General Intel HEDT Xeon/i7 Discussion

[Zando_]

8 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I know this ain't the classifieds, but would anybody here be interested in a relatively mangled Asus Rampage II Extreme?

 

The heatsinks are bit bent, but the bulk of the damage is in the CPU socket. I've been able to slowly repair a fair bit of it, but some pins are still bent. According to Asus' website, this board unfortunately does not accept Xeons, so I'm also fresh out of a CPU to test it with.

 

I'll grab some pictures later today and throw them in this post as well.

Where does it explicitly say it doesn't support Westmere-EP? I've never seen a board say it does support them, they usually don't test HEDT boards with Xeons. 

[Crunchy Dragon]

7 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Where does it explicitly say it doesn't support Westmere-EP? I've never seen a board say it does support them, they usually don't test HEDT boards with Xeons. 

I had assumed that by not stating support, it was not supported

 

Did you visit the CPU support tab?

https://www.asus.com/us/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/RAMPAGE-II-EXTREME/HelpDesk_CPU/

[Zando_]

39 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I had assumed that by not stating support, it was not supported

 

Did you visit the CPU support tab?

https://www.asus.com/us/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/RAMPAGE-II-EXTREME/HelpDesk_CPU/

Same list as my R3 Formula. That worked fine with Xeons, when I got it it was running an X5675. 

Same as all my other mobos, I've never seen one explicitly state Xeon support other than my SR-2, but that's 5520 and not X58, and being the server platform ofc it supports Xeons on paper. 

[Crunchy Dragon]

Just now, Zando Bob said:

Same list as my R3 Formula. That worked fine with Xeons, when I got it it was running an X5675. 

Same as all my other mobos, I've never seen one explicitly state Xeon support other than my SR-2, but that's 5520 and not X58, and being the server platform ofc it supports Xeons on paper. 

Good to know. Still not sure how nicely it'll play with my E55something or other, forget the name. At any rate, the socket still needs a bit of repair before she's ready for another test run.

[GrockleTD]

9 hours ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I know this ain't the classifieds, but would anybody here be interested in a relatively mangled Asus Rampage II Extreme?

 

The heatsinks are bit bent, but the bulk of the damage is in the CPU socket. I've been able to slowly repair a fair bit of it, but some pins are still bent. According to Asus' website, this board unfortunately does not accept Xeons, so I'm also fresh out of a CPU to test it with.

 

I'll grab some pictures later today and throw them in this post as well.

Link to an Imgur album containing images: https://imgur.com/a/CVM3zBN

 

One overview of the motherboard, two close-ups of the CPU socket.

How much?

[GrockleTD]

https://hwbot.org/submission/2935495_trodas_superpi___32m_xeon_x5650_9min_21sec_531ms

 

Edit: i realized how unclear my intent was with this post. the point i was making is that this is an overclocking benchmark for a xeon using my exact motherboard that i had assumed was incompatible with said xeons

[Crunchy Dragon]

28 minutes ago, GrockleTD said:

How much?

Maybe $75?

 

If you wanna PM me and talk more privately, feel free to do so.

[GrockleTD]

11 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

Maybe $75?

 

If you wanna PM me and talk more privately, feel free to do so.

I'll definitely consider it, but referring to my previous post I still hope that I can get my current board to work 

[Crunchy Dragon]

21 minutes ago, GrockleTD said:

I'll definitely consider it, but referring to my previous post I still hope that I can get my current board to work 

No worries.

 

Price is definitely negotiable and, I like to think, definitely reasonable considering this board needs some work.

[GrockleTD]

8 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

No worries.

 

Price is definitely negotiable and, I like to think, definitely reasonable considering this board needs some work.

Idk, it'd be good to see if you can't get it working with a xeon

[Crunchy Dragon]

3 minutes ago, GrockleTD said:

Idk, it'd be good to see if you can't get it working with a xeon

I'll see what I can do.

 

I'm a little short on ATX power supplies at the moment, but I'll definitely take a crack at the socket tomorrow.

[GrockleTD]

13 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

I'll see what I can do.

 

I'm a little short on ATX power supplies at the moment, but I'll definitely take a crack at the socket tomorrow.

[bomerr]

 

On 12/23/2019 at 6:23 PM, Crunchy Dragon said:

Why do you people need to keep reminding me of how much I want a 5960X...

Get an E5-1660 v3. The going rate is 175 USD on eBay. Fair Price IMO. 

