Quad upgrade on my sons optiplex

Last Christmas I upgraded my 13 year old son from a old emachine he was using ( 1.8 AMD single core, 2gb of ram, PNY 7600 PCI-E 512mb card). He has got where he likes to make his own games and plays lots of games on it and the machine was limiting what he could do. From a computer recycling place on ebay I have gotten a lot of different computer stuff I purchased him a working Dell Optiplex 745. 500gb hd, 1gb of ram, integrated graphics. I made him the same deal I did on the emachine. Keep the grades up and at report card time he gets a upgrade of some type. Well he has done very well at school and now his machine is 500gb harddrive with split partition, triple boot xp 32 bit, windows 7 64 bit and Ubuntu 10.10 32 bit, 6gb of ram, core 2 duo 2.4, low profile 6850 ati (think that's right) 1gb memory. I am looking at upgrading him to a larger core 2 duo or quad core.

I have read where many people have has success with the quad upgrade on this model. Do you think it will be really worth it for the quad for him or a bigger dual core will be fine?

The heat sink on this machine is massive with 120 mm fan on the top so cooling shouldn't be a issue.

How he uses the machine.
Gaming
Game design (older style games mainly with game maker, but he also runs FPS CREATOR, FPS CREATOR X10, FULL DARK PRO BASIC SUIT. He also has others that he uses from time to time)
Paint for simple sprite touch ups, but has starting using a older version of photo shop I have CS3
runs his minecraft server on the same machine he games from ( I have just purchased for a family server a AMD workstation with 2.3 triple core but it's still at base configuration and hasn't been set up yet)
runs virtual machines in virtual box to test stuff out
basic web surfing and school reports, etc.

Go for the quad core. I have used both a core 2 duo and quad extreme and there is no comparison. I do have some concerns though on that model. Power delivery and cooling. The earlier core 2 quad chips were engineered to 65nm and run a lot hotter then there 45nm counterparts. The added heat also causes more power draw which can put a strain on the motherboards power supply circuits. The second is that the added heat needs to be displaced, Was the 745 ever offered from dell with a quad core in it? Also the mid tower version probably has a beefier heatsink then the slim line version, I am not sure which you have. I would keep an eye on temperatures. You shouldn't actually damage the cpu thanks to intels thermal throttling system though.

Personally with the way they dropped in price (since everybody wants i7s now apparently) I would go for the qx9775. That is a nice and powerful 45nm chip.

Here are some pictures of the heat sink, it's BIG. I don't think overheat will be a problem on just about any CPU. This is a workstation chassis so it's made to be on long hours. Looking up the service tag on the Dell site it's a Ex department of defense computer.







The heat sink is so big you can't fit a double wide card into the machine, had to go with a low profile. Even after trimming the plastic. And he already has 550w power supply installed.

That heat sink definitely looks adequate to run a quad under. I would still monitor temperatures for a good hour under load.

I have a couple of asus pundit if interested.

Asus Pundit, never heard of them. Have to look them up. How much and what specs are them. Got any voodoo stuff? LMAO

http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/optix/en/opti_745techspecs.pdf

Still researching on this and I think these cut out on quote from threads on tom's hardware pretty much sum it up.

Dell Optiplex only supports 65nm processors
Only the 800 or 1066 core2 duo cpus will work with your dell
May need a bios update
Quad Q6600 Q6700.
965 chipset
Socket T
a e6300, e6400, e6320,e6500,e6600,e6700,e6800
Optilpex 745 2.3.1 bios

The Q6600 in my Optiplex 745 USFF has run problem free since installation (today's date is Sept 16th 2010). My only concern was the temperature of the cores (Speedfan reports them at about 40C), but as I say, no problems at all.

It's time to do some serious price looking on q6600 or 2.8 or higher core 2 duo

IF i ever do a upgrade on his graphics later on. What is your openion on PCI x 16 express riser cards?

40c really isn't that hot for an intel processor, especially a 65nm. The 45nm run a lot cooler. The processor is designed to throttle down before any damage to it occurs.

But from what I have read the 45n won't work in that model. Maybe it's time for me to looking into a new case, and let him build that one up with his grades like I did the last two. Hell I may just go ahead and get him one, then if it doesn't work I am sure I could re-ebay it and get my money back.

The point I was making is 65nm core 2 chips run notoriously hot, If the system and temperatures are stable and you are bellow tj max under load you should be fine.

This thread title would have made a great title for a Captain Beefheart song.