Poweredge 830 Pentium D 960 compatibility?

Hi Jason,

I don't see any reason another Presler-core Intel Pentium D would not work in there however I must caution we have never supported/tested/validated the 960 specifically in the PowerEdge 830.

Also I want to point out that both the 950 and 960 do in fact support VT-x : ark.intel.com/.../27521,27522

I am not sure you'll actually be able to use ESXi 5 on there though since the earliest Dell systems supported are the 9G systems (i.e. 1950, 2950, and similar). If you want to use an older version such as 3 or 4, you also might only be able to use 32-bit guests.

Let us know how it goes or if you try a different version what happens.

Hi there, Thanks for your reply.

I did notice the 950 also has VT-x but i want to push this fairly dated server to the max. I've maxed out the RAM (8GB) and i aim to do so with the CPU too.  

Also, I can confirm ESXi 5.1 is working flawlessly with my Dell Poweredge 830 VM's are extremely fast too which is a plus!

Just need to get VT-x running so i can virtualize x64 OS's...

Has anyone here tried a 960 series in a Poweredge 830?

Forgive me for reading between the lines here - seeing, perhaps, something that is not there:

At first you said you needed the 960 because the 950 didn't support VT-x, then you said you "need to get VT-x running" ... this leads me to believe that, even though you have a processor that supports VT-x, that you have not been able to get it working (leading you to think that the 950 didn't support it at all).

I, like jon, don't see any reason why a 960 wouldn't work as well as the 950, as the ONLY difference is clock speed (power, cache, etc. are all the same) ... when the 830 was first released, it did not support even the 950, so whatever BIOS update added support for the 950, most likely would have also added needed support for the 960.

That said, I hope you are getting a good deal on the 960 (like free), since you will be getting a maximum of a 5% increase in speed.  But, if the actual issue is that you can't get VT-x to work, then make sure that the BIOS is up to date.  The latest is A04, but A03 actually added VT support to the system (with supporting processors).  I would start with that.  Otherwise, you are unlikely to get VT-x working on a 960 if it doesn't work on a 950.

Alright ... that makes more sense then :)

Hi there

Sorry i will clarify. I am currently running a Pentium D 945 (which does not support VT-x) not a 950.. I plan to use either the 950 or 960. they are both on eBay for around £20 so not expensive what so ever.

I agree the performance increase will be minimal but it's VT-x i want mostly if i get 5% performance increase too then that's a bonus. I just wanted to get the best CPU i can as i plan to keep this box for a long time.

I currently have the A04 revision BIOS installed (I updated it just the other day) so no worries there.