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Planning a new build (maybe)

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Oct 4, 2011
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Motherboard
Intel B360
CPU
Intel i7 8700T
Graphics
Intel UHD Graphics 630
Hi guys,

I need some advise.

At the moment I have 2 main systems in my house:
1) Intel Q9400 @ 3,6 GHz with OSx Lion (see signature)
2) Intel Xeon L5520 @ 2,27 GHz (LGA 1366) which acts as my server (running Server 2008 R2)

The second machine, for my home server, it's a bit of an overkill.
At the moment it's only doing some fileserving and downloading.
It's the "gateway" to my media: pics, movies, tv series, apps etc.

So I was thinking what can I do with these machines.
Checked the HCL and as far as I can see the L5520 should be compatible(?).
Checked the mobo list and the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD5 should be supported as well(?).

So I could build me a new system with the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD5 + Xeon L5520.
Of course I could overclock the L5520 as well but I don't know how far I can push it.

I have 3 question about it though:
1) Is the hardware mentioned above fully compatible with Mac OSx (Lion)?
2) Is the L5520 superior to the Q9400 (@ 3,6 GHz) and will I see a (big) performance boost?
3) A bit like question 2 but, is it really worth the trouble to get the L5520 up and running (and rebuild a different server) or will I just be fine with the Q9400 and won't notice any difference in performance and speed?
 
Replying to an old post but I just built a system based on the GA-X58A-UD3R and the Xeon L5520 (which is how I found your post) so I thought I'd reply.

I don't have any Core2Quad systems running Mac OS X but I can tell you that it's many times quicker than my 2.2Ghz Macbook Pro, not surprising really as that system is nearly 5 years old.

The big advantages I can see are:
- the Xeon has 4 cores plus hyperthreading. Depending what you do that may help (it adds %25 boost to handbrake encoding)
- Memory for the X58A is much cheaper and your socket 1366 motherboard will support 24Gb vs. 16Gb on the GA-EP45-UD3LR.

Also the L5520 is a special low-power part (60W TDP), it uses less power than the Core2Quad (95W TDP) plus it is very easily overclocked. I have mine running at 2.8Ghz just by increasing the core frequency to 166Mhz and nothing else. With some minor memory timing tweaks I could easily get 3Ghz.

Pete
 
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