Devoid Of Knwoledge

Specifically this video @Devoid:
I recently thought about going the X99 route for a friend that needs the cores...
Since pretty much every Chinese X99 has one of these problems: stability / vrm / sensors / BIOS / questionable longevity... I looked up some reputable board manufacturers (like MSI or Asus) and those boards cost 200$ or more, used...
So I scrubbed the idea, because in the end a new Ryzen 3700X + a good new B550 board would cost  ~450$ while the 4-5 year old Xeon + X99 system would cost ~300$, and that old system has no upgrade path plus if something fails chances are it will be out of order for a month until a replacement arrives. With B550 and Ryzen a part can be easily replaced in a few days at most, and in a few years (when the price drops) I can easily plop in a 5950X if more cores are needed.
 

@Latvian Video @Devoid Of Knwoledge
 
A tad more info I should have posted, and I apologize for the delay.
 
The x99 boards vary *highly* in quality, with the best ones being average, especially when it comes to VRM cooling (I went with an Open Frame design and a downdraft CPU cooler to help with the VRM temp issues) and the worst ones catching fire.
 
A fantastic resource for understanding these systems is a YT channel called MiyConst Hardware. The Russians are huge into these systems (because they are cheap over there coming from AliExpress) with all kinds of resources.
 
If you are serious about going an x99 board route, I really encourage you to watch his channel
https://www.youtube.com/c/Miyconst
 
The system games fine and the temp monitors that are enabled (not all will give accurate info) are well controlled.
I choose the JGinyue X99M-Plus D4 mobo based on the above videos.
Here is a pic of my system
 
 
 
 

Finally a place for my headphones which are held together with nothing but sellotape.

I bought an x99 combo, with RAM, 12c/24t Xeon (Xeon E5-2678 v3), mobo.
Arrived very quickly to the USA and he only issues I've ever had (I don't bother trying to OC anything) is the system will hard lock trying to run the AIDA64 sensor suite, but has no issues running rainlender and it's suite of sensors.
 
Been rock solid otherwise.
 

Don't be surprised if things take quite a while to arrive, like 3-4 months, and you'll need to do extra research on compatibility with old hardware. For example, Intel X79 can't boot from NVMe drives.
 
Other than that things from Aliexpress are generally functional if they aren't demolished in shipping.

I havent bought the combos from there, but mostly, aliexpress has been good so far, but the most expensive thing I have ordered was like 50eur

Yeah Microsoft rolled with the punches unlike certain Linux users who can't stomach the fact the linux isn't for everyon and feels the need to defend Linux to the very end.