Someone recently gave me an old Dell T5400 workstation with a Xeon E5450 onboard. This is basically equivalent to a Core 2 Quad 9650 (3.0GHz, 12MB cache.) I can add another E5450 in the spare socket, but before I do that I’ve been experimenting with overclocking.
Using SetFSB I’ve managed to get the speed up to 3.6Ghz, but only 3.5GHz, maybe 3.55, seems stable. But I can only do this with a very specific memory config. By putting two 1GB 533MHz FB-DIMMs in the first two slots, and then 6x1GB 667MHz DIMMs in the remaining slots. Somewhat to my surprise this actually works in quad channel mode.
However, when I try to load 4x2GB 667MHz DIMMs I can’t overclock by more than 50 MHz, even when the bus is slowed down by having the 533MHz DIMMs inserted. I’m really puzzled by this, because the 667MHz RAM should be able to run at 580MHz.
Any thoughts on this? Or should I just cut my losses and buy a 2nd E5450?
Server and workstation boards and processors aren’t well regarded for overclocking capability. What is your end goal, doing it “just cause?” or some specific application in mind?
I have a Supermicro dual 771 server that I shut down a few years ago, the perfomance to power ratio was terrible compared inexpensive modern CPUs.
I replaced it with a $60 pre-Ryzen AMD ITX motherboard + cpu combo with 4c/8t and it beats the PANTS off the dual x5460 (8c/16t). Plus the wattage is a drop in the bucket compared to the 771.
It was fun to run for a while, since this hardware used to be so expensive when I’d buy it for work and now going for pennies on the dollar from eBay.
It started as ‘just cause’ but I started to think about practical uses for it. My first instinct was to try to use it as a backup gaming/general purpose computer. But game performance is poor except in old titles (Fallout 4 runs at 35 - 40 fps overclocked in downtown Boston w/ 1050Ti.)
As I looked into the specs of the machine I realized that it could serve other purposes. It can take an additional Xeon and up to 64GB of RAM. That would make it attractive as an ESXi server. You’re right about the power consumption, but FB-DIMMs are dirt cheap. It would probably cost me $1/GB to max out the RAM on this thing.
What’s the maximum RAM on your Bulldozer ITX mobo?
Itx wasn’t the best choice but it was cheap 
It’s maxed out with 2x 8gb sticks unfortunately. Only 1 pcie slot is rough too.
Edit fixed ram typo
But I only use it for Docker and NAS and it does those jobs great.
771 Xeons work and OC great in P45 boards, with the help of a small mod-sticker
you can get a quad core to 4+ GHz stable in P45
no idea about quirky server boards though