CPU Choice (Pentium 4 3.4, Core 2 Duo 2.66 E7300, Quad 2.4 Q6600)


jesseasi

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I have these 3 CPU's at my disposal.  One will end up in my unraid system the other in a Home Theater PC I plan to build.  The one left out may be donated to a buddy.

 

The board I am using is the Intel D975XBX2 (Bad Ax 2).  Using this board because of the 3 PCI Express Slots.

 

Pentium 4 3.4 - works fine on this board.  Only single core and probably uses more power.

 

Core 2 Duo 2.66 E7300 - I am not sure this CPU is compatible.  When installed the BIOS reports it as .40 GHZ. Unraid still works but not sure if the CPU is working right.  Might be the CPU Choice for HTPC?

 

Quad 2.4 Q6600 - I know this CPU will also work. But is it total overkill? 

 

I appreciate any tips and suggestions.

 

I am trying to get my unraid to "go faster"

 

Parity Checks are still only at 38MB/Sec

File transfers range from 7-12MB/Sec. 

 

I have full array of Seagate 1.5 TB (16 of them).  I have read of others here getting much faster parity checks and file transfers.....

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I am just not sure the E7300 is compatible with the mainboard.  Like I mentioned before, the bios reports the CPU as 0.40 ghz. 

 

Based on the Intel website - http://processormatch.intel.com/COMPDB/SearchResult.aspx?Boardname=d975xbx2  The E7300 is not listed as a compatible CPU.  For right now I have the P4 3.4 in there and everything seems to be running ok.  I just don't know I would expect to see faster parity checks and file transfers with a faster cpu....

 

I also have 6GB of memory on the system.  Not sure if that helps either.

 

 

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I found this URL that seems to imply that this processor works on that motherboard.  But the Intel site you found is likely more reliable.

 

All the same, I'd look for a BIOS update, apply the latest, and give it a try.

 

Even if the BIOS is reporting something odd for the speed, you might try it out anyway.  My motherboard reports 1T drives as 100G.  They are still 1T.

 

If it doesn't work, either of the other processors should work.  There is likely going to be little difference in performance between any of them for unRAID use, but the P4 3.4 is likely a Prescott.  And they run VERY hot.  I'd would not use it personally.  The Q6600 is a quad core that would likely benefit a HTPC, esp if you plan to run ffdshow, do real time-transcoding, or any other CPU intensive tasks.  I'd save it for that if I could.  It likely would also run pretty warm compared to a dual-core.

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