On 1/5/2020 at 10:13 AM, Crunchy Dragon said:

Extreme Edition Core i7s still go for a several hundred dollars on Ebay: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=i7+6950x&_sacat=0&LH_BIN=1&rt=nc&LH_Sold=1&LH_Complete=1

 

This is a 4-5 year old CPU as it is, I would expect the price to go down to maybe $500 used in the next couple years.

6950X is highly overpriced. It shouldn't cost more than a Ryzen 7 3800X. 

[bomerr]

On 11/19/2019 at 10:26 PM, GloriousPain said:

Unfortunately I got pretty unlucky with my 5820k, which doesn't like to do above 4.1 Ghz without more than 1.35v in recent years (when it was newer I could do 4.3 at 1.35 but eventually had instability) 

 

Yeah I figure that Zen/Zen+ were about on par ipc wise with Haswell/Broadwell (E) like I mentioned part of the reason to upgrade would be for more 2 extra cores and upgradability to Zen 2/3 down the line (as I sometimes do virtualization stuff, as well as stream/record and render videos) I also do play at 144hz 1440p but esports titles primarily as I'm a pretty competitive person having been Diamond+ in League of Legends, Overwatch, and H1Z1 (back when that was a thing) 

 

but I don't use many pcie lanes... just 16 for a gpu and 4 for an nvme drive should be all I need. 

Get an E5-1660 V3. 

[Crunchy Dragon]

1 hour ago, bomerr said:

Get an E5-1660 v3. The going rate is 175 USD on eBay. Fair Price IMO.

That'd be nice, wish I had the money for it though.

[bomerr]

1 minute ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

That'd be nice, wish I had the money for it though.

why is there no sad emoji on this site?

[Kilrah]

There are several 

[GrockleTD]

PSA yall: X99 boards can be had for about the same price as x79 right now

[bomerr]

7 minutes ago, GrockleTD said:

PSA yall: X99 boards can be had for about the same price as x79 right now

PSA: Only buy X99 mobos with the OC Socket.

 

https://rog.asus.com/articles/maximus-motherboards/asus-rog-x99-exclusive-oc-socket-extra-pins-extra-performance/

[Crunchy Dragon]

28 minutes ago, bomerr said:

PSA: Only buy X99 mobos with the OC Socket.

 

https://rog.asus.com/articles/maximus-motherboards/asus-rog-x99-exclusive-oc-socket-extra-pins-extra-performance/

That's kind of impressive.

 

I think it was Gigabyte who made boards with gold-plated socket pins for better conductivity between the CPU and the socket.

[Zando_]

4 hours ago, bomerr said:

Get an E5-1660 v3. The going rate is 175 USD on eBay. Fair Price IMO.

Ooooooooooo. The 1600 v3 series (other than IIRC the lowest SKU) is unlocked, correct? Similar to the 1600 v2s on X79?

[bomerr]

3 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Ooooooooooo. The 1600 v3 series (other than IIRC the lowest SKU) is unlocked, correct? Similar to the 1600 v2s on X79?

correct. 

 

Some more information on the topic is here: https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/xeons-with-an-open-multiplier.15983/

Engineering sample v4 Xeon info: https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/es-xeon-discussion.5031/page-92#post-196669

[bomerr]

I remember when everyone was saying to get the 4790k over the 5820k, "DDR4 so expensive, you don't need more than 4 cores. blah blah blah." But I saw that 5820k was only 200 more expensive at MicroCenter over the 4790k build. I knew it was worth paying the futureproof tax and now in 2020 even the 5820k is still going strong because of the 6 cores and we're at a cheap, less than 200 USD, 8 core upgrade with the E5-1660 v3. Best platform ever!!! 

[Zando_]

36 minutes ago, bomerr said:

I remember when everyone was saying to get the 4790k over the 5820k, "DDR4 so expensive, you don't need more than 4 cores. blah blah blah." But I saw that 5820k was only 200 more expensive at MicroCenter over the 4790k build. I knew it was worth paying the futureproof tax and now in 2020 even the 5820k is still going strong because of the 6 cores and we're at a cheap, less than 200 USD, 8 core upgrade with the E5-1660 v3. Best platform ever!!! 

