Upgrade workstations

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Bill1950

Member
Aug 12, 2016
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I have two workstations that I would like to upgrade. The first is an ASRock EP2C602-4L/D16 motherboard with 2 x E5-2670 (v1), 32GB and a GTX970 video card running Win7 Ult. The second is an Intel S2600CP2J motherboard with 2 x E5-2665 (v1), 64GB and a GTX750TI running Win10Pro. Both use SATA 3 (6gb)) SSDs as the primary HD. The Intel board runs slightly faster memory, but I can't recall the speed.

The GTX750TI is in slot 6 on the Intel board, the SSD is in a 6gb SATA adapter.

Pagefile is disabled on both machines.

I use the systems as workstations with around 10 - 30 windows open at any point in time. The only "game" I use is MS Flight Sim X.

I'm looking to upgrade performance in both, but the Intel is the primary target for performance improvement. I do not want to migrate to a RAID0 configuration.

Am I at the end of the performance line on these? If not, where do I go from here? Budget is a concern, but I'm open to suggestions.

Thanks in advance for your consideration and suggestions.
 

BoredSysadmin

Not affiliated with Maxell
Mar 2, 2019
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Performance improvements heavily depend on what exactly are looking for, on what your main area of performance deficiency? Slow opening apps? Or slow render on Maya?

In very general terms, your both workstations are quite ancient. Literally, both have a CPU from 2011. That's 8 years ago. Neither support boot from NVMe.
At this point, your best bet would be to build a brand new AMD Ryzen 3xxxx machine. I'd go with Samsung 970 EVO NVMe drive for a boot drive. No need for the raid. If needed upgrade the GPU if your apps demand it.
 

Bill1950

Member
Aug 12, 2016
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Thank you for your comments.

From my perspective, both systems are beasts. Stable, robust. Battle-proven warriors.

Yes, they are old. They were old when I built them a few years ago. But I've never had more stable systems in the 40 years or so that I've been fooling around with computers (I got a late start).

I'm not looking for a gaming machine that is the last word in speed, just a system that will load and execute programs a little faster. I'm not editing audio or video. Mostly I'm doing research and editing large documents and spreadsheets. looking at Post-Quantum Computing security, playing with cryptography (distribute ledger).

I recognize that I might be I/O bound for start-up. Faster clock speeds might help in execution if I could actually get clock speeds fast enough to notice. I could move the GTX970 to the Intel board, but not sure what slot to use. It won't fit in Slot 6.

But I don't know what is available for either of these platforms.
 
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BoredSysadmin

Not affiliated with Maxell
Mar 2, 2019
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Load application time is usually I/O and single core performance bound. I am curious if Intel board machine feels faster in excel since it has more memory and it's bit faster type.
Also, possible something like this card could give you significant I/O boost:
1.6TB SSD LSI Nytro WarpDrive PCI-E 3.0 Flash Drive Storage 0-0568-B4A0 | eBay

I won't take my word on this, but there is plenty of people 'round here more familiar with Nytro flash cards.
 

Bill1950

Member
Aug 12, 2016
109
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The Intel board seems faster in ALL applications.

I am significantly underwhemled with the ASRock system speed and stability compared to the older, used Intel motherboard-based system. Thinking of swapping the E52670 procs from the ASRock board onto the Intel board. That might give a tiny bit more speed (2.6 vs. 2.4ghz).

After a little thought, I might pop for a high-end AMD-based system. My current systems very favorably replaced a couple of AMD 8-core FX-based systems. Maybe a Ryzen 9 system or two would be a step up once it's proven stable and prices start to drop. I do like robust CPU power. I have experienced eNVy Me SSDs and they are reasonably fast.