Intel i7-980X Still Worth It?

[TechXPlays]

Recently, I came across an old school Rampage Formula III motherboard for 15 bucks. Couldn't pass it up. 6 RAM slots, 3 full size pci-e slots... whole 9 yards. This still is a 250 dollar motherboard normally.

With that, I have a TON of spare parts lying around, so I was able to get 32GB RAM together, my spare AMD RX 560 4GB OC, a spare SSD I have and a power supply. The normal stuff.

My question is, before I go droppin the money on it on Ebay... is the Intel i6-980X (the highest processor this thing takes) still worth using? Or will I be better off with my Intel Core 2 Duo 7000 series spare PC with these specs

[Jurrunio]

depends on how much it costs really. In games it's between a 2600k and 4770k, while in workstation it gets hammered by any modern 6 core.

 

If I had one it will be a showpiece. Maybe stream content to the TV, but not much else for the retired CPU.

[Emanbaird]

op the i7 980x is still an okay CPU especially for a low end GPU, also if you can manage to get some good cooling you can overclock the hell out of these, i had a xeon equivalent and i gave it away to a friend and he's still able to play most modern games with absolutely issues 

 

Would you be interested in overclocking?

 

If so i'd go for it, but i would see what other CPU's it can take as the i7 980x last time a checked demanded a pretty high price for the performance of an r5 1600.

[Stefan Payne]

1 hour ago, TechXPlays said:

My question is, before I go droppin the money on it on Ebay... is the Intel i6-980X (the highest processor this thing takes) still worth using? Or will I be better off with my Intel Core 2 Duo 7000 series spare PC with these specs

You mean i7-980x??

Your Board might even Support Xeon X56 Series.

 

Yeah, its far better than your Core 2 Duo shit as it at least supports SSE 4.2...

But NOT AVX.

[TechXPlays]

On 2/10/2019 at 10:36 AM, Emanbaird said:

op the i7 980x is still an okay CPU especially for a low end GPU, also if you can manage to get some good cooling you can overclock the hell out of these, i had a xeon equivalent and i gave it away to a friend and he's still able to play most modern games with absolutely issues 

 

Would you be interested in overclocking?

 

If so i'd go for it, but i would see what other CPU's it can take as the i7 980x last time a checked demanded a pretty high price for the performance of an r5 1600.

 

I'll probably overclock it a bit. I just need a water block as I have a spare Alienware radiator and fan setup with tubing. I know this motherboard can take the Xeon equivalent as well, I looked into that, but it looks like they're far more expensive even to this day.

This motherboard can only take up to the i7 980X or the Xeon equivalent. Nothing past it unless there's like modified firmware/bios I don't know about and it can take something else

 

On 2/10/2019 at 11:54 AM, Stefan Payne said:

You mean i7-980x??

Your Board might even Support Xeon X56 Series.

 

Yeah, its far better than your Core 2 Duo shit as it at least supports SSE 4.2...

But NOT AVX.

yeah I meant i7 lol and yes it does support the Xeon equivalent. Wasn't 100% sure if I should just dive down the hole of Xeon-land or stick to what I know.

My main build is an i7-6700k with 16gb ddr4 ram (funny how my spare pc has more ram...) and a GTX 960 GPU that needs replaced soon. stuttering and crashing and sadness lol

[Stefan Payne]

1 hour ago, TechXPlays said:

yeah I meant i7 lol and yes it does support the Xeon equivalent. Wasn't 100% sure if I should just dive down the hole of Xeon-land or stick to what I know.

The Xeon route is usually much cheaper as the Xeon equivalent might be less rare than the i7 version.

And also more choice in the 32nm variants.

So I'd look for that.

 

1 hour ago, TechXPlays said:

My main build is an i7-6700k with 16gb ddr4 ram (funny how my spare pc has more ram...) and a GTX 960 GPU that needs replaced soon. stuttering and crashing and sadness lol

And don't forget a good quality power supply like Bitfenix Formula, Whisper M or something like it.

