xw8600 cpu upgrade question

[SDH]

Here you go.... that is a 120W processor and the motherboard may ask you to provide that processor with a "performance" heatsink/fans, which is double tall and has two identical fans to those used on the single tall heatsinks.  The Intel link on their "Ark" site:

http://ark.intel.com/products/34446/Intel-Xeon-Processor-X5450-12M-Cache-3_00-GHz-1333-MHz-FSB#@orde...

Go to the left hand sSpecs link and you'll see Intel made two sSpec versions, SLASB and SLBBE.  Those are the C0 and E0 steppings, respectively, and they still have new stock for you at $912.00 USD for the SLBBE (E0) one.  That is the latest version.

Contrast that with about $35.00 used off eBay right now, searching for SLBBE.

I'd be interested.... are you already running one of those processors and getting away with the motherboard not nagging you for a performance heatsink?  It was my understanding that the xw8600 motherboard was programmed to want that for all 120 Watt and 150 Watt processors.

In case you hit that issue you can look up my wiring spoof to make the motherboard think you're using a two-fan heatsink when you are only using a normal single tall heatsink/single fan.  Monitor temps for a while if you choose to do that, and I believe the xw6400/xw8400 -001 and -002 heatsinks have higher cooling capacity than stock single tall ones for the xw6600/xw8600.  They both fit the sockets equally well, so if you need to buy a new heatsink I like the earlier single-tall ones better.

[John-Harrelson]

Actually my xw8600 has been running a x5450 but I do have a double tall and my plan is to buy another double tall fan for the second processor. But anyways if I have the older sspec code processor should I buy two x5450 s with the newer sspec codes or not?? What do you think thanks !

[SDH]

I'd check the current processor and get a second one to match it, personally.

The xw8400 did not have the option of the double tall heatsink/2 fans even for the hotter processors, and in my xw8400 I am running two X5355 processors (120 W max TDP each).  One has a xw8600 era double tall heatsink/two fans over it and the other has a 398293-002 single tall (from the xw6400 era).  They cool nearly the same, probed with HWMonitor from CPUID.com during both regular and stress testing (Prime95) use.  HP cooled 120W processors on the xw8400 with that type of single tall heatsink straight from the factory.  The -003 version of that heatsink is missing one of its heat tubes to keep cost down, so I avoid that one.

This is why I would feel comfortable doing the wiring spoof with your new 120W processor.  What that entails is getting a -001 or -002 version heatsink, clipping free the ground jumper from pin 1 to pin 5 (cut it at the pin 1 end) and joining that cut end to the pin 3 wire (which feeds RPM info from the motor to the motherboard).  In that way you feed RPM data back to the xw8600 motherboard via both pin 3 and pin 5, which is the net result of the double tall wiring if you take a close look.

[John-Harrelson]

What exactly is the benefit of doing this wiring modification? That I do not understand but I would love to understand ! 

[John-Harrelson]

I also have another question? If you look at cpubenchmark.net this is how I have checked the performance of each CPU including the x5450,the e5440, etc. Do you think this is a good way to decide  on the performance of each processor. Check it out if you care to? If so tell me what you think. Thank you for all your help  scott , you really have helped make my understanding of this computer grow through our direct conversations and through your comments on other forums. You really do make these forums become helpfull for everyone and an enjoyable place to converse. Thanks 

[SDH]

John,

Happy to help.  The intent of the tips on the wiring spoof is to document for you and others using this forum an alternative to trying to track down the rare and expensive double tall-double fans processor heatsinks for the xw8600 if one is upgrading to faster processors.  As noted above, the motherboard is programmed to "demand" presence of one of those heatsinks for processors drawing 120 W or more max TDP.  This method prevents that, safely, in my opinion.

I probably would not do that for a 150W max TDP processor, and also would not do that for a workstation that I was going to run in a hot room at near 100% for long projects.  I run my finished workstations at 100% for all cores with Prime95 for 12 hours and consider them ready for release when they pass that.  I paid careful attention to core temps with the two 120W max TDP processors in the xw8400 mentioned above, and saw them both stabilize at a nice temp with those two different heatsinks before I walked away for the night.

Signing off on this topic......