People often ask me if this AMD athlon X2 6400+ really work with E521
and the answers that most people would get is the mixture of No and Yes.
''No'' for the reasons of Dell BIOS.
''Yes'' for the reasons of the actual experience or a mere show off of their computer knowledge.
How did I know why it supports AMD 6400+?
Well, there are two reasons. It was back in 2007 when I started to see Dell brochures that come every week. The black and silver looking Dell desktop appeared in the late 2005 to 2006. It was when Intel introduced it's first Intel Core Duo 2 Dual cores.
My father bought Dell dimension 9200 with the intel CPU (Over £1000 in 2006.) and since then, I liked Dell products as it gave me the impressive performance.
In 2007, I chose and bought AMD based E521 and not intel based E520 to try out how AMD works as it once claimed itself that it is faster than Intel.
When I bought it, I saw the CPU upgrade section on the brochure and there was an option for AMD 6400+. I didn't have much money at the time so I chose AMD 5000+ instead with Nvidia graphic card.
Soon after I bought it, they have stopped listing AMD 6400+ on their brochure.
This is one of the reason why I knew that particular CPU works on E521.
The next reason was the manual that came with E521's box.
It didn't say that AMd 6400+ is supported but it did say that ''DDR2 PC2-6400 Ram is supported if it is available''.
The funny thing is the last part ''.....if it is available''
I knew that DDR2 PC2-6400 RAM was already manufactured on that year but was less common and was really meant for gamers ( ...I think).
The next thing I did was to check all the model specifications of AMD dual cores that are on the market. All of their specs are virtually the same except for the amount of Watt each use and the amount of internal memory (Cache) plus the Clock frequency.
The important part I have noticed is that they all have the integrated memory controller that supports up to DDR2 PC2-6400.
I knew that working along with the memory closely is one of the AMD athlon's feature.
So this lead me to think that E521 supports AMD 6400+ fully.
After I bought the new CPU, I have upgraded my memory to see the performance change.
7 comments:
The 6400+ works but it runs hot. When under a moderate load it makes the fan go vroom vroom. Can be annoying for some. I'd recommend using the cooler runnig Brisbane instead.
Test.
Dear Vince,
Yes, it runs hot on stock cooler. You should consider changing your current heatsink to the ones i have suggested on heatsink section. I would go for opteron heatsink I wrote as I used it myself and it gave me an impressive result.
If I were you, I wouldn't go for the Brisbane edition of 6400+ since the Dell BIOS doens't fully support it and all these people who reported to me that it worked, they dropped the BIOS version to the earlier ones in order it to run on their E521.
In any case, it is not fully compatible (from my experience) so I would leave it and buy the heatsink for your current windsor 6400+ if I were you.
But thank you for accessing to my website. It's a bit of shame that I stopped updating (due to my studies) but I do always answer to any questions regarding E521 as quick as possible.
Warmest Regards
Tomo
How about the Noctua NH-U9B for a cpu fan upgrade?
I just want it to be as whisper quiet as it was when it had the 3800 in there. I'm considering putting a 65W 5600 in there as that will most likely have the fan running pretty quietly. That or an 89W 6000. What do you think? Or maybe I should just leave the 3800 in there?
Dear Vince,
I myself have tested optiplex heatsink and Noctua one. The other one was done by others (I asked him to send all procedures to me so it's there). Both of them operates quietly but my previous results showed that optiplex performed better probably due to the fact that it was used to cool Pentium 4 which ran much much hotter than 6400+.
Both 6400+ and 6000+ runs cool on Optiplex compared to Noctua. 6000+ runs cooler than 6400+ slightly.
Noctua is slightly quieter than optiplex but both idle and load temperature is not acceptable at all. Optiplex heatsink runs quietly too. You should get optiplex heatsink seriously.
You will not regret. I promise you for this one. Wether you choose 6000+ or 6400+, it's up to you at this moment.
(Also, please send me the email directly. That way, it is more easier for me. Thank you. )
Warmest Regards
Tomo
Okay so you're telling me by using an Optiplex heat sink and an 80 mm fan attached to the shroud it will cool the 6400+ properly? And that the main 120 mm fan in front won't rev up at all and will stay at low speed and be very quiet like how it was with the stock 3800+ in there? If this is true, for a roughly $15 investment that is not bad at all. I may have to try it. But can you guarantee me that it will run silent and that the main fan won't rev up? That's what I am shooting for. Otherwise I may just have to sell the 6400+ and leave the 3800+ or a 5600+ in there.
Just emailed you this message.
BIOS 1.1.4 confirmed, works for 6400+. 1.1.11 will not support the CPU and you will boot to black screen.
1.1.4 BIOS
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