Indeed. The 4790K, to it's credit, still holds up damn well nowdays for a quad core. But the 6-8 core Haswell/Broadwell-E chips hold up much, much better. Until Zen 2 came out, Ryzen couldn't beat a decently binned chip on this platform, and these CPUs started around 2014, 3-4 years before the Zen/Zen+ platform. Loses to Zen 2 now, but you can also get stuff for quite a nice price used, and have access to often many more SATA ports, almost double the PCIe lanes on most SKUs (only the 5820K/60something have 28 instead of the full 40 PCIe lanes AFAIK), quad channel RAM for higher bandwidth, etc. 

X99 has held up damn well. X79 is still going strong. X58 was able to compete decently for a stupidly long time as well, but DDR4 price drops, Zen/Zen+ chip price cuts, the usually high price of quality boards, and vulnerability patches really hurt it. Had a nearly 10 year run though? And for anything outside of higher tier gaming or productivity, it's still fine. 

In my personal experience, X99 has been pretty much the best platform I've used. Now to be fair, I am comparing new hardware to used, but it's what I personally bought so I think it's fair: 

My 2700X cost me $330, my ASUS Crosshair VII Hero Wi-Fi (specifically the Wi-Fi because it got BIOS and AGESA updates the fastest) cost $290. That setup had a hard cap at around 4.2Ghz core with safe voltages, used dual channel RAM, and had about half the PCIe lanes available. My j-bin 5960X cost me $285 ($45 less) and my EVGA X99 Classified cost me $99 ($191 less). The only downside is that due to the Classified being an early launch board it doesn't have a full x4 M.2 slot. Other than that, my CPU runs a 4.7Ghz daily OC on safe voltages, I run quad channel 3200Mhz RAM, and I have an abundance of PCIe lanes so I don't need to worry when adding PCIe devices (only a GPU and PCIe to M.2 card so far, may add a second card and/or a capture card in the future). 

My system performs better, is more fun to tweak, and the CPU/Mobo combo cost $236 less. Now to be fair I am running a custom loop, but I also ran one on my 2700X system. I have added some more rads, but even with the single 360mm rad from my original 2700X rig loop, I can keep my 5960X at safe temps with a 4.5Ghz OC, which is still faster than my 2700X was.  

As for downsides uh... it can occasionally be funky, and it eats more power. Both of which aren't really bothers, it's mostly my Radeon VII that's given me trouble. And not the card itself (other than it being a pretty poor bin), but AMD's drivers. Have not had a good experience with those at all. Sadly I never pushed my Vega FE on the Adrenaline drivers with Wattman so I can't speak on anything but my experience with this one card, but it's been pretty bad. That's GPU though, nothing to do with the CPU platform. 

But yeah, basically if you don't mind the power consumption and putting in the work yourself to get good clocks, it performs on par with a lot of current hardware, and isn't usually a bad value. Also according to @GrockleTD's snooping because of a mild interest in X99, mobo prices are actually reasonable now (most of the ones I saw when I was looking were in a similar state to X58/X79, often really overpriced, even for damaged boards). DDR4 has also come down massively in price, making it an even better value. My 4x8GB 3200Mhz CL16 kit cost me about $260, now a kit with those same specs can be had for $130. 

 

[bomerr]

37 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

snip

 

You know which CPU is surprisingly good for a quad core? X3470. I found an i3-530 rig(16GB DDR3 1887Mhz, P55 mobo) at my local thrift store for 15 USD. Got the CPU for 20 USD and with an RX 580 or similar GPU, it can play most games 60FPS 1080P. The price to performance is really good for a budget build. 

 

I am running 2 mismatched Crucial Ballistic Kits (16GB 4X4 2400 & 16GB 4X4 2667) at 2600. Nice thing about Quad Channel Ram is that is the equivalent of  5200MHZ Dual Channel Ram and these cheap crucial kits are great for lowering the CAS, down to 12 or even 11. Getting high quality ram to use a new system is a big reason I don't want to upgrade.

 

I had a GA-X99-UD4 launch model that didn't have the OC socket and only had x2 M.2 slot so I ended up selling it and got an ASRock Extreme 4. This mobo is way better. Much more stable.

 

As for GPU. I bought a GTX 980 when I first got this CPU and I upgraded to the 1080 Ti right before the mining craze peaked and all GPUs better than a 1030 got sold out. The 1080 Ti is a great GPU. I've actually upgraded from my 4K Monitor to a 21" Sony CRT (1920x1440 or 1600x1200) so I don't even need all this power anymore.