xeon [X79] CHEAP Old Xeons = pure GOLD..?

[gal-m]

Hello everyone, I'll try to keep this simple and short, but first let me tell you a little bit about my current system (first owner):

 

CPU: i7-3930K @ 4.4GHz (custom loop)

RAM: 32GB G.Skill @ 2300MHz

Motherboard: ASUS Rampage IV Formula (updated BIOS)

GPU: nVidia GTX 1080 Ti (recently upgraded)

 

Me and my friend (we have identical systems) are looking into purchasing something like a used Xeon E5-2687W v2, which would be used for general work, but also gaming.

 

So I'll keep our question simple and straightforward: how would one approach this upgrade and what type of issues could one bump into, when popping this type of processor into one's system? What about overclocking? I know Xeon's aren't really meant to be OC'd, but could something like 4.2GHz be achieved? So basically I'm looking for someone kind enough to share some personal experience and information regarding this upcoming endeavour!

 

I'd like to thank all of our fellow budget friendly DIYers in advance for the info and help - we both appreciate it!

[NelizMastr]

None of the 26xx Xeons are unlocked, so no overclocking. Get a Xeon E5-1680v2 instead. That’s an unlocked 8-core, similar to a 5960X.

[gal-m]

11 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

None of the 26xx Xeons are unlocked, so no overclocking. Get a Xeon E5-1680v2 instead. That’s an unlocked 8-core, similar to a 5960X.

Thanks for the info @NelizMastr I totally forgot about that! 

Noted. 

 

Are you running a Xeon CPU yourself?

[NelizMastr]

Just now, gal-m said:

Thanks for the info @NelizMastr I totally forgot about that! 

Noted. 

 

Are you running a Xeon CPU yourself?

I have run a good few of them in the past. Atm I only have a Xeon E2136 in my server. Love the appeal of the Xeons these days. X99 also has some nice options nowadays, but no unlocked chips anymore after v2

[KingTdiGGiTTy]

6 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

None of the 26xx Xeons are unlocked, so no overclocking. Get a Xeon E5-1680v2 instead. That’s an unlocked 8-core, similar to a 5960X.

This is a better idea than the 26xx xeons even though they don't always have as many cores. I think it's still possible to push a little using base clock, but not much of course.

 

I am running a e5-2680 in a lenovo board. I choose the 26xx to save cost, since I couldn't really overclock on this board anyway.

If your planning on running ECC memory with the Xeon, you could run into problems if you try to overclock, and I've heard of issues with used ECC memory having problems since there are some sticks that are meant to only work in really specific configurations, though I've never had a problem myself.

[mariushm]

The e5-2687w scores about as much as a Ryzen 1400 / Ryzen 2400g

1680v2 is about as good as a 1600 / 1600AF / 2600

 

Yeah, mobo and ddr4 ram may be more expensive, but so is the energy ... 1680v2 is a 130w tdp cpu, ryzen six cores are 65w tdp cpus and consume around 80w

[gal-m]

13 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

Love the appeal of the Xeons these days

We like them too.

 

Me and my friend are big fans of the X79 platform... I think it was such a great product back in the day and you wouldn't believe how long our PC's have been running... Pretty much 24/7 for the past 9 years without a single issue!

 

So basically we just don't want to let go. So if there's an option for us to achieve modern like performance with the same platform at a fraction of the cost we're totally down!

 

System is planned to be used for rendering, but also gaming; we're both flight sim enthusiasts and as you may have seen Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 requires a pretty beefy system - most importantly you need a good GPU (something like an RTX 2070 and above), 32GB of RAM and a decent CPU, with lots of bandwidth (which we have - quad channel)

[gal-m]

12 minutes ago, KingTdiGGiTTy said:

If your planning on running ECC memory with the Xeon, you could run into problems

Hey @KingTdiGGiTTy thanks for the reply!

 

Yep, prob going to be running ECC, unless normal DDR3 would work fine in this setup?

 

What about the BIOS? does that need to be.. erm.. unofficially (sort of "hacked") updated? I've heard some people say you might need a special BIOS to run Xeons on X79 boards..

[gal-m]

14 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Yeah, mobo and ddr4 ram may be more expensive, but so is the energy

Agreed, but still.. We like recycling old tech hehe

[KingTdiGGiTTy]

1 minute ago, gal-m said:

Yep, prob going to be running ECC, unless normal DDR3 would work fine in this setup?

 

What about the BIOS? does that need to be.. erm.. unofficially (sort of "hacked") updated? I've heard some people say you might need a special BIOS to run Xeons on X79 boards

With ECC in x79 it really depends on the board, my best guess would be that the system would function, but not in 'ECC' mode.

 

As for bios, that motherboard has official support for most of these xeons. If you go to an sandy-bridge xeon, you might need to find a bios that has support for those in specific. It doesn't look like the current official drivers come with support for the 16xx/26xx only the v2 versions and the 'v1' CPUs that are ivy bridge

[svmlegacy]

28 minutes ago, gal-m said:

Hello everyone, I'll try to keep this simple and short, but first let me tell you a little bit about my current system (first owner):

 

CPU: i7-3930K @ 4.4GHz (custom loop)

RAM: 32GB G.Skill @ 2300MHz

Motherboard: ASUS Rampage IV Formula (updated BIOS)

GPU: nVidia GTX 1080 Ti (recently upgraded)

 

Me and my friend (we have identical systems) are looking into purchasing something like a used Xeon E5-2687W v2, which would be used for general work, but also gaming.

