Xeon x5680 for gaming

[Terabyte_272]

A friend will be giving me a alienware pc with an i7 920 and x58 motherboard so I was thinking of using the motherboard and upgrading it to a xeon x5680 as its good performance only comes at a cost of about 50 canadian roubles. Thoughts?

[NelizMastr]

Assuming it's not an original motherboard, yeah, go for it. I doubt Dell allows you to put a Xeon in it if it's still the original OEM board though. Might be better off hunting down an i7-970, 980 or 980X.

 

Don't expect to max current games at 1080p or higher with a beefy GPU though. This old stuff is getting long in the tooth.

[Terabyte_272]

Hmm ya I was thinking about that but i7 980x's get a little pricey for what you get. I was thinking about contacting ailenware about xeon support as supposedly newer bios revisions added support for newer i7s so I was wondering if they included xeon support.

[Terabyte_272]

10 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

Assuming it's not an original motherboard, yeah, go for it. I doubt Dell allows you to put a Xeon in it if it's still the original OEM board though. Might be better off hunting down an i7-970, 980 or 980X.

 

Don't expect to max current games at 1080p or higher with a beefy GPU though. This old stuff is getting long in the tooth.

I was thinking that if I test the board with a old x58 xeon I have lying around and the computer posts that then I may get the x5680

[Zando_]

9 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

Assuming it's not an original motherboard, yeah, go for it. I doubt Dell allows you to put a Xeon in it if it's still the original OEM board though. Might be better off hunting down an i7-970, 980 or 980X.

 

Don't expect to max current games at 1080p or higher with a beefy GPU though. This old stuff is getting long in the tooth.

If the mobo lets you OC and you get an X5675 or X5680 or similar to 4.5Ghz it'll keep up with a 1080 Ti at 1440p pretty well in a lot of games unless they're CPU intensive. Tech Yes City has done a bunch of vids on X58 vs pretty much everything up to the 8700K, for such old hardware it holds up pretty damn well. 

[Terabyte_272]

Just now, Zando Bob said:

If the mobo lets you OC and you get an X5675 or X5680 or similar to 4.5Ghz it'll keep up with a 1080 Ti at 1440p pretty well in a lot of games unless they're CPU intensive. Tech Yes City has done a bunch of vids on X58 vs pretty much everything up to the 8700K, for such old hardware it holds up pretty damn well. 

And thats why Im interested in it

[Zando_]

1 minute ago, Terabyte_272 said:

And thats why Im interested in it

Give it a shot with that old Xeon you have. Which one is it btw? 

[NelizMastr]

3 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

If the mobo lets you OC and you get an X5675 or X5680 or similar to 4.5Ghz it'll keep up with a 1080 Ti at 1440p pretty well in a lot of games unless they're CPU intensive. Tech Yes City has done a bunch of vids on X58 vs pretty much everything up to the 8700K, for such old hardware it holds up pretty damn well. 

TYC recently showed a big performance regression on X58 though since the latest Windows 10 update, so it might not be so worthwhile in the long run. Just saying  

[Terabyte_272]

3 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

Give it a shot with that old Xeon you have. Which one is it btw? 

I think its a low end E5504 or something along those lines. My friend and I have a bloody bag of them

[Zando_]

10 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

TYC recently showed a big performance regression on X58 though since the latest Windows 10 update, so it might not be so worthwhile in the long run. Just saying  

Yep, I don't think it was that massive but it was worrying. If it gets too bad you can always hop over to Linux unless you have games that only run on windows (cries in Destiny 2 being my main game and running it in Linux is a ban risk if you can even get it working). 

 

11 minutes ago, Terabyte_272 said:

I think its a low end E5504 or something along those lines. My friend and I have a bloody bag of them

Ah, a little 4c/4t boi. I have 4 or so 4c/8t ones I got for $12, apparently they OC pretty well but I haven't messed around with them much. 

[asand1]

X5680 @4Ghz is good. I'm running one with a 1080 and getting 60-100fps in bf5. I've only played the game for one day though so that's all I can say for now. On other games it's great.

[bimmerman]

Joining the chorus, I have an X5675 @ 4.5Ghz with a 1080ti and play 3440x1440 max settings without issue or fps concerns.

I don't typically play competitive mobas or shooters nor have a high refresh monitor though, so....take that for what it's worth.

 

The key takeaway is that, for me and my gaming use, I am not convinced a newer processor would be a $XXX better experience than what I've got. I have other use cases in mind for a newer processor and platform, but for gaming performance by itself, I am very content with X58 + badass GPU.