Need opinion: Is this machine still worth it?

I have come across an old HP xw8600 series workstation which was saved from an e-waste fate.

It's got four drives for RAID, 4GB of DDR2 RAM onboard (upgrade to 12GB is $30), dual Xeon 5440 CPUs (quad core, 12MB cache), and I have a Win7 Pro upgrade which could be used with it (currently Vista Business x64). It still has the nVidia Quadro card in it, and the 800W PSU.

It works just fine as is, just looking for opinions if an eight core, DDR2 workstation is worth saving/upgrading, or are it's days pretty much over?

 

Consider this...
I run Windows 7 Ultimate on a PC with a 1.8 GHz Celeron CPU, 3 GB RAM and a 10-year old 80 GB IDE HDD. The PC you saved can be used for just about anything except, maybe, serious gaming.

 

Worth it for what?

You say, "it works just fine as is". That suggests to me it is well worth it for someone looking to surf the Internet, pay bills, read email, update social media, generate school or work papers and much more.

And since game makers know most serious gamers cannot afford $2000 gaming rigs, they code games to play on lessor systems - but one could hardly call that system low end.

 

Digerati said it all. Keep that PC.

 

I had my concerns due to it's age and size. This tower is HUGE, and they're going on eBay for $250-300.

More modern units are smaller, and more power efficient, however if someone were to replace the graphics card it would be a bit of a monster. The OS would see it as eight cores, and 12GB of RAM with the upgrade. At $30 for the DDR2, it pretty much screams "DO IT".

The trick is finding a party who desires it...

 

Well, another option is to donate it to your local church, Salvation Army, Goodwill, or DAV so it goes to a family that needs a working computer for their children's school projects, etc. I try to donate several computers a year, typically made from leftover parts. No money, but I do get a nice warm fuzzy out it.

 

I just set up refurb at one of the local hamlet's historical society, actually.

Totally soft and fuzzy...

:-D