Precision T5400 CPU Upgrade

Anybody? Is this thing on??

Hi Erik,

I've double checked our parts list and both the E5450 and X5460 are compatible with the Precision T5400 so you shouldn't have any issues installing two X5460s in this system. Hope that answers your question but if there's anything else, please get back in touch!

John,

Yes, just want to make sure the JD210 heat sink is also the one to use? The documentation doesn't delve into upgrades so it's all guess work. :)

Thanks John!

ALso, is there a difference between SLANQ and SLBBA? Man I miss the days when these things didn't come in so many flavors! Prices are about the same and both versions are X5460 or E5450. My guess is stepping is the difference but either should work as long as they're matched.

I really need to put everything into one post, I keep thinking of things. I upgraded the BIOS to A10 by the way,

John,

Makes sense to me, I'm glad I didn't buy the SLBBA X5460's, I think they should be fine considering I have BIOS version A10 installed but you just never know! I'm searching for the SLANP versions on eBay now, if I can't find a decent price for a matched pair I'll go with the E5450 SLANQ.

Thanks! I'll update when I have this all put together. I already installed a pair of Intel SSD 320 160 Giger's in RAID 0, AWESOME performance! Not liking that garbage collection and TRIM aren't supported properly yet but Intel says they are working on it and we should have it soon. I may switch to non RAID until that happens we'll see.

Thanks again.

Well, I may have screwed the pooch. In my excitement I found a pair of E5450's for $179.00 buy it now, I read everything but the part that stated "One CPU has a missing capacitor but has been working for the last year without a single issue".. so I bought them and caught the statement AFTER paying for them.

I saved $100.00 over the best prices I have seen and as usual if it seems to good to be true it likely is! I wrote them and asked to verify if these don't work I can send them back for a refund. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky but I can't believe I did this, I ALWAYS check everything.

We'll see what happens, they should be here by Feb 21st or 22nd, I'll either come back here crying in my soup or happy. If the machine loads Windows I am going to hit it with a heavy duty 48 hour CPU intensive burn in and if it passes that then it should be good to go.

Oh, I also ordered an ASUS ENGTX570 DCII/2DIS/1280MD5 GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) video card, pray that it fits! It will  be close. The PSU is 875 watts so that should handle it no problem, I'm also adding a few slot coolers for good measure.

Hi again,

No problem at all, glad I could help!

Hopefully, the CPUs you have bought will work without a problem! I will say that your plan for burning them in is the best way to go.

What I will say regarding the graphics card is to double check if the power supply has the required PCI-Express power connections. I couldn't see the connections on the card so I can't verify this for you. That card does look absolutely massive though!

Keep us posted on how you get on, I'd love to hear about the finished result!

Thanks again, hope you have a good weekend!

John,

I decided against that card, the power requirements were too iffy. There is one 6 port PCI-E power connector and you use molex to PCI-E connectors from there for the other one. WHat I don't know right now is if the Dell power supply has molex male connectors, now that I think about it I only saw SATA power connectors, I'm going to check again tonight.

I ordered the EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti FPB  instead, I did some deep thinking about how much game playing I do, I decided not enough to purchase that monster so this one should suffice.

The RAID 0 results using 2 Intel SSD 320 160gig drives using Passmark PerformanceTest v7.0 was:

Disk Mark = 3531

Sequential Read = 468.8

Sequential Write = 320.2

Random Seek + RW = 187.5

Have a good weekend, I'll post when I have more.

John,

Reading the specs of the T5400 it has native support for dual PCI-E video cards, so that should mean dual 6 port power connectors as well? Does your literature show that? I'll have to take her apart and see if there is a second connector or even a molex connector to use tonight, thanks again.

Erik

Hi Erik,

Those hard drive stats are excellent, just below the top benchmark results from here: www.harddrivebenchmark.net/high_end_drives.html - looks like you've picked a good pair of SSDs there!

Looking at the manual and some pictures of the wiring harness, it would appear that you've got dual 6-port PCI-Express connectors as well as a female molex connector. Here's the manual to confirm: <ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

John,

I got the CPU's, heat sink and video card installed. There indeed was 2 6 port PCI-E connectors which works out fantastic! The machine scores 7.7 over all in WIndows with video desktop and gaming scoring 7.9 and the hard drive scoring 7.9. CPU and memory scored 7.7. Not bad for the age of the machine!

3DMark 2011 however is at P4680 which Futuremark says is low for my setup, I could find no other machine similar to mine so how can they know if thats high or low? 3Dmark 2006 scored 17,900 which is 100% faster than it did with the Quadro 4600 and E5405.

With the ATI 6950, E5405 the score was 11,500 in 3Dmark 2006, so the CPU's really woke up that video card.

Thanks for the manual! It will help me going forward with this machine. I have 4 Dell monitors, 2 27" and 2 24" that I'll be hooking up to this machine since the ATI video card has native support for 4 montiors. I'm also installing a Blu-Ray burner.

I'll be using this mount for them.

www.ebay.com/.../170784423444

I'm running the 48 hour burn in test starting tonight, I'll post back when it's finished.

Thanks John!

Hi Erik,

Not a problem at all, I'm really happy that you found the info useful!

I would say that the benchmarks you have given seem to be a great improvement, even just with the new CPUs installed  - putting that aside, I imagine the system would be performing really smoothly now. As for Futuremark stating that the the score is low for your setup, it's very hard to compare if there isn't a similar machine listed - the only thing I can imagine they do is compare the components individually in situations like that.

Do you have the links to your 3Dmark results? Just curious to see what they say!

From everything you've said, it looks like you've got a nice setup there! I must admit, I'd love a similar setup myself.

Let us know how you get on with the burn in!

John,

It passed the 48 hour burn in like it was nothing. The system is a smooth as butter, no matter what you do it's instant and fast. I still have to give Handbrake a try and see how it does ripping DVD's.

Here is a link but not sure if it will take you to my details or not.

3Dmark2011

3dmark.com/.../2820900

3Dmark2006

3dmark.com/.../16487215

I thought my Vantage results with the new CPU's was there as well, but they aren't. I'll re-run and post it by this weekend.

Erik