Updating my Workstation

[Hyrulean]

Hey guys, this is my first post here and I'm a little new to pc modding so pardon my ignorance lol

 

Currently I have a Dell Precision Workstation that I use for FX work:

• Dell Precision T3500 - Xeon W3550 3.06GHz
• 28GB DDR3
• 500GB HDD + 250 SSD where I work from
• Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit
• NVS 295 GPU

It works well for tests and stuff, but I'm going to take on a freelancer project and it feels a bit slow to do work iterations and the fan is pretty loud, like really loud.

 

I'm thinking of upgrading it, where do you guys think I should focus?

[NoxiousOdor]

You are kind of limited because of the case and the fact that I think that might use a proprietary cpu heatsink. If you can I would suggest over clocking and if you need to/even can it might be good to get a better cooler for that cpu. You have a nice amount of ram. How much money are you wanting to spend?

 

If you want to keep all of your ram you could get a different x58 motherboard that way you could keep the xeon but overclock it, or you could get a dual socket board and have two xeons but unfortunately you would need two different xeons than what you have because the w3550 doesn't support dual socket

[Jurrunio]

How much money can you spend? What software do you use?

 

The cheap way:

Xeon X5670, X5650 are both 6 core chips to go for. $30 can get you one, sometimes even less.

That GPU... sucks, tbh. Depending on your software, a Quadro P1000 ($315, but some apps only cooperate with workstation cards like Quadro and NVS, not gaming cards like Geforce) or GTX 1050 ($160) should do well enough.

The noisy fans can be dealt with by either replacing them, or cleaning the whole system and replacing the thermal paste (which you will need to do when swapping CPUs).

 

The more expensive, but still with used parts and not too pricey

Intel X79 platform, with more modern CPUs with more cores ( @herman mcpootis has experience on that)

Again, Quadro P1000 or GTX 1050

New case, new fans, new cooler and new power supply.

Old storage drives and RAM can be reused.

 

The most expensive, but currently supported parts

AMD Ryzen 7 1700 (wait for 2000 series if you can)

Again, Quadro vs Geforce (depends on the app you use)

New case, new fans, new cooler, new power supply, new RAM

Old storage drive can be reused.

Below $1200 should be doable

[Hyrulean]

I'm thinking of spending between $500 and a $1000 that's in CAD Dollars.

 

I mainly use Houdini, and the PC is mostly for that.

 

Thanks for the tips guys, I'll look over it. I'm really new to this so this may be a dumb question, but overclocking it is a software or hardware software?

 

 

[NoxiousOdor]

7 minutes ago, Hyrulean said:

I'm thinking of spending between $500 and a $1000 that's in CAD Dollars.

 

I mainly use Houdini, and the PC is mostly for that.

 

Thanks for the tips guys, I'll look over it. I'm really new to this so this may be a dumb question, but overclocking it is a software or hardware software?

 

 

Overclocking is done through your motherboard bios so kinda both? Youtube is a good resource for how to overclock

[Hyrulean]

2 minutes ago, WhisperingKnickers said:

Overclocking is done through your motherboard bios so kinda both? Youtube is a good resource for how to overclock

Thanks I'll take a look.

[Hyrulean]

1 hour ago, Jurrunio said:

How much money can you spend? What software do you use?

 

The cheap way:

Xeon X5670, X5650 are both 6 core chips to go for. $30 can get you one, sometimes even less.

That GPU... sucks, tbh. Depending on your software, a Quadro P1000 ($315, but some apps only cooperate with workstation cards like Quadro and NVS, not gaming cards like Geforce) or GTX 1050 ($160) should do well enough.

The noisy fans can be dealt with by either replacing them, or cleaning the whole system and replacing the thermal paste (which you will need to do when swapping CPUs).

 

The more expensive, but still with used parts and not too pricey

Intel X79 platform, with more modern CPUs with more cores ( @herman mcpootis has experience on that)

Again, Quadro P1000 or GTX 1050

New case, new fans, new cooler and new power supply.

Old storage drives and RAM can be reused.

 

The most expensive, but currently supported parts

AMD Ryzen 7 1700 (wait for 2000 series if you can)

Again, Quadro vs Geforce (depends on the app you use)

New case, new fans, new cooler, new power supply, new RAM

Old storage drive can be reused.

Below $1200 should be doable

Is there any way that I can check the compatibility of the GTX1050 with my current motherboard?

 

You mean buying the chips and adding them to what I currently have? 

[Jurrunio]

5 hours ago, Hyrulean said:

Is there any way that I can check the compatibility of the GTX1050 with my current motherboard?

 

You mean buying the chips and adding them to what I currently have? 

Search on the internet for others who did try doing so?

 

For the cheap way, yes.

[brob]

Presumably these are the specs? http://www1.ca.dell.com/ca/en/nbbg/workstations/workstation-precision-t3500/pd.aspx?refid=workstation-precision-t3500&cs=canbbg&s=nbbg

 

Houdini system requirements, https://www.sidefx.com/Support/system-requirements/. Supported gpu https://www.sidefx.com/Support/system-requirements/supported-graphics-cards/.

 

A better gpu would help. The problem is going to be that any / most of the supported consumer gpu require additional power which may not be available on the psu.

 

The motherboard has PCIe 2.0 lanes and GTX 10xx gpu are backwards compatible. But you will have to make sure that the actual card fits into the case. Some cases limit card length. 

 

You might also consider more ssd storage.

 

[VEXICUS]

13 hours ago, Hyrulean said:

Hey guys, this is my first post here and I'm a little new to pc modding so pardon my ignorance lol

 

Currently I have a Dell Precision Workstation that I use for FX work:

• Dell Precision T3500 - Xeon W3550 3.06GHz
• 28GB DDR3
• 500GB HDD + 250 SSD where I work from
• Windows 10 Pro 64 Bit
• NVS 295 GPU

It works well for tests and stuff, but I'm going to take on a freelancer project and it feels a bit slow to do work iterations and the fan is pretty loud, like really loud.

 

I'm thinking of upgrading it, where do you guys think I should focus?

Upgrade ur CPU to something like x5670 or x5650....They r 6c/12t CPUs ND they go around fr $30-50..

So ... they'll be a good upgrade fr u..

 

https://m.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2322090.m4084.l1313.TR12.TRC2.A0.H0.Xx56.TRS0&_nkw=x5670