 

So I'll keep our question simple and straightforward: how would one approach this upgrade and what type of issues could one bump into, when popping this type of processor into one's system? What about overclocking? I know Xeon's aren't really meant to be OC'd, but could something like 4.2GHz be achieved? So basically I'm looking for someone kind enough to share some personal experience and information regarding this upcoming endeavour!

 

I'd like to thank all of our fellow budget friendly DIYers in advance for the info and help - we both appreciate it!

I run LGA1366 Xeon's in an X58 motherboard. Xeon's are aren't magic pixie dust, they're the same silicon with different features enabled.

Quote

what type of issues could one bump into

Pretty much just board compatibility. So just make sure someone's done it before, before you go spending money on it. X299 AFAIK won't run Xeon's as Intel has wised up to DIYer's doing this, and they'd rather people buy new than use old Xeon's.

Quote

What about overclocking?

If you're interested in that, (I'm not that familiar with LGA2011 or LGA2011-3), unlocked Xeon's are much more fun. Also, it helps to not go in expecting a certain speed, not all Silicon can perform beyond spec.

 

8 minutes ago, gal-m said:

Yep, prob going to be running ECC, unless normal DDR3 would work fine in this setup?

This only works if your motherboard supports ECC as well. It also comes with a small performance penalty. Normal DDR3 will work just fine.

Check out this thread though, this is the HEDT hub:

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by svmlegacy
RIP Grammar

[gal-m]

11 minutes ago, KingTdiGGiTTy said:

As for bios, that motherboard has official support for most of these xeons. If you go to an sandy-bridge xeon, you might need to find a bios that has support for those in specific. It doesn't look like the current official drivers come with support for the 16xx/26xx only the v2 versions and the 'v1' CPUs that are ivy bridge

Noted.

[gal-m]

12 minutes ago, svmlegacy said:

This only works if your motherboard supports ECC as well. It also comes with a small performance penalty. Normal DDR3 will work just fine.

Check out this thread though, this is the HEDT hub:

Thank you!!

Appreciate your thorough replies @svmlegacy!!

[Kisai]

39 minutes ago, gal-m said:

Hello everyone, I'll try to keep this simple and short, but first let me tell you a little bit about my current system (first owner):

 

CPU: i7-3930K @ 4.4GHz (custom loop)

RAM: 32GB G.Skill @ 2300MHz

Motherboard: ASUS Rampage IV Formula (updated BIOS)

GPU: nVidia GTX 1080 Ti (recently upgraded)

 

Me and my friend (we have identical systems) are looking into purchasing something like a used Xeon E5-2687W v2, which would be used for general work, but also gaming.

 

So I'll keep our question simple and straightforward: how would one approach this upgrade and what type of issues could one bump into, when popping this type of processor into one's system? What about overclocking? I know Xeon's aren't really meant to be OC'd, but could something like 4.2GHz be achieved? So basically I'm looking for someone kind enough to share some personal experience and information regarding this upcoming endeavour!

 

I'd like to thank all of our fellow budget friendly DIYers in advance for the info and help - we both appreciate it!

Xeon's are never unlocked, and require slower, cpu frequency-matched ECC memory to work correctly. It's not generally worth exploring except for home servers.

[gal-m]

37 minutes ago, Kisai said:

It's not generally worth exploring except for home servers

What about the huge difference in the L3 cache ammount..? wouldn't that make a difference in the above mentioned intended tasks? Or would you say it's still not worth it?

 

Thanks in advance for the reply, appreciate the help!

[gal-m]

I'll just leave this here..

[Kisai]

26 minutes ago, gal-m said:

What about the huge difference in the L3 cache ammount..? wouldn't that make a difference in the above mentioned intended tasks? Or would you say it's still not worth it?

 

Thanks in advance for the reply, appreciate the help!

The size of the L3 cache doesn't really help beyond a point, it will not be a net performance gain if you can't do anything else to tweak it.

 

My view is that Xeon's run too hot and noisy for home, and unless you have a business purpose for it, it's not really much of a gain. like if you look at the benchmarks...

Take note that the CPU is 10% faster, 25% more threads, but the TDP increases by 20w in the process.

But then look at the memory:

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/63697/intel-core-i7-3930k-processor-12m-cache-up-to-3-80-ghz.html

3.2Ghz-3.8Ghz Clock

 

64GB - DDR3 1066/1333/1600

 

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/76161/intel-xeon-processor-e5-2687w-v2-25m-cache-3-40-ghz.html

3.4Ghz-4.0Ghz clock

256GB DDR3 800/1066/1333/1600/1866

 

Unless you have DDR3-1866, and the MB supports it, you're not going to be able to hit the performance target. So unless you can get the CPU really cheap, you're trading a predictable performance with the existing CPU for potentially only small gains for larger energy consumption and thermal output. For games this isn't really much of a gain at all. For something software video encoding you might gain more from the additional cores than the additional clock speed.