[MaratM]

just get a x5675 xeon, cost around $20-30, if you OC it to say 4.2-4.4 ghz it will perform simmilar to R5-1600 or i5 8400 (scoring around 1000 pionts in Cinebench), of cause the IPC is not great compare to modern intel parts but it is capable to run any GPU up to gtx 1080 or even gtx 1080ti. You might need a i7-920 just to flash the bios on this board so it will accept xeons. A good cooling solution is needed such as noctua or be quiet or a good liquid cooler. 

[Pasi123]

Xeons should be a lot cheaper than the i7-980X or i7-990X. I have a Xeon X5670 on my main PC

 

I'd recommend checking this thread:

 

[Intelfreak]

I have a I7 980X and yes if you overclock it, its a pretty desent CPU to all around work and gaming. Its far better than a lowsy Core 2 Duo 7000 that is only a dual core CPU.

But i also agreed with the others. A Xeon is a far better choise. Cheaper and tends to overclock better because Xeons are some times better binned die´s than there I7 counter parts. If is because you want unlocked multiplier, then take a look at xeon W3680/W3690. These two are litterly rebranded I7 980X/990X just cheaper and still with unlocked multiplier. Else Xeon X series like X5660 and X5670 are great choises.

 

If that still not is your thing, then go for a I7 980X or I7 990X. Just remember this, you pay more for the I7 chips while the xeon´s performance is the same as the i7 when core clock speed is the same but cheaper.

 

An overclock xeon/I7 at around 4.4 GHz can handle a GPU up to GTX 1080 and in some cases GTX 1080 TI, but it depends on how well optimized the game is and demanding off cause. I have a GTX 1080 TI pair with my I7 980X oc to 4.4 GHz and that hornestly works better than i hoped for.

 

here is a few benchmark of my system with I7 980X and GTX 1080 TI.

 

https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/10037039

https://imgur.com/a/uHjbbMg

 

System spec for those interested.

Core i7 980X @ 4.4 GHz
Noctua NH-D14 CPU cooler with 3 x noctua nf-f12 industrialppc-3000 pwm 120 MM fans.
ASUS P6X58D Premium second gen X58 motherboard means it has Sata 3 and USB 3.0 onboard.
12 GB DDR3 ram Corsair 1600 MHz triple channel Timmings 9-9-9-24 (6 x 2 GB)
Samsung 950 PRO 256 GB M.2 NVMe SSD for OS
CRUCIAL MX300 2 TB SSD for games
WD RED 4 TB HDD
WD AV-GP 2 TB HDD
EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti SC2 GAMING
Thermaltake ToughPower 1500 Watt PSU
Antec Twelve Hundred with all stock fans replaced to Corsair ML120/ML140 PREMIUM/PRO fans and all fans running PWM control also CPU fans.
Windows 10 PRO 64 bit
NZXT SENTRY 3 + Aqua Computer Aquaero 6 XT Fan controllers.

 

My system.

https://imgur.com/a/NLahrg9

[bimmerman]

What everyone else here has said is right on the money.

 

If you aren't going to OC, buy something else. If you are going to OC and want a simpler experience, i7-980/990X or W3680/90. If you want similar performance at cheaper price, spending the price delta in your tinkering time, X56xx chip.

 

I have an X5675 that OCs up to 4.7GHz paired with a 1080ti and an nvme SSD. I haven't had a compelling performance-based reason to upgrade.

To be clear: you will not be getting the same FPS numbers as newer systems, but if you spend less do you care?

[THraShArD]

Be careful with Xeon if you plan on playing certain games.   I forget the terminology offhand, but there are certain Instructions needed for the CPU and games like Division 2 will not run.

 

> Edit

 

It's called AVX instruction, just heard about this the other day

 

https://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php/1894014-Please-Ubisoft-no-CPU-AVX-instruction-requirement-to-play!!!

