I have this Dell Workstation-

Dell Precision T5500

it currently has installed--

one E5520 2.26GHz Xeon CPU "Gainestown"
4GB ECC Server Memory
1TB+250GB SATA Drives
NVIDIA Quadro 4000
Firewire PCI card
Firewire Audio via M-Audio Ozonic

It's a Workstation/Server.. has 875Watt PS.
It seems to run many plugins together seamlessly.. Sylenth, Nexus, Omnisphere, Trillian, Kontact and half a dozen extra effects mixed in all work together and not use up more than 2/3 of the CPU.
But I have a feeling the system could run much better with a 2nd CPU... naturally!


I really dont know if the 5500 series Xeons are comparable to i7's or not.. this system sure seems really powerful though. It will run the game RAGE quite well at medium resolution settings.



I have been running it with just the solo 5520 in it. I just recently placed an order for the 2nd CPU Expansion Riser Card. All fans and memory slots included.

I have seen E5520 chips go for about $15USD on ebay often. But I wonder if I should consider bumping up the pair to something like a pair of x5570 2.93GHz for ~$100.
I might do a pair of x5550's 2.66Ghz for about $60.. but not sure if it's worth the extra $45 when compared to only $15 for just one E5520..
If I'm doing good with just one E5520, then surely a 2nd 5520 will be plenty for some time?

I know I need to up the Memory. This system will go all the way up to 72GB!
I was thinking of getting 8GB to up it to 12GB for now and perhaps up it again later.


Any suggestions?
I'd rather spend as little as possible, but I dont want to have to get back in and change CPU's anytime soon either.
I intend to only use this system for music/audio and perhaps some video/cinema... no gaming. So if I can get away with just one more E5520 for today's and the next year or two's line of plugin's, that's more money I can save to spend on memory and other goodies like 'mo hard drive space.

LMK what you think.

 

your pc seems fine....why upgrade? if your not using it for gaming and it runs your music software great even with all the vst's etc your using why bother changing?

id only upgrade it it got to the point where my PC physically couldnt handle the workload im giving it, until then no way in hell am i messing with it!

 

You can compare cpu here . Maybe your computer has more or less half the power of a modern 4770k... Why do not try for 15$? You can always return back.. check on google if you have to upgrade the power supply too. I think that memories will be not so cheap.

 

I want to upgrade to improve performance before I begin to run into issues down the road.
Sometimes it can take a bit of time to load up a project or mixdown one.. i figured a boost in CPU power can help.. that and more memory.


so if what I have now is roughly half of a 4th Gen. i7, is that good?
I'd hope that a 2nd 5520 CPU would perhaps bring it close to the crunching power of this 4770k?
Or am I thinking it all wrong?

 

I'm not a pc guru but if I were in you I would try!

 

At first I thought this was about that stupid malware application "PC Tuneup" that so many cretins managed to install on their computers thinking they are so clever.

The PSU is VERY powerful to run all kinds of workstations, so you don't need to worry about that. Low end systems can get away with 300-400W PSU these days again, thankfully, since the CPUs and graphic cards are getting lower in demand for power and cooling. Again, thankfully.

More memory is probably not the culprit, unless you use the megagiga bloatwared Kontakt libraries? The solution for more immediate speed up of your computer is investing in an SSD for the OS and reading samples. Next, you can upgrade the CPU, yes, but that will only help so much. [so much being 10-20% maybe?]

Graphics power is absolutely not needed for a DAW *at all*. Especially nowadays when games use 90% of graphic card's power and just 10% of CPU. Don't base your assumptions on a computer's performance on the GPU alone. Forget about graphics cards if you're into audio. I build DAWs and I use either passively cooled VGAs or integrated VGAs in the CPU these days. VGA is just not important at all for a DAW. What's important is that the drivers are stable in 2D and that it's as quiet as possible. Nothing else. All that we need is CPU power and speedy hard disks. Then the amount of memory if your projects tend to use up lots of memory. In the past people used to say upgrading memory is the best you can do for your computer but that's past. Every OS I know should work incredibly fine with just 2GB of RAM actually. 4GB is just to make sure. Everything above that is only meant for those who need it. Big majority of people cannot even utilise 4GB of memory not to say 8GB or more. It's just .. people and "I have more than you" BS. So you probably have enough RAM, I think.

In short, either upgrade the CPU or buy an SSD for the OS. That's what I can recommend and that's all you can do aside from buying a new computer.

A reliable and fast computer is so much more than just great CPU, huge amount of memory, powerful power supply and plenty of hard disk space. Nobody thinks of chipset and the stability and compatibility of drivers, for instance. And everything is important. Especially drivers! A bad driver for a network card will make your DAW have problems with crackling and shit like that, for instance.

Cheers!

 

thanks for the info Sinewave.