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Cheap CPU upgrade path for older boxes

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Pjay
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PostPosted: 14:33 - 03 Nov 2018    Post subject: Cheap CPU upgrade path for older boxes Reply with quote

I needed a little extra grunt on an old PC that had an i3 540 CPU installed, and so I looked at the compatibility of the motherboard in the manual and I noticed that the best CPU that I could install was an i7 880.
Great stuff, time to Ebay myself a bargain, as surely these are cheap now. Well, not so much. £120(ish) was about the price you could buy it now, but one sale caught my eye, it was for a Xeon X3480, that stated it was basically the same CPU but faster and was cheaper at £99. So I looked into it and for sure, the X34xx range were indeed compatible in the LGA1156 socket and in my board with a newer bios update.
Looked into it a little more and found that the X3470 could be had very cheaply from china at aliexpress for £23 delivered!
Nice, but I didnt really want to wait a month to get my hands on one, so back to Ebay and I found a seller selling them for £30 delivered.
Purchased it, dropped it in and worked a charm with no need to configure or change anything other than to enter bios as it detected a cpu change, press escape and save and that was it, job jobbed!

So the point of this post is not to gloat and wave my smart-peen around, it's just basically a heads up if you have a PC that's a few years old, there are a bunch of cheap server cpus out there that can be had for peanuts. The X3440 for example can be yours for £10 and thats a major CPU for the socket, the equivalent i7 would cost around £100. The one thing to look out for is to make sure you dont buy one that is dependent on ECC memory.

I can help anyone here if they dont know what to buy or what to look for. The best info is the motherboard model/revision, so if you download CPUID CPU-Z and give me the info needed in there I can probably help you boost your old PC, especially older i3/i5 boxes.

Info needed
Mainboard model/revision

Or:
Current CPU model
Socket

Or Computer make/model
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M.C
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PostPosted: 14:58 - 03 Nov 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

Did the same thing a while ago (think I mentioned it on here). Upgraded my system to a Xeon W3580 which's equivalent to the i7 975... just a lot lot cheaper. Also sold it on for a profit when I parted out the system.
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Pjay
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PostPosted: 15:08 - 03 Nov 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

M.C wrote:
Did the same thing a while ago (think I mentioned it on here). Upgraded my system to a Xeon W3580 which's equivalent to the i7 975... just a lot lot cheaper. Also sold it on for a profit when I parted out the system.


Yeah, it's insane the price difference, considering they are basically the same chips. It must be down to people just not realising that a Xeon can be used in their systems.
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M.C
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PostPosted: 17:56 - 03 Nov 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think availability as well, there seems to be a lot of Xeon chips from Chinese sellers who I'm guessing must be in some sort of clearance/recycling business.

My mobo manual said it was only compatible with i7 chips so I took a bit of a gamble, when I sold it the guy had the same mobo and thought it was a gamble as well even though I assured him it would work Rolling Eyes
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Im-a-Ridah
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PostPosted: 20:55 - 03 Nov 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

They're ok but I would recommend a newer CPU if you want to use it as a daily driver as new motherboards have better compatibility and will be more reliable. An AMD Ryzen 3 is new, quad core, 50% faster, lower power draw, and £80. The main downside of new CPUs is the price of DDR4.

Also, are you using an SSD?
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Pjay
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PostPosted: 21:46 - 03 Nov 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

Im-a-Ridah wrote:
They're ok but I would recommend a newer CPU if you want to use it as a daily driver as new motherboards have better compatibility and will be more reliable. An AMD Ryzen 3 is new, quad core, 50% faster, lower power draw, and £80. The main downside of new CPUs is the price of DDR4.

Also, are you using an SSD?


I'm not sure that much of what you say is relevant to what I was trying to do.
I wanted to cheaply make a box a bit better, £30 later it now sports a Quad core XEON with 8 logical cores. I took the time to benchmark before and after the upgrade and it's around twice as powerful in real terms.

Yes, I Purchased my first 128GB SSD for £500, I've used them for around a decade.
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defblade
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PostPosted: 10:31 - 04 Nov 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

Any suggestions for mine, please?

Intel Core i5 760
Socket 1156 LGA
MB: ASUSTek P7P55D-E Rev1.xx

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Pjay
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PostPosted: 10:47 - 04 Nov 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

defblade wrote:
Any suggestions for mine, please?

Intel Core i5 760
Socket 1156 LGA
MB: ASUSTek P7P55D-E Rev1.xx

Cheers Thumbs Up


You can get the same CPU I did, it drops right in.

Your choices are the Xeon X34xx series, so probably look at the X3440 for ultra cheap if you want to overclock to 4GHz or the X3470 or X3480 if you can get one cheap enough.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/332854462128 That would give you a nice boost for £32

The main improvement is the double logical cores, plus the very easy overclocking, which would boost your performance nicely.

You can also get £30 back on selling your current CPU, making the upgrade a no brainer.
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defblade
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PostPosted: 10:48 - 05 Nov 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pjay wrote:
defblade wrote:
Any suggestions for mine, please?

Intel Core i5 760
Socket 1156 LGA
MB: ASUSTek P7P55D-E Rev1.xx

Cheers Thumbs Up


You can get the same CPU I did, it drops right in.

Your choices are the Xeon X34xx series, so probably look at the X3440 for ultra cheap if you want to overclock to 4GHz or the X3470 or X3480 if you can get one cheap enough.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/332854462128 That would give you a nice boost for £32

The main improvement is the double logical cores, plus the very easy overclocking, which would boost your performance nicely.

You can also get £30 back on selling your current CPU, making the upgrade a no brainer.


Thanks Smile I'll have a look at that... probably go for the fastest while I'm doing it anyway Wink
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Bubbs
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PostPosted: 13:41 - 05 Nov 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

Are any of these applicable to old laptops?
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colink98
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PostPosted: 14:52 - 05 Nov 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bubbs wrote:
Are any of these applicable to old laptops?


Laptops tend to have the CPU built directly onto the mobo.
unlike desktops which have a socket where you can remove and replace the CPU.

So that's a no.
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chris-red
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PostPosted: 15:48 - 05 Nov 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

ColinK98 wrote:
Bubbs wrote:
Are any of these applicable to old laptops?


Laptops tend to have the CPU built directly onto the mobo.
unlike desktops which have a socket where you can remove and replace the CPU.

So that's a no.


Not strictly true, I have upgraded 2 laptop CPUs. My missus' Sony now has an i7 when it shipped with an i3.

If you google the processor a bit of digging should find out whether is is soldered to the board.
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Pjay
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PostPosted: 20:06 - 05 Nov 2018    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bubbs wrote:
Are any of these applicable to old laptops?


Not really no. You may find you have a socket, but the point to this thread is to upgrade people to XEON processors.

The likelyhood of the bios recognising it are slim to none and as laptops use specific mobile processors with pins that slot into a G1/2/3 type socket, meaning XEONS wouldn't be suitable. There are the exceptions to this, but they are rare.
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