Got the BIOS flashed on the first rig. 8837's will be here tomorrow and I'll take 'em for a spin.
Can I flash the X7560 rig with this BIOS and run E7 series CPU's if I replace the mem cartridges with E7 ones? I've never figured out what the actual difference is between a "standard" DL580 and a E7 series.
Yes you should flash the X7560 rig with the BIOS update. That needs to be done so that you can use E7 processors in it. Most of my DL580 G7 purchases had X7560's in them and they were flashed to the BIOS update and had E7-8837's installed without any issues.
As for the memory cartridges you can use either the ones labeled "E7 Only" or the plain ones as they both work with E7 processors. The ones labeled "E7 Only" do not work with the X75xx series processors.
To save a bunch of power you should check this out:
Save power on the DL580 G7's by running with the minimum number of memory cartridges
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1955358.msg36789923#msg36789923I only have a single cartridge in the rightmost slot on processor 0. It has only 8GB of memory installed on it. Either 4x 2GB or 2x 4GB. Each memory cartridge uses 30 watts even if it contains no memory sticks. I saved 210 watts by only using a single memory cartridge.