Xeon Vs. Dual/Tri/Quad-Core

spynoodle

spynoodle

Active Member
Drenlin said:
He's saying don't let it get too hot when it's working hard. 80C is 176 Fahrenheit, which is really hot for a cpu.
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In fact, you probably don't want it to get above 70-75 degrees Celsius either. Make sure you get extra cooling other than the stock Intel cooler if you really want to take advantage of its overclocking capability.
 
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87dtna

Active Member
diduknowthat said:
Xeon's are beasts at overclocking. Xeon chips are basically tested to be stable at higher clocks and then lowered to a slower speed to ensure absolute stability. Heck, my Q6600 OCed from 2.4 to 3.0ghz without any vcore change.
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My x3210 did 3.0 ghz without any voltage increase.

Drenlin said:
He's saying don't let it get too hot when it's working hard. 80C is 176 Fahrenheit, which is really hot for a cpu.
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TJ max is 100c.

spynoodle said:
In fact, you probably don't want it to get above 70-75 degrees Celsius either. Make sure you get extra cooling other than the stock Intel cooler if you really want to take advantage of its overclocking capability.
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There's a difference between core temp and actual CPU temp. The actual CPU temp spec max is 72c, but even at 100c core temp the CPU is probably around 60c with most air coolers, not even close to max.

For a $50 quad, I wouldn't be afraid one second to crank the juice on that bad boy. My x3210 I cranked to 1.60 Vcore and pegged TJmax 100c several times while I was tested. It's almost impossible to fry a xeon LOL.
 
Rit

Rit

Member
Geeze.. you guys are a bad influence, making me want to buy that processor and giving me a headache from all the lingo talk :rolleyes: :p

But I appreciate the help and am picking up the processor this weekend! Now I just need to hunt down a board/memory/video card/HD =S
 
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87dtna

Active Member
Get a good board...P45 or X48 chipset. Whats your budget?

This setup would go great-

board with ddr3 support (so you can re-use ram in the future if you move on to P55 socket 1156 or something)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157164

ram-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231277

Now video card, there's two ways to go depending if your budget allows. 5770 for lower budget, 5850 if you got enough money

5770-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102873

5850-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102857


If you only got money for the 5770 it's not a huge deal, that board supports crossfire so down the road another 5770 can be plugged in if you need it.
 
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Rit

Rit

Member
Is "cheap" a category? lol I just blew $3k on a wedding ring so money is a little tight right now. That's why I'm kinda going the 'used' way for now. My current computer is just crapping out on me, that's why I'm looking for a quick replacement.
 
Rit

Rit

Member
Well a buddy gave me Crysis and kind of been wanting to play that game. I installed it on my current comp (see sig for specs) and it was just a lag fest. It was like watching a movie frame by frame every 5 seconds. I'm really not that picky, as long as it runs and looks 'okay'. Not the best, but not the worst.
 
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87dtna

Active Member
What resolution???

A 9600gt would probably be minimum for crysis-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814141108


But an 8800gts_512mb would be great if you could swing it-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143119

^^Newegg seems to be putting this card on/off lately, you just have to auto notify and jump on it quick when it becomes available. The 5770 would still be the best choice if you could swing that possibly. DX11 support, it's the most powerful card mentioned, it's smaller, consumes less energy (newer 40nm tech), and most boards support crossfire only not SLI. (crossfire is ATI's version of Nvidia's SLI)
 
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87dtna

Active Member
Cheaper route, but honestly not THAT much cheaper. This board only supports ddr2, and only has one PCIe slot so no crossfire-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157175


ram-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820141337


Thats about $50 savings but you just killed your future upgradeability and even performance a little bit. Probably not as good at overclocking, slower ram, no Xfire future support, and no ram swapping if you upgrade to P55. It's a lose/lose, over $50.


Also though, what power supply do you have? You need a decent one to supply these components without blowing up.
 
spynoodle

spynoodle

Active Member
In terms of the video card, a Radeon HD 5670 would probably meet in the middle between a Radeon HD 5770 and a Geforce 8 or 9 series card. It gives you all of ATI's newest technology, DirectX 11, and 512 megs of memory for a price about the same as a Geforce 8800 GTS. For someone on a budget like you I would go with either this one for 512 megs of memory:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...1&cm_re=RAdeon_HD_5670-_-14-102-871-_-Product
or this one for 1 gig of memory:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...2&cm_re=RAdeon_HD_5670-_-14-121-362-_-Product
I know it has only 1 review..... and a bad one at that.... but I would trust Asus a bit more than Sapphire even. If you really don't want that specific card, then get this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...9&cm_re=RAdeon_HD_5670-_-14-102-869-_-Product
 
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87dtna

Active Member
uhh sapphire is like the EVGA of ATI cards. They are one of the best. EVGA for Nvidia, sapphire for ATI.

