Hardware latency tests, used PC's

TheFarfar wrote:

Asus P5B-MX, Intel Core2 Quad Q6600, 4 GB RAM (2x2 GB in dual channel), some 128 GB SSD i had laying around. Everything not needed disabled in BIOS.
Module pcspkr is not loaded, the script encounters an error when trying to detect if it's loaded.
Slight overclock for the CPU, running 290 MHz * 9 (266*9 stock). RAM running at 667 MHz.

Oh i have that processor with an Asus P5B-Deluxe board, it would overclock to 2700-2800 and fail miserably above it, till i change a single setting in the BIOS that pushed it to 3.6GHz ... and it booted and worked perfectly, until the load would become high, i had only the smallest Intel cooler for it.
If you have a big cooler, give it a try.

Here are the latency results for the Dell 980:
settings to change in BIOS:
-disable
--hyperthreading
--C states
--Virtualisation
--Serial port
--Set parallel port to EPP

I might do some more tests with turbo and speed step disabled, might get even better.

HP Z420
A water cooled from factory Xeon beast, used for 100-200 Euro here depending on what comes with it, it is very good with Debian 12 BookWorm and 6.1 (i think) RT kernel, has 700W power supply and at least 15KG!
Be warned that it uses ECC RAM, so very costly, but usually come with 16 or 32GB of ram, sometimes 64GB.
Does not have parallel port
-
HP Z220 - or skinnier brother of the above
Has parallel port header on board, Intel i7 Quad core always, heavy,
Got one of these lately so more tests and results to come. Should be good, but how good?
Used, 80-150 Euro here, usually 100-110.

Check the pictures of latency, mine are both i5.