Its time for me to upgrade.. and it seems Xeon E3 is the way to go

lemon07r

lemon07r

New Member
Well I was browsing possible upgrades for me, Im currently running a athlon ii x3 445 3.1ghz OCed to 3.9ghz (never goes past 60'C with my hyper 212+) and a radeon hd 4850 (which has been heavily OCed on the core clock). I just dropped the Over clocks on both cpu and gpu by a little bit cause I decided I had enough of frying my hardware for a little extra performance, my current specs just arent cutting it, I dont even have DX11 yet lol. I mostly play League of Legends, Starcraft 2, Aion, Borderlands 2, Dishonered, the new devil may cry, sleeping dogs, far cry 3 and will get crysis 3. I also like to record game play and do alot of heavy video encoding and file archiving (as you can imagine not very fun with my current cpu lol). But I will be mainly gaming. And as I was browsing my options I ran into this: http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=198569. I decided this would be perfect for me, I wouldnt have to upgrade for a very long time, and I dont plan on over clocking since I'd have more then what I want (ive had my fun with toying around and overclocking, I think Id prefer stability this time around) and I also have a spare 1155 bracket I kept lying around in my closet of my spare and RIP computer parts lol. But the thing is looks like I'll need to do a lot of research before upgrading. I dont want to spend more then $500 on upgrades. I already have a 650w XFX psu and 8gb ram but I need to change my cpu (and mobo in that case) and videocard. For video card I was looking at the 660ti, I will be buying in Canada so I guess I'll be buying most of the parts from direct canada which seems to be a bit cheaper then NCIX and newegg.ca. What motherboards should I be looking at? And would this be the best path to follow?

Thanks :)

http://www.directcanada.com/search/?kw=intel xeon e3-12
The Xeon E3-1220 is $215 here and the E3-1230 is $240, is the the E3-1230 worth the extra $35?
And heres the best bang for the buck card I could find:
http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=11830BD6980&vpn=GV-N660OC-2GD&manufacture=GIGABYTE
or should i get this one?:
http://www.directcanada.com/products/?sku=10530BD8523&vpn=GTX660-DC2O-2GD5&manufacture=ASUS
As for mobo I don't know which one I should get. I dont plan on OC (cant with xeon anyways) and limited mobo's support the xeon, I want to sli (in the future) but it isnt mandatory for me. And that virtuMVP thing would be useless i believe since theres no igp in the xeon.
 
Last edited:
No way. Xeons are mainly used for servers. You would be much better with an I5 or an amd build.
 
I see that they are mainly used for servers but I dont see what would be wrong with a gaming build, I dont game heavy, the heavier games I only play sometimes, Im mostly on starcraft, League of Legends and occasionally Aion, I'm open to opinions, in fact I'm looking for them since this is new territory for me, but it would be nice to see some hard arguments, facts, etc. Thanks, from what ive found so far benchmarks seems to be near i7 performance, and it has lower power usage and is more stable. But again this is still new grounds for me so correct me if im wrong to think it would make a good bang for the buck upgrade.
 
Not to spite you or anything, you have given me great advice in the past. Especially with power supply's how ever all i see is "Xeon is designed for (blah)" in that forum. The "that CPU doesn't work with that mobo" bit makes sense but the rest doesn't really help me. Just people blindly yelling don't do it just cause. I did some research since last post and it seems its just a i7 minus igp and plus virtualization features. But same architecture and performance (minus the igp and over locking) even if they were hilt for two different things. The only problem I see here is trying to find a motherboard that is compatible. Is there something I missed here that you guys haven't? I'm curious lol
 
There are plenty of boards that support the xeon cpu, they are called server motherboards. You probably won't find a desktop motherboard that supports the xeon. Look here.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...=100007629 600136967&IsNodeId=1&name=LGA 1155

Usually require ecc ram instead of non-ecc and is more expensive than standard memory. If you want data/info then just google it. You would be much happier with a desktop board and a desktop processor.
 
johnb35 said:
There are plenty of boards that support the xeon cpu, they are called server motherboards. You probably won't find a desktop motherboard that supports the xeon. Look here.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...=100007629 600136967&IsNodeId=1&name=LGA 1155

Usually require ecc ram instead of non-ecc and is more expensive than standard memory. If you want data/info then just google it. You would be much happier with a desktop board and a desktop processor.
Click to expand...
not to call you out, but did you do any research here at all john? I know for sure that the P8P67/P8Z77 line as well as the Extreme 4 Z77 support the Xeon.

