These days, with high than ever PC system requirements, it is easy to send $1000 plus to build a game rig to play the latest games. Star Wars Battlefront for instance requires a quad core, 8GB of memory and high end video card and this is at the minimum! So what is the alternative to sending big bucks?
The T5500, and T7500 both had add in risers for the 2nd CPU. The T5500 riser had 3 RAM slots, the T7500 had 6 slots. Larger case, an extra expansion slot, and taller coolers were other differences. The T7500 HDD were in between the MB and PSU. The T5500 HDD were in a tray over the MB like the T3500. I bought the T5500 for $175 shipped on eBay, but it had an X5690. I sold the X5690 itself for $190 and more than paid for my T5500. I then bought the X5650s, a 2nd CPU card, threw in some memory, and then the hard drives. Memory: 16GB (4x4GB) installed. Architecture is 3 channel, 2 slots per channel, with 6 slots on the mainboard. Architecture is 3 channel, 2 slots per channel, with 6 slots on the mainboard. The optional second processor riser card has an additional 3 slots.
The best solution is the Dell Precision T5500. The T5500, is a slightly older, high end workstation designed for graphic design and high demand 3D rendering and other industry software. This makes it perfect platform for building an inexpensive gaming rig. Here are the highlights:
T5500 Memory Slots Upgrade
- 875W Power Supply
- Dual CPU Support (Not a must, even for high end gaming)
- 6 Core CPU (One and two CPU config, max of 12 cores)
- Dual PCIe x16 Slots and Internal Power Plugs For Dual Video Cards
- DDR3-10600 (1333HZZ) Max up to 72GB (with Dual CPU Config)
- Up to 24 threads and Hyper Threading Support
T5500 Memory Slots App
By purchasing a 4-5 year old high end commercial workstation, you can come very close to matching the performance of today very high end gaming computers, at less then half the price. I purchased a T5500 about 6 moths a ago off of eBay for $200. There are many different configurations of the T5500. The main thing i was and you should look for when searching for a T5500 is that the processor is hyper threaded, a E5600 quad core (single CPU) or X5600 hex core (dual CPU) series processor is best. The faster the clock speed the better, both of these CPU series have hyper threaded, 2 threads per core, Turbo Boost and 12MB of L3 cache. The rest can be upgraded later, but the more memory, bigger the HD the merrier. RAM is inexpensive, I just add 12GB for $29, giving me a total of 15GB. The system can with six 1GM stick, I had to replace 3 of the with the new 4GB sticks I bought. You will defiantly want to add and SSD, even if it is not very big, for your OS. The drive the T5500 came with can be used for your games and software storage. Most of the T5500’s come with one of Nvidia Quadro series video cards. While these cards can still be very pricey and are high performance, they are somewhat industry specific and are not well suited for high end gaming. You need to replace this, this will be the largest cost upgrade. Buy the high grade gaming video card that is in your budget. The video card will have the biggest impacted on gaming. It is the difference between whether you can play your games on a medium graphics setting or the highest and why go though all this if you can’t crank it up to at least near the highest settings. I recommend a AMD ATI R7 at the very minimum ($120 on amazon).
Here is the specs on the rig I put together for around $475:
- Dell Percision T5500 Single CPU
- Windows 10 64 bit
- CPU: Intel Xeon E5620, 2.4GHZ, Quad Core, HT, 8 Threads, 12MB Cache
- Memory: 15GB DDR3-10600 (1333HZ)
- Hard Drive: Primary 120GB SSD (OS), Secondary 1TB
- Vedio Card: Sapphire R9 270, 2DG GDDR5, 256 bit
Here are the games I play and the graphics setting that very well with this rig:
T5500 Memory Slots Games
- Titan Falls – Graphics set to Very High (one down from max)
- Far Cry – Graphics set to Very High (one down from max)
- War Thunder – Graphics set to Max
- Syndicate – Graphics set to Max
- Dead Space 3 – Graphics set to Max
- Home Work Remastered – Graphics set to Max
So, as you can see, not to bad for a gaming rig under $500. With a better graphics car you could play any game out there at the highest graphics settings with no issue. If your on a tight budge but want a high performance gaming system, I would consider a T5500 as the base platfore to build your gaming rig on.
Things to review before buying upgrade hardware:
Memory configurations – Pg 2-4: dell-precision-t5500-manual
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