[Irinikus]

Here is the result of rendering test. blend in Blender 2.44 on my Alienware Area 51 7500, equipped with an intel Core 2 Duo E6850 @ 3GHz, 6GB RAM and a GTX690:



It completed the rendering in 1 min and 6 seconds, so it's just faster than the Tezro at 1 min and 7 seconds!

Here's how this machine stacks up against the various other machines I've tested thus far rendering with Blender 2.44:



Using Blender 2.79, it completed the rendering in 27 seconds! (That's a huge difference!!!???)





Here's how this machine stacks up against the various other machines I've tested thus far rendering with Blender 2.79:



There is a difference when it comes to the various versions on IRIX machines, but nowhere nearly as big of a difference!!!???

I still plan on upgrading this machine to with a QX9770 or a XEON  X5470 @ 3.33GHz (The XEON looks to be the better option actually!)

[Irinikus]

This video shows the results of Blender tests, rendering Test.blend, with Blender 2.44 and 2.79, when benchmarking an Alienware Area 51 7500:

[jan-jaap]

I still plan on upgrading this machine to with a QX9770 or a XEON  X5470 @ 3.33GHz (The XEON looks to be the better option actually!)

Xeon parts quickly drop in value when old servers start to hit eBay. When I bought my HP Z600 it had a pair of quad core Xeon chips at 2.something GHz, but within a year or two I replaced them with a pair of X5675 hexacores. Put in 48GB of RAM for fun and giggles because it was _that_ cheap. Single thread performance of newer CPUs is better, but throw it something where it can use all 12 cores (24 threads) and it still stands it's ground. And that (transcoding, rendering) is what I got that thing for in the first place. For most other things I prefer my MacbookPro.

[Irinikus]

I still plan on upgrading this machine to with a QX9770 or a XEON  X5470 @ 3.33GHz (The XEON looks to be the better option actually!)

Xeon parts quickly drop in value when old servers start to hit eBay. When I bought my HP Z600 it had a pair of quad core Xeon chips at 2.something GHz, but within a year or two I replaced them with a pair of X5675 hexacores. Put in 48GB of RAM for fun and giggles because it was _that_ cheap. Single thread performance of newer CPUs is better, but throw it something where it can use all 12 cores (24 threads) and it still stands it's ground. And that (transcoding, rendering) is what I got that thing for in the first place. For most other things I prefer my MacbookPro.

It's great that this is the case! As If I had to buy a QX9770, I can only presume that it's been heavily overclocked all it's life, as it's an enthusiast's chip! Whereas a XEON has been run at its correct clock speed in a stable environment.

You can really breathe new life into machines by following this path! That being said, this machine is surprisingly usable in it's current configuration! (Being a 2007 vintage!  )

[Jacques]

I still plan on upgrading this machine to with a QX9770 or a XEON  X5470 @ 3.33GHz (The XEON looks to be the better option actually!)

Xeon parts quickly drop in value when old servers start to hit eBay. When I bought my HP Z600 it had a pair of quad core Xeon chips at 2.something GHz, but within a year or two I replaced them with a pair of X5675 hexacores. Put in 48GB of RAM for fun and giggles because it was _that_ cheap. Single thread performance of newer CPUs is better, but throw it something where it can use all 12 cores (24 threads) and it still stands it's ground. And that (transcoding, rendering) is what I got that thing for in the first place. For most other things I prefer my MacbookPro.

It's great that this is the case! As If I had to buy a QX9770, I can only presume that it's been heavily overclocked all it's life, as it's an enthusiast's chip! Whereas a XEON has been run at its correct clock speed in a stable environment.

You can really breathe new life into machines by following this path! That being said, this machine is surprisingly usable in it's current configuration! (Being a 2007 vintage!  )

Pop in a Xeon, you know you want to!  They are £25 shipped from China. The QX9770 is around £125-£150....no brainer really. If you get sick of running Windows on the machine it would make a lovely linux box.

@jan-jaap - the company I worked for scrapped about a hundred z600 and z620 machines, they gave them away to people who wanted one. I took about 8 or 10 over about a year, cleaned them up and put them on eBay as charity auctions. They all went within about a week. If I could get one now I'd keep it, they are really well built and make great workstations, even the z600 models.