Even 9 years later, the performance of the processor is still viable
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+W3530+%40+2.80GHz
The caveat is power. The TDP for this Xeon is 130w. A 7th gen. i5 ultra low voltage processor offers similar performance, but with a TDP of 15w.
I see no reference to VGA or HDMI for monitor. I prefer to connect monitors to televisions but I question if today’s televisions support DVI since one TV that I have does not even have a VGA input… how does this connected out to video other than DVI? OR am I missing something in the specs?
intel page on the processor
As Narfcake says, it’s from 2010. It is 45nm which was an older technology in use at the time which did mean more power consumption and more heat. The Xeon series was optimized for performance and a lot of data transfer, with larger cache and different internals than a consumer- or mobile- line processor.
This generation used 3 memory channels instead of the typical 2, so the 12GB will be 3x4GB sticks of DDR3. You can buy supplemental memory for these systems fairly cheap; max supported is 24GB. 12GB should be plenty adequate though.
For the money this would be a very good performing system, plus you get Win10 Pro. I work with these types of Dells, they are well-made. They are very different from the consumer versions you get at BestBuy or something. Also quite large and heavy! If you live in a warm climate, you may not want this as these tend to have some room-warming capabilities…
For anyone considering, I’d really say go with the Lenovo serer that’s the other one on this page today. It’s a newer Xeon 32nm instead of 45nm. Still 130W but overall lower power usage and more efficiency, supports more memory, newer chassis design. (this is one of the older Dell server chassis from the mid-2000’s and not as nice as their later ones).
Plus the Lenovo comes with a 128G SSD.
I have two T-3400s and one T-3500 bought cheap on ebay. They weigh about 45 lbs and all came with dual output graphics cards. They now have AMD Radeon HD 7950 graphics cards. One is a spare but I don’t think it will never be needed.
It doesn’t look like these have graphic cards installed.
You can use a DVI to HDMI cable.
It will have something. I’m guessing the actual GPU may vary from unit to unit, hence the omission of stating what it actually is. These Xeon processors did not have integrated graphics.
This would make a decent server, if you added enterprise-class drives.
Specs say “Intel HD graphics.”
You can use a DVI to HDMI adapter, if you only have an HDMI input on your television and don’t have a DVI input on your television. However, you will have to use a different solution for audio, since DVI does not carry an audio signal only a video signal.
If I was in the market for a home PC, I would probably jump on this. This is a hell of a lot of processing power and memory for the money. Yes there is a higher power consumption the processor is going to use, but really, that’s the only caveat that I see here. You could make a pretty decent gaming rig out of this in my opinion. Of course that is assuming that it has PCI Express x 16 or PCI Express slots.
Good point. The solid-state drive is definitely worth a little bit, and is definitely going to break the performance bottleneck hose the typical spinning drives in these older sisters.
Honestly, it’s so tempting to get one of these systems, because I could use one of the Oculus virtual reality headsets designed for PC use with it. It would make one hell of a virtual reality system. On the cheap I might add.
Maybe Woot will extend the sale on these for a few hours longer, so I can deliberate. It’s really tempting to get one of these, since I could get hey video card for virtual reality on the cheap as well. Then I just have to cough up the bucks for the new Oculus PC headset.