Dell T3500 motherboard and cpu upgrades

That would be a waste of money and effort on this 10 yr old model and would not result in a noticeable difference in performance. CPU's for this model are hard or impossible to find. Save the money for a new computer.

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@relic45 wrote:
[...]performance with the w36xx x56xx series CPUs has been very good. The CPUs are easy to find, and pretty cheap in comparison to i5/i7 chips. Please don't comment when you clearly have no idea what you are talking about. Thanks.

The above.

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@Mary G wrote:

That would be a waste of money and effort on this 10 yr old model and would not result in a noticeable difference in performance. CPU's for this model are hard or impossible to find. Save the money for a new computer.

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No.  Misinformation.

An Intel Xeon X5687 is like $40 right now on ebay and readily available from lots of sellers.  A Xeon W3690 around $85.  Same - readily available on ebay.

@If it's currently running a quad core i7-920 @ 2.66 GHz now, you'll see a noticeable difference with a Xeon X5687 @ 3.6 GHz (also a quad core).  And with a Xeon W3690 hex core with a base clock of 3.46 GHz, if overclockable to, say, 3.85 GHz with ThrottleStop, you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between it and a new 2018 desktop machine. 

Different machine (Dell Studio XPS 435T/9000), but also an X58 chipset system - see possible CPU upgrade list here.  Note those with red Unlocked Multiplier next to them can be overclocked (with ThrottleStop), at least on the 435T (3.85 GHz is likely typical of what you'd get with a W3690, since I don't think you can adjust the voltage).

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And to take it farther, you should be able to run almost any graphics card in that machine - you're not limited by PCIe bandwidth.  As much RAM as you want (up to 48 GB, maybe more).  And, if you're crafty, run one or more M.2 NVMe SSDs (@ 1700 MB/s) on it (a lot better than the <300 MB/s of its native SATA II).  It will probably run as a boot drive and if not at least run Windows 10 on it (with boot manager elsewhere).  (In case it isn't apparent, I'm running all the above in a 10 year old 435T.)  Of course, you have to know what you're doing and, even so, make some cost/benefit decisions...

How do I get around the UEFI issue on the T3500? I have win 10 x64 running smoothly with 2 Firepro v4800s, but I cant get these Intel 660p SSDs to install unless its bootable.

The UEFI issue cannot be overcome.  You cant boot PCI-E without GPT partition and 64 bit UEFI bios.

https://www.amazon.com/Intel-LGA1366-AT80614005919AB-Certified-Refurbished/dp/B07PND65BD/

I have been running my 3500 since new. I have new machines that I set up for each of my wife, daughter and son. Newer Dells. They fly. But I tend to keep many applications running at once for my working hours and. the T3500 with 18 gig memory (row of 4gig and row of 2gigs) doesn't balk at anything.

I finally put in an x5675 and this machine is flying too, using half the power, less heat and running more apps simultaneously. Studying the numbers, it is an unbeatable choice for my needs even though other CPUs run faster, they also need 150 watts plus (roughly double the X5675) and don't perform significantly better. and yes, CPUs  are easy to obtain for the  Dell Precision T3500. Good comment, friend.

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@riskmgr wrote:

How do I get around the UEFI issue on the T3500? I have win 10 x64 running smoothly with 2 Firepro v4800s, but I cant get these Intel 660p SSDs to install unless its bootable.

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I and others have booted M.2 NVMe SSDs on non-UEFI, Legacy BIOS, X58 chipset systems like the T3500 two ways:

1. Use one of only a handful of M.2 NVMe SSDs that has a Legacy Option ROM, like the Samsung 950 PRO or Plextor M8Pe.  With this method everything is kept Legacy, including the boot M.2 NVMe SSD initialization, which must be MBR and NOT GPT.
2. Chain boot to UEFI with something like Clover (what I'm using).  UEFI was originally implemented as open-source software, not firmware, which lives on as Clover/DUET/TianoCore.  I believe only Clover is actively maintained.  In any case, the idea is to chain boot to a UEFI shell (or a simple interface layered over it) which can load up a EFI NVMe driver and continue the boot (via automated script) to the GPT initialized M.2 NVMe SSD.  This isn't an out-of-the-box experience though, but requires configuration and can initially take some time to get working. 

Here's someone booting from a Samsung 950 PRO 512GB in a Dell Precision T3500.  Note that the M.2 NVMe SSD is the only drive in the system and labeled "System drive".

I have one T3500 that is used to play mist survival,scum,miscreated,dayz ,and arma3.  This machine has an x5670 in it and 24 gigs ram , just a normal 2tb hard drive.  Those games i mentioned play just fine.  I also use an MSI GTX 1050 ti with an 850w power supply and an soundblaster Z sound card running windows 10 home.

I have another T3500 with an x5680 and 12 gigs ram , that is used to watch tv , listen to music , watch movies , play a few games from 1996.  It has an gtx 750 ti , 750w power supply , sound blaster card i forget which one now just below the soundblaster z model.  This machine also video editing and rendering.  This machine also has an 5.1 sorround sound speaker system connected to it.  And it also has windows 10 home..

These machines still have a lot of usefull life left in them , only drawback is it very hard to figure out if a componet will work with them.

They also talk about ssd and cpu upgrade for T3500

If you google -Blog Green PC Gamers - There is on page 5 a complete write up on how these folks made the T3500 into a gaming machine.  There is a lot information on this page for T3500 gaming.

Ok I know it a bit to late but I have made a video on how to overclock a dell precision t3500 on YouTube: https://youtu.be/AD7e4sy2EKY?si=Ff39nKLWM0j8e9RK