Upgrading My Dell Precision 690

[Michael P]

Hi linus, forum members & anyone else,

 

Thanks for taking the time to look at this post.

I have been your avid fan for a long time and have enjoyed all your builds , they are a huge stress reliever in my grueling and busy consulting career.

 

 

I am trying to upgrade my current PC( I have had it for a long time, Dell workstation) which was my life during my undergraduate years as an aerospace student.

I recently upgraded it to 32Gb Ram from 2GB .

I am dealt with a situation as to my poor lack of knowledge and confusion on PCI,PCIE and PCIX have left me with many questions.

 

First and foremost let me give you an understanding of the MotherBoard (http://www.ascendtech.us/dell-precision-690-motherboard-my171_i_mbxdeldualmy171.aspx) the link will give you a visual representation of the MotherBoard and their PCI connections. Just want to inform the readers that i bought this PC in 2006.

 

My needs are to install the latest video card or cards(Would love to have dual cards if possible.) if i can , to get installed for this PC.Dell website recommends this card(http://accessories.dell.com/sna/products/Graphic_Video_Cards/productdetail.aspx?c=ca&l=en&s=bsd&cs=cabsdr1&sku=A3055257&mfgpid=210476&chassisid=8392)

I need A high quality sound card to connect to a good set of headphones.

Multiple  SSD Hard drives(1 TB), I only have 250 GB HDD drive.My link for the motherbaord shows 

My concerns are regarding the current products lineups and their  compatibility with my motherboard.

If anyone can provide me the ports and a listing of the cards out there that can be installed , that would be very much appreciated.

 

I will get two bluray burners and will also change the processors to a Dual Quad core Intel Xenons(http://www.ebay.ca/itm/DELL-Precision-490-690-Matched-Pair-Quad-Core-3GHz-X5365-XEON-CPU-w-Heat-sink-/321739540213?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ae92bc6f5.

 

Thank you all and looking forward to your response.

Regards,

Michael

 

 

[iMouse]

Hi linus, forum members & anyone else,

 

Thanks for taking the time to look at this post.

I have been your avid fan for a long time and have enjoyed all your builds , they are a huge stress reliever in my grueling and busy consulting career.

 

 

I am trying to upgrade my current PC( I have had it for a long time, Dell workstation) which was my life during my undergraduate years as an aerospace student.

I recently upgraded it to 32Gb Ram from 2GB .

I am dealt with a situation as to my poor lack of knowledge and confusion on PCI,PCIE and PCIX have left me with many questions.

 

First and foremost let me give you an understanding of the MotherBoard (http://www.ascendtech.us/dell-precision-690-motherboard-my171_i_mbxdeldualmy171.aspx) the link will give you a visual representation of the MotherBoard and their PCI connections. Just want to inform the readers that i bought this PC in 2006.

 

My needs are to install the latest video card or cards(Would love to have dual cards if possible.) if i can , to get installed for this PC.Dell website recommends this card(http://accessories.dell.com/sna/products/Graphic_Video_Cards/productdetail.aspx?c=ca&l=en&s=bsd&cs=cabsdr1&sku=A3055257&mfgpid=210476&chassisid=8392)

I need A high quality sound card to connect to a good set of headphones.

Multiple  SSD Hard drives(1 TB), I only have 250 GB HDD drive.My link for the motherbaord shows 

My concerns are regarding the current products lineups and their  compatibility with my motherboard.

If anyone can provide me the ports and a listing of the cards out there that can be installed , that would be very much appreciated.

 

I will get two bluray burners and will also change the processors to a Dual Quad core Intel Xenons(http://www.ebay.ca/itm/DELL-Precision-490-690-Matched-Pair-Quad-Core-3GHz-X5365-XEON-CPU-w-Heat-sink-/321739540213?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ae92bc6f5.

 

Thank you all and looking forward to your response.

Regards,

Michael

I'm also doing a similar upgrade to my Dell Precision 690.  Upgrades depend on what configuration of 690 you currently have.  For example, in the models with 1KW power supplies, you can add a dual-graphics riser card to add dual video cards for SLI or CrossFire support.

 

By default, the base Precision 690 with the 750W power supply only has one PCIe (1.1) x16 slot, so running dual video cards is out.  It has additional PCIe x8 slots wired in x4 configuration as well as a PCI and two PCI-X slots for other lower-bandwidth peripherals like sound cards.  You're also limited by one 6-pin 75W PCI-e power connector out of the power supply.  You may be able to get away with 4-pin molex converters for some cards, but I wouldn't recommend running a potential of 150W across the wiring to the molex connectors.  I have not explored the possibility of adding the PCI-e riser card on a 750W model...I would expect this to be potentially problematic as it was only an option on 1KW models through Dell when the Precision 690 was first offered.

 

While you may have a 0MY171 motherboard, the revision is important for proper operation of quad-core Xeon 51xx and 53xx processors.  Supposedly, many have tried to upgrade 0MY171 A00 and A01 to quad-core processors and ran into an issue where the board would not allow both quad-core processors to work.

 

Since my board is a 0MY171 A00, I've chosen to install the fastest dual cores available for my unit (Xeon 5160) and have added 4x2GB PC2-5300F-555 FBDIMMs.  I'm also planning on adding a Asus GTX 960 Strix to my workstation as the power requirements are only what's available across the slot plus a 6-pin 75W PCI-e power connector.

 

I have two Raptors in RAID 0 for performance, but could easily be migrated to an SSD.

 

I should add that adding Blu-Ray burners may prove difficult based on how you're planning to do your hard drive/SSD configuration.  The current optical drives are IDE...I'm not sure if you can even get a BR burner in IDE configuration.  You'll need to move the drives to the SATA ports, but you'll need a couple of extra SATA cables.  This may now push you have to place your drives on the integrated SAS controller or optional PERC card.

[Michael P]

Thank you very much for this response iMouse. This is great information, learnt so much that i had idea.

ok so lets be realistic and i am going to ask you a question that might sound stupid, there is no way for me install a video card like the GTX 980, i really wanted to get two new 4k monitors and run them after my upgrade.

 

Please let me know how your upgrade goes, Good luck,

[Visut Tech]

On 5/4/2015 at 11:27 AM, Michael P said:

Thank you very much for this response iMouse. This is great information, learnt so much that i had idea.

ok so lets be realistic and i am going to ask you a question that might sound stupid, there is no way for me install a video card like the GTX 980, i really wanted to get two new 4k monitors and run them after my upgrade.

 

Please let me know how your upgrade goes, Good luck,

Be careful, I have a Dell Precision 690 as a Main computer and anything with UEFI, the computer will NOT take! There is only 1 Pci-e X16 in X16. If you want dual GPUs, You must get a PCI Bracket, GPU Riser Board, Stand off, 1KW PSU. I have a Nvidia Tesla M2090 and Quadro 5000. There are only 2 PCI-E power that are 6 pin. You Must Upgrade the Bios to A08 for 2 Intel Xeon X5355.