[gal-m]

13 minutes ago, Kisai said:

For games this isn't really much of a gain at all. For something software video encoding you might gain more from the additional cores than the additional clock speed.

Thank you so much @Kisai for putting in some time towards making this reply! I really appreciate the info..

 

I have to agree with what you've said.

 

 

I guess we're going to have to decide on what to make of this. Yes the Xeon will be better, but not by much, however if we manage to secure a good deal and if noise/temps are not an issue for us, which I think at this point they are not, maybe this would be a fun little project + I like to think that any performance gain is still a performance gain. The thing is, even though price/performance on this type of used hardware is not great at all, it is still better than buying a new system completely. And if one should consider a $150 investment for one or two more years of running on the X79 platform worthwhile than I think that's not too bad. But to sum this up, I know what you're trying to say and that's not to expect a total system refresh and incredible performance boost.

 

 

But I totally agree. In terms of a serious upgrade, you're better off purchasing a completely new set of parts; the X79 platform is going to be 10 years old pretty soon nonetheless. 

 

Thank you again!

[Zando_]

4 hours ago, Kisai said:

Xeon's are never unlocked, and require slower, cpu frequency-matched ECC memory to work correctly. It's not generally worth exploring except for home servers.

Straight up misinformation. All LGA1366 Xeons are unlocked. 16xx Xeons are usually unlocked, both on LGA2011 (16xx v2) and LGA2011-3 (Most 16xx v3s). All Xeons I've ever tried have 0 issues with normal (non-ECC) RAM. There's also one-off super rare Xeons for 2011-3, and the purpose built specifically for overclocking Xeon W-3175X on LGA3647.

 

3 hours ago, Kisai said:

My view is that Xeon's run too hot and noisy for home

What. They ship with a lower TDP than their i7 counterparts the majority of the time, and even high core count ones are easy to cool since they're low clocked. Unlocked ones will get hot when OCing, but no hotter than any similar core count i7 at the same voltages. Noise is dependent on the cooling solution, anything down to a Celeron will run noisy if you don't have appropriate cooling and just ramp the fans. 

@gal-m They are right on one front, that Xeon will not outperform your current i7, since that's a 6c/12t that can clock to the moon (4.7+ is normal on Sandy Bridge chips, perfectly achievable on a lot of Ivy hexacores as well). If you can find a 1680v2 however, that'll spank your current chip in anything that scales past 6 cores. It's an 8c/16t Ivy Bridge E chip that is unlocked and overclockable. 

[gal-m]

11 hours ago, Zando Bob said:

If you can find a 1680v2 however, that'll spank your current chip in anything that scales past 6 cores. It's an 8c/16t Ivy Bridge E chip that is unlocked and overclockable. 

That's good news @Zando Bob! Thank you for that info and for clarifying the situation around Xeons. 

 

Just thought I should ask: do you know of any overclocking forums that would maybe specialize in OCing old Xeons, or of any information in regards to this that's accessible on the internet? 

 

Thanks in advance!

[Haro]

11 hours ago, gal-m said:

or of any information in regards to this that's accessible on the internet? 

you can check..

that was linked above, they generally talk about HEDT and xeon's in general.

[gal-m]

1 hour ago, TofuHaroto said:

that was linked above, they generally talk about HEDT and xeon's in general

Fantastic news! Haven't gone through the thread thoroughly enough yet, but I now need to make sure to definitely check it out. 

 

Thanks!

[YT_DomDaBomb20]

@Zando Bob can back me up on this, or tell me if I’m wrong, but even unlocked Xeon cpu’s support bclk overclocking, so it doesn’t use an unlocked multiplier 

[bimmerman]

1 hour ago, YT_DomDaBomb20 said:

@Zando Bob can back me up on this, or tell me if I’m wrong, but even unlocked Xeon cpu’s support bclk overclocking, so it doesn’t use an unlocked multiplier 

Short answer is it varies. With the caveat that pre-socket-1366 I can't speak to, 1366 (X58/5520 chipset) Xeons are all BCLK unlocked but only two, the single socket W3680/90, are also multiplier unlocked. Hence the weirdo overclocking dual socket boards like the SR2.

 

Socket 2011 Xeons are neither BCLK nor multiplier unlocked, with the exception of the E5-16x0 models, which are only multiplier unlocked. This killed the overclocking dual socket board.

 

Socket 2011-3 I believe the story is the same, though potentially no more unlocked multiplier.

 

Socket 2066, my understanding is you cannot use Xeons in consumer boards any longer.

 

Socket 3647, crazy one off overclocking Xeon for all the dollars.

[bimmerman]

2 hours ago, gal-m said:

Fantastic news! Haven't gone through the thread thoroughly enough yet, but I now need to make sure to definitely check it out. 

 

Thanks!

The early pages are definitely more X58 era, though X79 and X99 has become more prevalent.

 

We need to do some curating and hotlinking to posts of community interest buuuut that's a lot of work.