Budget gaming rig dual xeon s1366

[oskar2905]

Hi. Currently I'm running 

i3 2120

gigabyte h61 board

8gb ddr3 ram

gtx1050 2gb

and I thought (for quite a long time actually) about changing my set up for dual xeon s1366. 

What do you think is better idea: changing core i3 to sandy/ivy i5 or maybe even i7 or doing this partially crazy xeon build? If I sell my current mobo+cpu+ram I can get for about same price 2x e5649, 24gb ddr3, hp dl160 g6 mobo. If I give up 2x 6c/12t idea and buy for example 2x e5640 it's cheaper (93$ vs 71$). Or maybe just upgrade my i3 to an i5 or i7? I've read similar topic 

 and I think it might be worth the risk. What do you think?

 

Sorry for my English (my grammar knowledge is not very good  ).

Oskar

 

P.S I know that graphics will probably be a bottleneck. I'm planning to change it anyway.

[oskar2905]

.

[LukeSavenije]

why not get a x58 board, a 1366 xeon hexa core, a good cooler and 16 gigs of ram and overclock it?

[Laputacake]

7 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

why not get a x58 board, a 1366 xeon hexa core, a good cooler and 16 gigs of ram and overclock it?

Seconded.

 

X566(5)0 at 4ghz will be good if you can find a cheap X58 board.

[leadeater]

If you're mostly playing games then those old Xeons are rather crap at that, you can build something new based on Ryzen or similar priced Intel and get superior gaming performance. If you have other uses for the system then it's worth considering something like this.

[oskar2905]

X58 board alone is 100$ used, cpu is fortunately cheap. I would also need to buy 12gb ram too (s1366 is performing best in triple channel). That kind of build would cost about twice as much as xeon build.

30 minutes ago, leadeater said:

If you're mostly playing games then those old Xeons are rather crap at that, you can build something new based on Ryzen or similar priced Intel and get superior gaming performance. If you have other uses for the system then it's worth considering something like this.

If I had more money I would not ask about xeons . I would build something on ryzen and that would be it but considering ddr4 prices, cost of a decent am4 mobo, and ryzen cpu it will cost much more. 

 

P.S those are prices in my country. 

[leadeater]

15 minutes ago, oskar2905 said:

If I had more money I would not ask about xeons . I would build something on ryzen and that would be it but considering ddr4 prices, cost of a decent am4 mobo, and ryzen cpu it will cost much more. 

I would still have a good look around at some of the cheap, the really cheap, AMD and Intel options and reviews. GamersNexus has some good stuff in the 2200G to 2600 (though that is likely out of price range).

 

Dual socket won't add anything to your gaming experience so if you do go with a 1366 Xeon get a single best one you can with the highest clocks.

 

When looking at the performance in reviews these older 1366 Xeons will perform below that of a Intel 2700k, Westmere vs Sandy Bridge.

 

As much as I do like the 1366 Xeons myself as well I wouldn't look at using them as a primary gaming system today. Have you looked into LGA2011 at all? You can get E5-2667 on ebay for $80 USD.

[oskar2905]

3 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Dual socket won't add anything to your gaming experience so if you do go with a 1366 Xeon get a single best one you can with the highest clocks.

Why? Today games use much more cores and threads...at least that's what I thought? 

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, oskar2905 said:

Why? Today games use much more cores and threads...at least that's what I thought? 

Games don't handle the cross socket communication very well, going across the QPI link increases core to core latency. Majority of games are happy with 6 cores and 12 threads and heavily prefer higher clocks. I have gamed on a pair of E5520s and L5630s and it's fine, not amazing, and from memory the games only utilized cores from a single socket.

 

The games I was playing were Sins of a Solar Empire, Galactic Civilization 3, Age of Empires 2 HD etc LAN multiplayer with friends. Just having enough systems was more important than performance of them so I know where you're coming from, something is better than nothing.

[oskar2905]

Even newer games won't use cores from 2 cpus? That makes this build pointless. But...

maybe it's not ?  I know these are lga2011 xeons but still huge gain with vulcan using all threads.

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, oskar2905 said:

Even newer games won't use cores from 2 cpus? That makes this build pointless. But...

maybe it's not ?  

I wouldn't say pointless, just be mindful that older games might not do as well as newer ones but don't expect something to not be playable though. The low power quad cores I was using worked fine but you wouldn't pair with it something like a GTX 1080, though playing at higher resolutions negates under performing CPUs rather well.

 

If you can get everything at a good price I can't see a reason not to without something being better at the same price.