Otherwise, it does the exact same thing as the i5/i7, using less power to do it.
 
Yes those boards may support the xeon but will they support the ecc ram? That is a major feature of the xeons as well as opterons...
 
It may be cheaper Wolf but to me its not the point of what a xeon is meant for and those who use them to me are doing it wrong.
 
Sure and a GTX680 is not meant to fold either. But people do it anyway, and there is nothing wrong with that.
The chip will do the same exact job for less money. It is a perfect fit.

(BTW. Stop living in the 90s. Computers can do things other than what they were designed (meant) to do)
 
Not living in the 90s. I use hardware designed in the way it was supposed to, using a desktop board and desktop ram with a server chip to save money to play games is just silly considering the workstation board and ecc ram does not cost that much more. But then again people like spending money on snakeoil...so guess i should stop caring and let them take their poison.
 
Whatever you say man. If you want to waste your money like that, then go right ahead. but that extra $100 on a i7 is not in the least going to get anything accomplished other than draining your build elsewhere.

Or that extra $900 on a Quadro vs a 680 in CAD.
 
wolfeking said:
not to call you out, but did you do any research here at all john? I know for sure that the P8P67/P8Z77 line as well as the Extreme 4 Z77 support the Xeon.

Otherwise, it does the exact same thing as the i5/i7, using less power to do it.
Click to expand...

Yes I did. Looked on newegg and did a cpu type search for motherboards using the xeon and none are listed unless you go to the server motherboard section. The only difference is they are designed to run cooloer because servers are meant to run 24/7 365 days a year. And yes, it seems the motherboards you listed support the xeon so I guess newegg search options aren't the best. I'm still saying they aren't designed for gaming. They are designed for business applications and servers. The OP can do what he wants but we are just giving him info that suggests that xeons are only designed for.
 
Yea, the newegg support listings are not always correct. Like If I look at my board it only "supports" i5/i7 according to 'egg. (it supports all SB/IB processors and some xeons too).

I understand it is not "designed" to run games. Does that mean he should not use it to game? No. Saying it will not game and to use a "desktop" processor is just misinformation. They are the same chip, with the exception of EEC memory support, a lower TDP, and no GPU. For a gaming machine, that equates to less money on cooling, and no loss is felt by no GPU, as you would use a dedicated anyway. Memory controller does not really matter with EEC support for gaming, but it leaves options open in the future (server board and you can make it a server/workstation for the cost of a board, instead of needing CPU+Board).
 
I know 2 people who have workstations that use server CPU's and they game with them just fine.
As for the comment about server CPU's needing ecc ram it depends on the motherboard not the CPU.
There are plenty of servers running regular DDR3 sticks.
There are also MB's that allow c2x CPU's to run DDR3 instead of DDR2.

I agree that you do lose some features and specs when running a server CPU but you have to look at whether it is worth the price difference to yourself.
 
Last edited:
I think the point missed here is that you DO NOT NEED to have ecc ram (I dont want ecc, most errors are hardware related, ecc will only help with software errors, plus ecc ram has higher latency) if I pick the right mobo I can go right on using the the same ram im using right now, rending a few of your points some what moot. So far the only drawback I see is no overclocking (which doesn't matter to me) and very few desktop motherboards supporting the xeon. I don't understand why people here are hanging on to the "but its not made for that" argument, there are MANY things in life, computers, etc where things are a made for something but happen to do things that they aren't suppose to really well (whether they are doing it better or for a cheaper price). What DESKTOP motherboards should i be looking at if I decide to go down the xeon route? Im not picky on model or where im buying from (as long as its a Canadian vendor like ncix, direct canada, etc), but sli support would be a plus.

I very much appreciate all the input submitted in this thread though :), and no need to start putting others down here, nothing wrong with debating, but that doesn't mean we should be throwing insults at each other.
 
The Xeon we have now are Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge CPUs w/o the on-chip graphics. They're still Core i7 CPUs with a small difference.
 
Are you planning on using a dedicated Sound Card? (I highly recommend one. They are worth it even on mediocre speakers (as in $50 5.1 Logitech))?
Do you need SLI/CFx?
Any need for memory overclocking?
Do you need SAS/RAID/Extra SATA/SAS ports?
Any brand preference?
will you be using a dedicated cooler? (that can make a difference).

Answer these, and we can find you a board.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top