CES wrote:

I was wondering if someone could give me an opinion (or if you have the
benchmarks ).

I'm thinking about upgrading to a new Dell Precision WorkStation 670 - Intel
Xeon processors up to 3.00GHz with 1MB L2 cache (Dual Capable) 800MHz front
side bus and Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology

Why not go for an Opteron based system instead?
If you want only one processor, the Opteron 100 series processors
are very attractively priced. If you want dual, go for Opteron 200
series. Here is an article comparing an Opteron 150 to a Nocona 3.6 ghz
running 64 bit software.

http://www.anandtech.com/linux/showdoc.aspx?i=2163&p=1

The Athlon 150 is also probably much cheaper than the Nocona 3.6 ghz.

Of course you could decide to choose an Athlon 64 if you don't want
to use registered ddr ram.



and dual-channel DDR2
400MHz SDRAM memory. I currently have a Dell Precision WorkStation 530 MT
with a 1.47 gigahertz Intel Xeon(Intel 860 Colusa Chipset), 8 kilobyte
primary memory cache, 256 kilobyte secondary memory cache and Rambus RDRAM
running at 400mhz.

So my question is how much of a performance difference would I see

Depends on what you run. The Opteron 150 is an awesome performer.
You could just buy a new motherboard, processor, ram, and case.

between
the old Dell 530 and a new 670 if I were to upgrade my current processor to
a PENTIUM 4 XEON 3.0GHz FCBGA 400MHz 512K CACHE???

Thanks in advance.
CES