Core 2 to Xeon hack double performance for $30 - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2014, 05:52:45 am
content: Someone I know had an old Dell Optiplex 330 minitower that he didn't need anymore so he gave it to me. I figured it would make a nice media server or something. It has a 2.66 GHz Core 2 Duo processor in it and while looking around for upgrades apparently you can hack the Socket 771 Xeon processors to work in a Socket 775 system with an adapter and cutting the alignment keys off the socket.But the best part is the Xeon processors are 1/2 to 1/4 the cost of a similar Core 2 Quad processor. (Like $25 for the processor and $3 for the adapter)Intel apparently swapped 2 pins on the Xeon so even if you defeated the keying mechanism on the socket it wouldn't work. So there are these little adapters made from some flat flex that slip under the processor that swap the pins back.Interestingly the Optiplex 330 which seems to be the little brother of the Optiplex 755 (the 330 only has 2 memory slots) supports most of the Socket 771 Xeon processors in the E54 series, but the 755 doesn't seem to like them as much.I looked at the performance of the E54xx series and they're pretty much inline with the first generation high end quad core i7 processors or dual core Haswell (generation 4) Core processors.So if you have an older Core 2 Duo (or gasp LGA775 Celeron) based desktop laying around that needs a little processing help, this might be a cheap upgrade for you.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2014, 06:10:18 am
content: Not really a hack if you are using an adapter, not to mention depending on the size you may have issues mounting your heatsink.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2014, 06:15:10 am
content: Quote from: XOIIO on September 01, 2014, 06:10:18 amThey're the same size processor. One thing to keep in mind is some core 2 processors dump about 65W of heat but the top end Xeons in this series can dump over 130W of heat.I'm probably going with the E5440, it dumps 80W of heat at full load so I think it should be OK since Dell tends to use pretty large heatsinks on their processors.

author: apelly
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 01, 2014, 06:55:20 am
content: Subscribed! Sounds interesting.Half of my home machines are in this category.Bigger problem is getting hold of DDR2 RAM in 4G sticks for less than an arm and a leg.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2014, 06:57:01 am
content: Quote from: apelly on September 01, 2014, 06:55:20 amYes, unfortunately that is my issue as well. I've got 2GB in that computer, it officially can take 4GB total, but unofficially will recognize 8.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2014, 07:14:14 am
content: http://ark.intel.com/products/33082/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E5440-12M-Cache-2_83-GHz-1333-MHz-FSBOh yea, 12MB of L2 cache on these processors.

author: justanothercanuck
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2014, 07:24:05 am
content: I think I'll stick to my i7 920 with 6gb of memory.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2014, 07:58:05 am
content: Quote from: justanothercanuck on September 01, 2014, 07:24:05 amYeah the 920 is about 25% faster than the E5440.The mid-range laptop I bought recently has a Haswell i7 4710HQ that's nearly twice as fast as the E5440.Here's some raw numbers:http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2014, 08:05:37 am
content: Quote from: Stonent on September 01, 2014, 06:15:10 amI mean how much space the physical adapter takes up between the processor and the 775 socket.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2014, 08:23:59 am
content: Quote from: XOIIO on September 01, 2014, 08:05:37 amProbably of little consequence. Just flat flex cable. The LGA socket pins are flexible so they just go down when the processor is installed. Only 2 lands will be thicker since it is just swapping them, the rest are open probably just to keep it aligned.

author: XOIIO
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 01, 2014, 09:39:21 am
content: Quote from: Stonent on September 01, 2014, 08:23:59 amAh, I was thinking of the ones in my server which have pins on the processor itself, yeah those contacts make it much easier to be compact, if it were pins it would be more complex and take up more space

author: wraper
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: September 01, 2014, 02:11:32 pm
content: About lack of bios support. If it works, there is a big possibility that CPU will always run at the max frequency all the time. Therefore it will become a power hog.

author: Stonent
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2015, 12:12:31 am
content: Quote from: wraper on September 01, 2014, 02:11:32 pmI just remembered I never responded to this. Yes, SpeedStep is working. At idle the processor sits at 1.9GHz but it does go to 2.8GHz when you open a program and back down to 1.9GHz

author: nixfu
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 10, 2015, 03:25:10 am
content: DETAILS HERE:http://www.delidded.com/lga-771-to-775-adapter/