HP xw6400/8400 bios support for E54xx Xeon's (Penryn) - NOT!

HP has yet to provide a BIOS update to support the new chips for htere
systems. Every other motherboard/system house has done so by now
including DELL. They all use the same Intel 5000X chipset so there is
no technical barrier. Is this a sign of a inept company or just
marketing trying to get us to upgrade to newer hardware. What BS.

JGL <j_lando@comcast> wrote:
> HP has yet to provide a BIOS update to support the new chips for htere
> systems. Every other motherboard/system house has done so by now
> including DELL. They all use the same Intel 5000X chipset so there is
> no technical barrier. Is this a sign of a inept company or just
> marketing trying to get us to upgrade to newer hardware. What BS.

just buy a dell next time.

* JGL:

> HP has yet

"Yet", eh? Yeah, right. The Penryn is out for how long, barely two months?

> to provide a BIOS update to support the new chips for htere
> systems. Every other motherboard/system house has done so by now
> including DELL.

For which Precision models did DELL came up with such a BIOS update?

> They all use the same Intel 5000X chipset

Not really. While the FSB1333 XEON 5200/5400 processors do work with the
5000X chipset the FSB1600 versions won't as the 5000X only supports FSB1333.

> so there is no technical barrier.

Yes, there is. Besides the BIOS support the board also must support the
proper voltages.

> Is this a sign of a inept company or just
> marketing trying to get us to upgrade to newer hardware.

The xw6400/8400 are HPs product line for XEON 5000/5100/5300 machines.
If you want Penryn then the xw6600/8600 (successor of the xw6400/8400)
is the machine to go. Does Penryn work in the xw6400/8400? Maybe, maybe
not. Will there be a BIOS update with Penryn support for the
xw6400/8400? I doubt that since HPs Penryn platform is the xw6600/8600.

Do other vendors act differently? No. Dell also offers Penryn only in
their new models (Precision T) while the older Precision 490 and 690
stay with the XEON 5100/5300 sequence. Is there a reason not to support
Penryn in the older workstations other than sqeezing out more money from
the customer? Yes. By certifying a new CPU type for a machine the system
manufacturer not only has to make sure that the CPU does work reliable
in the machine (which is much more than just getting the workstation to
boot up with the new processor) but also that all existing software
certifications are still valid (something which is difficult especially
with new processor generations!). Since workstations usually are not
sold in per-system basis but as complete packages consisting of hardware
and software they rarely get upgraded beyond maybe more RAM but just get
replaced after some time or when the leasing expires.

If you want the greatest and latest then a workstation is not for you
and you're better with a self-made computer made by generic components.

BTW: Even when I'm replacing my workstation regularly I decided to stay
with my xw8400 and its two XEON 5365 for much longer and let pass the
xw8600 and Penryn. I'll wait until end of this year when intel comes out
with their XEONs that finally get rid of the terrible FSB and introduce
CSI and then check out whatever HP has to offer in this class (xw8700?).

Benjamin

* hpnucklehead:

[XEON 5400 in xw6400/8400]

> Has anyone found a way around this limitation?

No, and there is none. The BIOS has no support for XEON 5200 and 5400
series and the board hardware also doesn't support these processors,
period. That's why the xw6600 and xw8600 exist!

> I want to
> upgrade my xw6400 beyond a 2.33 ghz xeon quad setup! I'll pay
> someone if they know how to do it safely.

And what's exactly the problem? xw6400 and xw8400 support all XEON 5300
series quadcores including the XEON 5365 3Ghz variant.

But instead of upgrading I'd consider waiting a while as the next
generation of workstations (xw6800/8800?) using the new Nehalem XEONs
should come out in the first half of 2009 and provide a much better
performance increase than any upgrade. So it might be better to just
keep your xw6400/8400 a little longer and later sell it and move on to
the new workstation generation.

Benjamin

* hpnucklehead:

> Can you really upgrade to 5365?

Yes, you can. But be aware that the Xeons up to and including the 5345
(2.33GHz) have 80W TDP while the X5355 and X5365 have 120W TDP. Putting
two X5365 in the xw6400 means the internal cooling has to deal with more
heat which means the fans spin faster and the whole machine gets more
noisy. Also, if your xw6400 is filled up with fast and powerhungry 15k
SAS hard drives and a powerhungry gfx card like the Quadro FX 4600 that
the internal cooling runs on the upper limit if the computer is used in
a warmer than normal environment.

And of course putting in an unsupported processor voids your warranty.

Having systems with X5345 and X5365 I can tell you that you really need
very CPU-intense applications to notice a real performance increase
between X5345 and X5365. Especially when considering the price tag for
the 5365. IMHO upgrading is a waste of money.

Do you have dual cpus or just a single cpu config? If the latter, you
might end up better by getting a second X5345.

Ben

* hpnucklehead:

> i've got two quad's, and I'm video editing with Adobe
> Premiere. If I could cut down my rendering time by 30% it would be
> worth the upgrade

The 5365 has a 28% higher clock rate which means that everything
clock-rate dependent would be 28% faster. Sadly, this is only valid for
a small part of operations, and as other factors (i.e. memory
performance) stays the same I'd expect more around 20-22% of increase.
Not much for depending on the source $1300-2000 per X5365.

> ...but I'm not keen on voiding the warranty. So,
> just to be clear, have you actually seen the upgrade to 5365 work?

Yes, I upgraded three xw6400 with X5365, but these originally had two
slow dual core processors so the performance bump was quite huge which
won't be the case for your system as you already have quite fast
quadcore CPUs.

If rendering is an issue I recommend to sell your xw6400 and get a
better system. The Xeon 5400 series is faster than the 5300 series, it
has a faster FSB and memory, too, and buying an xw6600 or 8600 with
faster CPUs is probably much more worth the money than upgrading your
xw6400.

Benjamin