[NelizMastr]

52 minutes ago, oskar2905 said:

Even newer games won't use cores from 2 cpus? That makes this build pointless. But...

maybe it's not ?  I know these are lga2011 xeons but still huge gain with vulcan using all threads.

Optimization won't make a bunch of old Xeons perform well enough to not bottleneck a GTX1080 or even a GTX2080 though. Maybe at 8K or whatever. I'd get an i7 2600/2700/3770 and start saving for current gen hardware. It'll give you better performance and efficiency. X58 is not worth it due to the supply of motherboards decreasing by the minute and the lack of instructions is also becoming more and more of an issue in today's games and applications.

[oskar2905]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

I wouldn't say pointless, just be mindful that older games might not do as well as newer ones but don't expect something to not be playable though. The low power quad cores I was using worked fine but you wouldn't pair with it something like a GTX 1080, though playing at higher resolutions negates under performing CPUs rather well.

 

If you can get everything at a good price I can't see a reason not to without something being better at the same price.

Thanks. What do you think. 2x 4c/8t higher clocked or 2x 6c/12t lower clocked? What's better option? I'm restricted to 95w tdp with this hp board.

 

18 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

Optimization won't make a bunch of old Xeons perform well enough to not bottleneck a GTX1080 or even a GTX2080 though. Maybe at 8K or whatever. I'd get an i7 2600/2700/3770 and start saving for current gen hardware. It'll give you better performance and efficiency. X58 is not worth it due to the supply of motherboards decreasing by the minute and the lack of instructions is also becoming more and more of an issue in today's games and applications.

i7 2600/2700/3770 alone will cost me more than whole xeon build plus I have a buyer for my current stuff if I decide to sell it. I've watched lot of benchmarks and from what i see 2x s1366 xeon has performance of about 2-4gen i7. With a video cart i'm aiming for 1060-ish performance (6gb variant).

[NelizMastr]

2 minutes ago, oskar2905 said:

i7 2600/2700/3770 alone will cost me more than whole xeon build plus I have a buyer for my current stuff if I decide to sell it. I've watched lot of benchmarks and from what i see 2x s1366 xeon has performance of about 2-4gen i7. With a video cart i'm aiming for 1060-ish performance (6gb variant).

If those CPUs are more than a Xeon build, you're looking in the wrong places. A used i7-2600 can be had for like €60-70 which is okay-ish, maybe 90 in USD. A 1366 board alone is like 100-150, and then 20 a pop for the CPUs. I might not be a math genius, but that doesn't appear to come even close to eachother while in gaming, the difference is much smaller.

[oskar2905]

3 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

If those CPUs are more than a Xeon build, you're looking in the wrong places. A used i7-2600 can be had for like €60-70 which is okay-ish, maybe 90 in USD. A 1366 board alone is like 100-150, and then 20 a pop for the CPUs. I might not be a math genius, but that doesn't appear to come even close to eachother while in gaming, the difference is much smaller.

I live in Poland, you live in Netherlands  . 2gen used i7 costs about 400zł in Poland. That's 90euros  . Plus I have a buyer for my current board, cpu and ram. 

[NelizMastr]

3 minutes ago, oskar2905 said:

I live in Poland, you live in Netherlands  . 2gen used i7 costs about 400zł in Poland. That's 90euros  . Plus I have a buyer for my current board, cpu and ram. 

I hope you're not paying for your own electricity then, because dual overclocked Xeons will easily eat many watts during gaming. Compared to your current system, I'd say you'll see about a 4-5x increase in power consumption.

[oskar2905]

i won't be able to overclock them. That worries me. That's second point I'm thinking if this makes sens. I have a good 600w psu so psu will handle it  . 

[oskar2905]

.

[leadeater]

18 minutes ago, oskar2905 said:

Thanks. What do you think. 2x 4c/8t higher clocked or 2x 6c/12t lower clocked? What's better option? I'm restricted to 95w tdp with this hp board.

If the difference is 500Mhz or more then 4 core otherwise 6 core. Also do you already have the HP motherboard or is that one you have found and are going to buy? Personally I buy the Intel S5520HC motherboards since they are the best ones for workstation use I have found.

 

About the power point, you'll be idling around 200W-250W with this system configuration just so you are aware.

[oskar2905]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Also do you already have the HP motherboard or is that one you have found and are going to buy?

I'm going to buy it but I don't have much of a choice  . Intel motherboard you mentioned is available only for some sick price (400$). 

 

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

About the power point, you'll be idling around 200W-250W with this system configuration just so you are aware.

I'm aware of it. At full load (with for example gtx1060) it should be around 400-450W?