X6800 upgrade in Dell XPS 410

[neromir]

Hey guys, I'm looking into upgrading my CPU on my Dell XPS 410 machine, and had a couple questions for you. The machine has a 375 W PSU in it that is currently running 2 HDDs (one of which is a 1 TB), an Nvidia 8800 GTS, and an Intel E6400 for the CPU at 2.13 GHz.

The questions are as follows:

1) Do you think my PSU would be able to handle the new processor? (It looks like it only uses about 10W more than my current).

2) Would the stock cooling work, or is it likely I would need to upgrade that as well?

There is one other processor that I'm looking at: the E6700 (as far as I can tell, I'm limited to pretty much those two); but the X6800 is only about $60 more, so if it will work I'd just as soon get that.

 

[aigomorla]

if ur gonna upgrade u should get a quad.. not a EE cpu of the same class.

You wont see nor notice any difference from a X6800 vs a E6700.

And no you wont have any psu issues unless u start overclocking.

 

[neromir]

I don't think any quad cores will work with the motherboard in the computer-- did you have a particular one in mind? I'm curious if you saw one that I didn't.

 

[aigomorla]

I don't think any quad cores will work with the motherboard in the computer-- did you have a particular one in mind? I'm curious if you saw one that I didn't.

If possible maybe an Original Q6600.

Even those worked on some i680 boards.

The best thing to do is get the model of your board chipset.

You can do that by loading up cpu-z and looking in the information under motherboard.

If its a 965 chipset.. most definitely even a 45nm quad is possible.
If its a 945 chipset... its best to look at dell and see if it can take a quad.

 

[Arkaign]

Read this, looks like the Q6600 (and presumably the Q6700 and QX68X0) are a go :

http://forums.techguy.org/hardware/718080-solved-dell-xps-410-9200-a.html

 

[neromir]

Thanks for pointing that out to me. What do you guys think about the stock cooling for both the X6800 and the quad option?

 

[JWade]

I had a xps 410, installed a qx6700 in it with stock cooling and stock power supply running a 8800GTS video card with no problems. just make sure you update the bios to the latest to avoid any issues.

I see no reason why the qx6800 would not work since the qx6700 did

 

[aigomorla]

if ur not overclocking.. dont worry about the stock cooling.

 

[tweakboy]

Your Dell's PSU might die a painful death. You can try upgrading to a AGP 7800GS ..

Someone give him the ATI equivlant. thx

gl

 

[bamacre]

I don't think any quad cores will work with the motherboard in the computer-- did you have a particular one in mind? I'm curious if you saw one that I didn't.

Q6600 works with XPS 410. That's what I have in mine. Replaced the E6300 with it 30 months ago.

 

[bamacre]

Your Dell's PSU might die a painful death. You can try upgrading to a AGP 7800GS ..

Someone give him the ATI equivlant. thx

gl

You have no idea what you're talking about.

One, there is no AGP slot.

Two, his PSU is fine. My XPS 410 ran a 512MB 8800 GTS with a Q6600 for two years. I recently replaced the 8800 GTS with an OEM GTX 260 "green" card (needs only one 6pin power connector), and it's still running like a champ.

 

[aigomorla]

Hey OP our Omnipotent Overload err forum director is known for his knowledge in dell.

So id take his advice with solid confidence.

Bamacre the only question left is can it take a yorkfield?
Or is he limited to kentsfield?
And is he stepping limited also?

Can you check on cpu-z to see what stepping Q6600 u have?
The Q6600 came in a G0 and a B3 stepping.

 

[bamacre]

No Yorkfield. P965 chipset. None of the 1333mhz Quads will work. The Q6600 and Q6700 are the best it can handle. Both B3 and G0 Q6600's will work, mine is a G0.

Dell's online documentation...
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/SYSTEMS/xps410/en/index.htm

Spec's...
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/SYSTEMS/xps410/en/SM_EN/specs.htm

Their specifications are not very accurate, which is not too uncommon for Dell.

Other than support for the Q6600 and Q6700, it also supports 8GB DDR2 memory (4x2GB), assuming you are running Vista 64bit or Windows 7 64bit. I'm running 6Gb of some Super Talent in mine.

OP may want to get the newest BIOS, and drivers are available online as well...
http://support.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=bt

 

[neromir]

Wow, thanks for all the responses!

I'll look into the BIOS updates, although I updated it back in 2008, so I may have that revision already, as it looks like they haven't released new ones since December of 2007.

 

[2006_Dell_XPS_4]

Funny I was just looking into replacing my CPU and came across your site on a Google search.

System used mostly for Photography

Software used mostly upgraded to Adobe CS5 & Lightroom 3

I have a Dell XPS 410.

3GB RAM.

Windows XP Home

160GB & 500BG Drives

P965 Chipset

ICH8R SATA RAID Controller

BIOS Dec 07

System board 0WG855

Upgrading to:

Windows 7 Pro.

CPU I found a QX6700 for a lower price than the E6700 Pro or Cons on this?

Was also wondering if I could put in a bigger drive than 500GB?

Thanks

 

[aigomorla]

Funny I was just looking into replacing my CPU and came across your site on a Google search.

System used mostly for Photography

Software used mostly upgraded to Adobe CS5 & Lightroom 3

I have a Dell XPS 410.

3GB RAM.

Windows XP Home

160GB & 500BG Drives

P965 Chipset

ICH8R SATA RAID Controller

BIOS Dec 07

System board 0WG855

Upgrading to:

Windows 7 Pro.

CPU I found a QX6700 for a lower price than the E6700 Pro or Cons on this?

Was also wondering if I could put in a bigger drive than 500GB?

Thanks

QX6700 is a EE version of the Q6600.

Its also a B3, so it should work fine.
However u wont be able to unlock that multi on a dell board since u have no multi control.

Or i could be wrong.

 

[neromir]

I'm not sure what you mean by multi control, but as to the hard drive question: yes, you can. I'm running 2 hard drives on mine: the stock it came with is 250 GB and I put a 1 TB drive in a little over a year ago.

 

[aigomorla]

I'm not sure what you mean by multi control, but as to the hard drive question: yes, you can. I'm running 2 hard drives on mine: the stock it came with is 250 GB and I put a 1 TB drive in a little over a year ago.

EE cpu's also known as Extreme Editions, have a base start up multi like all the other cpu's.

However what makes a EE cpu special, is that intel unlocks these cpu's so you can manually go into bios and set a number which will allow you to overclock the processor.

This is different from FSB overclocking, because you have multi control.

I havent looked at the bios in a Dell, but i believe you dont have multi control, so you cant play with an unlocked multi the EE processors carry.

But they will work on its stock multi.

 

[JmsAndrsn]

What do you guys think about the stock cooling for both the X6800 and the quad option?

It depends on what the stock cooling is. I've seen Dell put both the all aluminum heatsink (shorter in heighth) in the XPS 410 as well as the full heighth copper version with 4 heatpipe tips coming out of the top. The alumuninum version should be fine for any Core 2 Duo (even the X6800 which Dell technically says should have the better copper heatsink with heatpipes). If you go with a quad core then I think you would be best to get the copper version with the heatpipes if that's not what you already have.