maplenet2

May for your next project use 2 Xeon E5530(yes 2 of them), they are like $5 on ebay. They are the best performance for dollar CPU

Just an FYI, microcode updates aren't essential to getting your Xeon working on those motherboards.

(Warning: Not the actual project name. I can't think of one really..)
 
Background
So I'm a very inquisitive person who wants to try and toy around with anything and everything that peaks my interest. When it comes to the "personal computer", I like to broaden the intended use of the computer and push its limits to the next level. My first ever personal computer that I've built for myself was an old Core 2 Duo E4500 machine (which was back in 2008). I can talk days about this machine because its lasted me till end of 2013 until I upgraded to an 8-core FX 8350. But throughout the years upgrading my socket LGA775 machine, I've accumulated many spare parts. I thought about tossing them or selling them on craigslist/ebay, but I recently found out about a LGA771 to LGA775 mod.
 
Now this mod takes cheap, yet powerful LGA771 Xeon processors (that some happen to be more cheaper and powerful than Core 2 Quads) and converts their use to a compatible LGA775 motherboard. Incidentally, I happen to have 3 (possibly 4) compatible motherboards for this mod. I've done my research and found out that this mod is usually successful if done following the guide, but I wanted to take it a step further. I wanted to see a price to performance advantage over this mod if this mod were to be used today. Now Ebay has recently become my best friend, though I still speculate on ordering stuff through Ebay, my recent experience has over turned my view on the website.
 
A detailed guide of the mod can be found here (LTT version by harrynowl can be found here as well).
 
Project Objective
This project was intended to first see if the mod will work, but I've been given a more practical objective with this project. My plan is too see how much of a price to performance advantage I can gain with the cheap used parts I plan on utilizing, and (if possible) see if this mod is an option for an alternate personal computer.
 
Project Plan
First Phase of this project is getting it to actually work. Here are this list of essential computer parts I will use to test this project:
Xeon e5420 (bought used from third party seller on amazon for ~$11) LGA771 to 775 Sticker (bought from ebay for $5, includes 4 mod stickers and 4 Xeon stickers which is pretty cool) Motherboards: ECS GF7100PVT-M3 (v1.0) MSI G31TM-P21 MSI P43 Neo Patriot G Series DDR2 2x2gb PC2-6400 800mhz (PGS24G6400ELK) NVIDIA Geforce GTX 550 ti (EVGA) I will be doing some hard mods, like cutting up my motherboard sockets, and soft mods which require me to add some microcode.
NOTE: Some parts will might change in the future to better adapt the project
 
Second Phase is testing phase. The setup will be inside a Thermaltake WingRS 201, and not an open air test-bench, to simulate real-world use. I will benchmark the computer parts individually (except graphics card) and measure usage as well as temps. The programs I will use are:
Cinebench 7-zip Compression Benchmark Aida64 (trial) PassMark (trial) Adobe CS6 After Effects Rendering Adobe CS6 Premiere Rendering Adobe CS6 Encoder Encoding City Skylines Team Fortress 2 Minecraft Planetside 2 I plan on getting results from multiple control builds before testing the xeon mod. So before the xeon mod, the boards I use will run the tests using a Pentium E6300 (unfortunately I sold my e4500 already, which I am sadden about). I will also create some theoretical control builds on PCPartPicker and other benchmark websites
 
Third Phase is crunching the numbers. All the results I get from the testing will be written down on a spreadsheet and carefully calculated to match a performance to price ratio. My plan is to create a point-based system for each individual test. The points will be compared and see how much of an advantage the xeon mod has over the control build and theoretical builds on PcPartPicker. But to be clear, I am still finalizing a practical way of rendering a point system into this part of the project. I haven't exactly finished this step of the project. I was actually going to make a post on how I should do this part. So if you have any suggestions, please comment or pm me.
 
Fourth Phase (Project Part 2, if successful)
I hope to find this project a success. Again, my objective is to see if utilizing cheap xeon processors is an option for building a computer. If this is more of a success than I hope to imagine, I want to see if I can create builds utilizing this mod. This is all theoretical, and I maybe overthinking all of this, but this fourth phase is more of personal understanding of the results of the project.
 
Conclusion
Since I am but a mere-college student who runs on low allowance and financial aid (currently unemployed), this project will be in the point of view of a person with little to no money. The process of the project will be documented and later submitted to LTT build log forum. This project is mainly a hobby of mine and I wish to broaden my strategies of computer building. Though this will not be as much as a financial gain, I hope to learn at least a thing or two about computers. Even if I don't learn as much as I already know, I hope to gain more experience with building projects (since this will kind of be my first big project). I also hope to interact more in the LTT community for I have never done this before.
 
I hope you all would enjoy this project that I am doing and maybe be inspired. But if you don't like it, that's cool, I accept constructive criticism. So what do I guys think of my project? Any comments about anything, suggestions you can make to contribute to this project, or questions about things I didn't make clear (I'm sure I missed a lot), please comment below. Thank you for reading through this long and painstaking post!

I believe it's about 55% slower than i7 4790. So If you get 2 CPU. It's literally a i7 4790(22% slower) for $10-$15

Heyyo,
Install Windows XP first, then install Windows 7.
Windows is super picky like that on older versions.
That? Or you can try EasyBCD to create your own boot menu that can swap between the two.
http://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/
Scroll down and register for the non-commercial / free version

Its possible, but from experience I've always had more trouble installing XP Professional after installing Windows 7 64 bit Home Premium on the main partition. I've always had a lot less hassle simply installing XP first (while setting up the partition during installation), then installing Windows 7 on the second partition. I could do a test if you wanted me to, as this computer has Windows 7 Professional 64 bit (SSD), and I've got a Windows XP Pro 32 bit disc (though I really don't recommend running XP on an SSD without reading some tutorials-there is a lot of tweaking that needs to be done).
 
(BTW, I'm used to re-installing Windows-I frequently change my computer's set up, and normally I have to do a re-install of Windows, files are never lost since I have everything in my profile located on my 1TB HDD).

Alright thanks! I am still skeptical, but it hasn't shown any problems yet.

use this: http://www.piriform.com/recuva/download/portable
 
EDIT: but if the file is overwritten due to use overtime, you cant recover it

I miss my intel boards
 
But yeah, it should work. Back up important stuff and give it a try. It will more than likely ask for you to reactivate windows.