That first 5670 you linked to is a decent compromise, not bad.
 
spynoodle

spynoodle

Active Member
87dtna said:
uhh sapphire is like the EVGA of ATI cards. They are one of the best. EVGA for Nvidia, sapphire for ATI.

That first 5670 you linked to is a decent compromise, not bad.
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Thanks for the heads-up about Sapphire. I'm convinced of their reliability now.:) In that case, unless the Asus card gets some better reviews, it might just be safe to stick with the Sapphire. I'm still unsure of why the first buyer got it DOA, though. Asus is still a good brand. Either way, if you're on a budget then you should probably just stick with the 512Mb Sapphire one anyway. ;)
 
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87dtna

Active Member
I've never been impressed with anything I've ever had that was asus. Now for motherboards, ASrock is a subsidary of asus but I've loved everything I've ever had asrock.
And I've owened a lot of hardware, just talk to anyone that knows me...I'm a hardware whore.
 
spynoodle

spynoodle

Active Member
87dtna said:
I've never been impressed with anything I've ever had that was asus. Now for motherboards, ASrock is a subsidary of asus but I've loved everything I've ever had asrock.
And I've owened a lot of hardware, just talk to anyone that knows me...I'm a hardware whore.
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Wait a sec..... Asrock is a subsidary of Asus?????:eek:
 
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87dtna

Active Member
spynoodle said:
Wait a sec..... Asrock is a subsidary of Asus?????:eek:
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Yes, why?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASRock

It's suppose to be the ''cheaper'' division, but I've like the bios layouts/options in all my ASrock boards over Asus.

Plus, I never had a broken/defective ASrock or gigabyte board, but one of my asus' boards had a broken RAID controller plus it had massive Vdroop I think caused by the fact that it only had a 4 pin CPU plug not 8 pin. It was even a higher end 790x board too.

edit- this board here-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131402


POOP! 1x winner of customer choice awards my azz. I guess if you aren't an overclock or don't run RAID it would be fine.
 
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spynoodle

spynoodle

Active Member
87dtna said:
Yes, why?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASRock

It's suppose to be the ''cheaper'' division, but I've like the bios layouts/options in all my ASrock boards over Asus.

Plus, I never had a broken/defective ASrock or gigabyte board, but one of my asus' boards had a broken RAID controller plus it had massive Vdroop I think caused by the fact that it only had a 4 pin CPU plug not 8 pin. It was even a higher end 790x board too.

edit- this board here-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131402


POOP! 1x winner of customer choice awards my azz. I guess if you aren't an overclock or don't run RAID it would be fine.
Click to expand...
I can't believe I never noticed the fact that Asrock's "AS' was the same as Asus's "AS" :eek:
 
Rit

Rit

Member
And my shopping list gets bigger! :p

I'm an Nvidia fan myself, so I'll probably go with something like the 8800gts. But I'd probably be willing to throw more money into the motherboard than any other part, that way I can upgrade later this year if it's possible.
 
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87dtna

Active Member
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spynoodle

spynoodle

Active Member
Rit said:
And my shopping list gets bigger! :p

I'm an Nvidia fan myself, so I'll probably go with something like the 8800gts. But I'd probably be willing to throw more money into the motherboard than any other part, that way I can upgrade later this year if it's possible.
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Yeah, other than the Radeon HD 5670, the Geforce 8800 GTS is one of the best best deals performance-wise on Newegg. The motherboard that 87dtna listed seems pretty good. What would really top it off is SLI support, but sadly the only cheap SLI motherboard on Newegg only supports ddr2 memory :( Also, I have Kingston RAM and it works great, so I would say that the RAM is good too. :)

EDIT: I just found out on Newegg: the Xeon you're getting only has an FSB of 1066MHz, so the RAM you're getting won't be supported at full speed. You can probably save some money buy getting 1066MHz memory.

DOUBLE EDIT: Forgot you were overclocking. Nevermind. After OCing your FSB will take advantage of the full RAM speed.

TRIPLE EDIT: You may also want to get 1600MHz memory for overclocking. 87dtna said that the RAM he listed could hit 1600 easily, but the RAM listed below has a higher default speed to allow for higher stable clocks, and it has a heat spreader.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820104136
 
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