank transfer at the moment( I was needing it today ) and have after much thought decided to buy a 240 to 256gig SSD for my first upgrade. I'm going to buy a new one for my AMD rig and a used and smaller boot drive for this dell. I can find T5500 power supplies which are 850 watt for as little as $40.00

I've never had an SSD. I probably will get a Sata III type but have considered the cost effectiveness of getting an m.2 and using it via a PCIEX4 adapter but I don't like that they get so damned hot. 40 to 50C I have read.

Anyway, thanks for responding to my further ramblings. I have even considered getting a Dell T5500 motherboard, add an additional Xeon, and seeing how CPU intensive games like a dual CPU set ups. I have read that games are not coded for such a configuration though. It seems like you could use a dual CPU set up to "keep up" with the Jonses with newer to newest Gen. systems but I doubt it works that way.

Thanks for reading my ramblings. Any additional input, or thoughts are welcomed.
 
You probably saw my T3500 thread. Mounting a fan directly to the copper tube heat sink is definitely the way to go.

Just worked on one last weekend that I had set up for a friend with 1060 card. Nearly 25% jump in Firestrike score changing only the CPU from W3565 system came with, to X5687 that I acquired on eBay for $45 shipped. More to in than the clock speed. Check your RAM. Likely has 1333mhz modules that are limited to 1066mhz by the W3565. Changing it to X5687 will allow it to run full potential at 1333mhz.

Have completely eliminated the HDD swing arm in a few. Mounted the SDD in top spot. No adapter needed. Runs fairly cool since Dell saw fit to place an air intake port right there.
 
I currently have an X5660 which in fact did raise my ram speeds from 1066 to 1333mhz when I switched from the W3565.

"The Xeon I have my eye on if I ever were to dedicate this machine to gaming is the X5687 or X5690, they get close to 4.0 ghz ( There is a 4c/8t and 6c/12t variant)"

I was just talking about /posting/shopping for a X5687 or X5690, the ones I were looking at last week on eBay were around 80$ or I would have probably upgraded already.

I'm hoping to be able to find a GTX 1060 as all I have now is a GTX 780 and 750ti. 4k or even 2.5k monitors are still so expensive for budget people so I can probably game on the 780 for another year or two.
 
Right on. Wasn't sure the X5660 was 1333mhz. Have not tried hex core myself, everything I've read says they give no benefit for gaming at this time. Which one was $80? The X5690? I rarely see those below $120, so that seems a good deal. More $45 X5687 popped up on eBay. Item # 122696079762.
 
Rodney Heatsink,

I'm running a T3500 with an X5672, 3.2/3.6 4/8. I love it. Do you have the old or newer HS? The old one has no heat-pipes. I have the heat-pipe type and I plan on zip-tying a fan to it soon. There's a fan header at the top center of the board for it. Overall, the T3500 is a pretty good computer. But it definitely has its limitations.
 
Dont spend any 2017 money on old hardware unless it can directly transfer to new system. No fans/HS/CPU/MB,... nothing. Save every dollar and get a new build and parts specifically designed for new build. It all adds up. Its really a losing proposition. Make a game plan for new PC.

The move to SSD sounds good. M.2 heat is non-issue except for poorly designed motherboards where they put the slot right under GPU. That's a clear sign to not buy that motherboard! The 240GB target is likely a little small, not enough to be a problem, just that you will likely need to actively manage space at some point.

The GPU upgrade sounds better because it will have direct impact on FPS vs SSD not at all(load times, not frames/sec).

Do not go dual CPU. It doesnt work like that. Just like Nvidia limited to dual card SLI now, and everyone says better to get one better GPU than two OK ones, its similar reasons.

If you dont buy before holidays, realize you wont want to buy for a good several months after that as prices will be really high. Always.
 
"which was 90$ on ebay"

Right now the cheapest used option for an X5690 is $128.00 on ebay, that's the 6c/12t option, whereas the X5687 is about $50 bucks now. I'll probably grab one at some point for the Hell of it.

Regarding Dell T3500 Precisions and the older/lower TDP rated heatsink that's just a large hunk of machined aluminum vs. the four heatpipe/copper contact version (U016F)

My first and original T3500 came with a W3565 and the older and lower TDP rated giant aluminum HS.This one:
s-l300.jpg


From the minute I took it out of the box it ran at stupid high temps, staying between 70 and 80C all the time. I bought it "refurbished" on newEgg from a company called Tekboost and after realizing I had something wrong I started to call their customer support. I'm caught up now but a year ago I didn't know shit from Shine Ola about TDPs, or aluminum from copper so I learned a lot from all the trouble I initially had. They tried telling me to "check the thermal paste" but finally shipped me the proper heat sink.

It was about this time I discovered that Speed Fan, a free app that allows you complete control over a Dell T3500 front fans if you check the "Use Dell Laptop" option in SpeedFan's config tab. It tends to blue screen a lot though. I am currently trying to find a fix for this.

This brings me to what I wanted to ask other Dell Precision owners or anyone who has had experience working on them. I have had two separate T3500s and they have both been plagued with "Card Cage fan error" or other multiple "fan failure" errors on startup. I can go a month without it happening and suddenly the next day, usually on a cold boot, the damn machine is convinced there are no fans there, or that they're not spinning.

It happened this morning , luckily I was able to push F1 to ignore and it let me into boot, but sometimes it gets hung. Upon googling, it seems other users over the years have been plagued by this issue.

When it first starting giving me trouble I was sent a new set of fans, didn't make one bit of difference. Anyone else have this issue? Advise?

There is one video on you tube re: Dells and this issue but it was not a T3500, some other Dell. This person somehow jumpered one of the wires to fool the mobo into thinking that the problem was not there but I was not comfortable trying it.

Despite having a dedicated fan zip tied to the heatsink , it helps to be able to manually make those giant fans do kinda what you want because they can really push some air.
 
I would bet a bad front I/O board is cause of your random error. $20 part. Make sure the connector is not loose at mainboard first.
A lot is tied into that PCB, including fan sensors. Being used workstation boxes who knows what kind of abuse the on button and front panel connectors have been subjected to.
 
Rodney Heatsink:

The easiest solution is to manually turn off your PSU or unplug it, then hold case power button in for 30 seconds or so. This will clear the fail for quite a while, but it will eventually come back. That's really the only fix I've found from research.

Oh, I just started using Speed Fan and have had one BSOD that may have been caused by it. If you find any kind of fix, please keep me in mind! Yeah, those fans are a bit loud but they move a hell of a lot of air.
 
I don't use Speedfan anymore it just crashes too much. I googled and found a rather complicated fix that was too much to even read tbh. My AMD rig is my gaming rig at present and this T3500 just does everything else.Torrents,streaming,

I'm currently playing Infestation : NewZ and Witcher III, both of which I can't really get into. Once I get a desk I hope to re acclimate myself to using mouse/keyboard for FPS's like Battlefield. I love GTA but only have a PS3, I want the PC version but have to spring for a desk, decent mouse, and practice. I hate it that console gaming made me a bit lazy.

Anyway, I'm hoping I can manage a B350 chipset mobo/ Ryzen 5 build by Xmas.

I can't hit the broad side of a barn aiming with a Joypad in any FPS. I'm just too old or something. So many more muscles in the wrist = better for aiming IMO.

I found out about holding the power button to clear the errors, and use it if I have to. It's just super annoying. I eventually will have to try to get a new(er) front panel to see if that offers some relief.
 
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