 

/

[hello_there_123]

On 2/12/2019 at 1:21 PM, Stefan Payne said:

And don't forget a good quality power supply like Bitfenix Formula, Whisper M or something like it.

Lol those PSUs are gonna be close to the cost of the entire build without the PSU. A better choice would be to get a budget unit like the Corsair CX 2017 / CXM 450W / 550W. Even the CX/CXM will most likely outlive the used components (rx 560, i7-980X etc) in the build. 

 

Edit: nvm I thought you were talking about the original build

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, hello_there_123 said:

Lol those PSUs are gonna be close to the cost of the entire build without the PSU. A better choice would be to get a budget unit like the Corsair CX 2017 / CXM 450W / 550W. Even the CX/CXM will most likely outlive the used components (rx 560, i7-980X etc) in the build. 

Eeeeeeeh.... not the 450W for sure. Two OCed Xeons in an SR-2 will eat upwards of 500W, meaning a single OCed one should take around 250W on it's own, so 450W with a decent GPU would be cutting it rather close. I'll be able to tell you for sure once my W3670 (I think, it's a W36xx but I forget which one, lol) gets here and then I'll use my RM1000i to monitor power draw. Right now I'm using an i7 950 at 3.9GHz because my EVGA Classified mobo is a v1.0 and can't use X5675 (v1.1 and higher can). I used to run an ASUS Rampage III Formula with an X5675 at 4.4-4.5Ghz with a 980 Ti, then switched to Ryzen, the switched back and used it with my 1080 Ti at 1080p and it kept up well in everything except Assassin's Creed Odyssey. But even there the frametimes were smooth so it was perfectly playable, just at a low fps (35-50). For the $120 combo deal I got on it that's pretty killer. And I've never even had a high enough capacity 3xDIMM kit of DDR3 to run triple channel RAM so I lost out on a bit of memory bandwidth.

[Emberstone]

I actually own an i7-980X. Unfortunately I could only get a 4.0 GHz overclock on the bad boy stable, but it did its job from 2010 to 2016 (replaced it with an R5-1600X, and now an 8700K).

 

As long as you give it a nice overclock, it will still game fairly well. I own a GTX 1070 and obviously saw some CPU bottlenecking in a lot of games, but I think you should be able to go as high as a GTX 1060 without any issue. It will still do fine for 60 Hz gaming.

 

My chip at 4.0 GHz in Cinebench R15 scored 927 on the multi-core test and 123 on the single-core. The single-core is pretty low, but it will fare pretty damn well in more modern games that can use the threads. Just don't expect to do a lot of 144 Hz gaming on it (Overwatch actually plays beautifully on it, though. I would consistently get 120+ FPS).

[Zando_]

11 hours ago, hello_there_123 said:

Lol those PSUs are gonna be close to the cost of the entire build without the PSU. A better choice would be to get a budget unit like the Corsair CX 2017 / CXM 450W / 550W. Even the CX/CXM will most likely outlive the used components (rx 560, i7-980X etc) in the build. 

 

Edit: nvm I thought you were talking about the original build

Yep, so my full system under load (4x4GB DDR3, one 7200RPM HDD, one 120GB SSD, Gammax 400 cooler with two iPPC 2000rpm fans, EVGA Classified X58 4 way SLI, i7 950 @1.4v 3.9GHz, Gaming X 1080 Ti with 117% power target) pulls about 500W even with Furmark and Prime95 small FFT, 503 with in place FFT. Spiked up to 513W or so as well. So a 6 core i7 or Xeon would likely pull more power at the same voltage, and IDK how much power the 560 eats but I doubt it's as much as the 1080 Ti. Still would go with a 550W for a bit of overhead (hopefully), but if you ever want to run a higher power draw card with it get a 650W or higher.

[MaratM]

X5680 oc 4.2 gHz + gtx980ti = around 630-650watt runing aida64 and heaven at the same time. I think to have it all safe 700w psu is needed for x58 rig