Norm,

That Q6600 is a very nice (was a very nice) CPU, I have one in an old laptop. Sadly the architecture is now old, I would keep it as a 'play' computer and put something else together. Even if you get better performance the CPU could turn up its toes at any time.

Any video card will help as it will improve the graphics response, just make sure it supports Direct-X 10, 11 or 12. I don't see the Direct-X support for this card.

To be honest, a new PC should be on your Xmas wish-list.

Simon Brown, G4ELI
www.sdr-radio.com


-----Original Message-----
From: main@SDR-Radio.groups.io <main@SDR-Radio.groups.io> On Behalf Of Norm n3ykf
Sent: 26 September 2018 05:39
To: SDR-Radio@groups.io
Subject: [SDR-Radio] Nvidia cards in an older pc

Hi all!

My old pc, a Q6600 (first of the quad core avaliable at a reasonable cost)/Intel D975xbx2/Nvidia quadro 4000/4GB ram/1kw power supply/windows 10 is being tested by the latest suite of software for ham radio. No complaints here but Ver 3 uses a large fraction of all four core's processing power (CPU). Ver3 is a wonderful piece of software. SDR is an Ettus B210.

This beast of a pc stays around because it supports PCI. Have a bunch of NI cards that use that bus. Test gear runs most of the station.
It's (the pc) my development platform (LabView). Use a NI Enet/100 (ethernet to HPIB) as the bus master of the HPIB bus at the station.
One of these days I'll actually connect all the dots and have a fully remote shack. It's a satellite station, so full duplex and all the other stuff.

Was using an HP server DL360G5 to run the ham station when I purchased the video card (quadro4000) for a rendering project. It was more of a form factor/machine spec decision than a performance one. Had it running the ham station for a little while until the noise got to me.
Sounded like a jet spooling up to start. Too much.... Performance out the wazoo. 4x zeon quad cores+32GB memory. Very little space for cards and strict electrical requirements. It was a good idea to wear the headset in order to preserve what little is left of my hearing.

Plan on upgrading the memory on the old pc. 4GB was a splurge when I bought it 10 years ago. Memory is cheeep now. Throwback to the past:
Max supported 8GB. WOW!!!!!

Does it make any sense to add another video card to the old PC? I'm specifically aiming it at reducing the load on the CPU ( for SDRV3).
Was looking at the Nvidia K40. They are relatively inexpensive and plentiful on the bay. The server used x8 PCIe. This has three slots, x16, x8, x4. Planned on populating the x16 with a newly acquired card and the x8(with the quadro 4000).

Windows 10 has two programs running to verify software. They take like 25% of the processor's resources. I'm going to try tuning the OS. That can be like playing with fire.

Later on, I'll just buy a new pc. The problem is when the add ons start adding up.

This is the first time I've used a PC as an intergral, necessary part of the station. Used to be a radio, antenna, mic, a pen and a piece of paper. How far we've come.

Thanks for reading.

Norm n3ykf