Project Ebay Cheapo Build 5000! LGA771 Socket Mod!

[maplenet2]

(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!

[Dabombinable]

5 minutes ago, maplenet2 said:

(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!

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

[ReesZRB]

10 minutes ago, maplenet2 said:

-snip-

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

[maplenet2]

1 minute ago, Dabombinable said:

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

Ya, I found out that most boards already support some instructions xeon cpu's use. So microcode is most likely not a problem. But since my p21 board uses a g31 chipset, I got skeptical and just included it in the description of the project just in case. But thanks for the heads up!

[Guest]

Very interesting, If you have not bought the GPU yet I recommend looking at EVGA's B-Stocks site for a GPU that may be the same price or cheaper. Because for example, you could get a 660Ti  for significantly less, You can find the B-Stocks website here,http://www.evga.com/Products/ProductList.aspx?type=8

Alls it is is products that have small scratches or dents that will not effect performance. I would highly recommend it because the other day i saw a 680 for ~90USD, which is about equal to a 770

[maplenet2]

3 minutes ago, ReesZRB said:

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

Oh wow, that's pretty cheap! I was actually look at the E56XX xeon's on ebay. I was researching some dual socket 1366 boards the other day, I'll take note of that! ty

[ReesZRB]

2 hours ago, maplenet2 said:

Oh wow, that's pretty cheap! I was actually look at the E56XX xeon's on ebay. I was researching some dual socket 1366 boards the other day, I'll take note of that! ty

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

[maplenet2]

5 hours ago, ReesZRB said:

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

Ya that's a steal, but the problem is finding a good dual socket 1366 mobo or a barebone z800 or similar workstation computers on ebay or thrift stores. Most barbones are like $400+ and the good dual socket mobo's go for $150+, plus you have the hassel of configuring your own parts to work with the system. The time and money (performance price ratio) put into getting a 1366 build to work will not be worth it. It would be better to get a e3-1230v3 or even the 4790 at this point. Unless you can find a z800/t5500 at your local thrift store, 1366 is kind of out of the question. But ty anyways!

[ReesZRB]

3 hours ago, maplenet2 said:

Ya that's a steal, but the problem is finding a good dual socket 1366 mobo or a barebone z800 or similar workstation computers on ebay or thrift stores. Most barbones are like $400+ and the good dual socket mobo's go for $150+, plus you have the hassel of configuring your own parts to work with the system. The time and money (performance price ratio) put into getting a 1366 build to work will not be worth it. It would be better to get a e3-1230v3 or even the 4790 at this point. Unless you can find a z800/t5500 at your local thrift store, 1366 is kind of out of the question. But ty anyways!

I saw an dual socket 1366 for like $60-$70 on ebay. Maybe I might try myself when I have spare money