Advice when buying CPUs

[Xiauj]

(This topic might(?) be in the wrong section of the LTT-Forum, if it is... I apologize! )

 

 

Ok so, I've been watching some new and old videos on YouTube from Linus and some other YouTubers quite recently based on or for a PC-Build. A majority of the videos that I watched had some Xeon CPUs which had been purchased from eBay/Any-other-selling-related-site(s) and I was wondering if you guys could give me some general advice/tips if I were to ever consider doing so?

 

• Would a Intel Xeon CPU (Or 2??) perform and act the same as another. An example of some CPUs are ones like the 5820K/5930K/5960X/Broadwell-E CPUs, are they similar?

 

• What's the absolute safest, easiest but also convenient way to search for a... 99.9%/100% Safe Intel Xeon CPU with a good low(er) price on somewhere like eBay?
• Following on from the above question, What's the trick to making sure that the CPU itself has been TOUCHED BUT IS still fully usable and does no harm to me or my hardware-components?

 

• Any other risk(s) I should be aware of..?  

 

Thanks! 

[LabRat]

buy new from reputable on line or local vendors. if anything is wrong with anything you buy used, being a novice will probably keep you from troubleshooting properly.

[Bondy3]

if you are going the xeon rout you are far better off buying a refurbished workstation..

[suchamoneypit]

I bought 2 CPUs as well as 8 sticks of RAM from a vendor called "gfsi" on ebay. They have support and a RMA process. They sell a lot of used server hardware for cheap, take a look. That has been my only experienced buying used hardware from somewhere like ebay, and it was a very good experience. They were quick to reply to me when I had some shipping concerns and even cut me a deal on shipping.

[Xiauj]

2 minutes ago, LabRat said:

buy new from reputable on line or local vendors. if anything is wrong with anything you buy used, being a novice will probably keep you from troubleshooting properly.

What do you mean..?  

 

3 minutes ago, Bondy3 said:

 

if you are going the xeon rout

 

Well, it depends because, are they quite similar to the listed CPUs performance wise?

Intended purpose(s) would be:

-Gaming

-3D Model rendering as well as Photo and Video editing/heavy-rendering

 

1 minute ago, suchamoneypit said:

I bought 2 CPUs as well as 8 sticks of RAM from a vendor called "gfsi" on ebay. They have support and a RMA process. They sell a lot of used server hardware for cheap, take a look.

Ooh Ok! Will have a look!

What would you say on a scale of 0-10 based for their service, product itself and prices?  

[suchamoneypit]

4 minutes ago, Xiauj said:

 

Ooh Ok! Will have a look!

What would you say on a scale of 0-10 based for their service, product itself and prices?  

honestly, 10, 10, and a 10. Super cheap hardware, insanely high performance for the price, very fast shipping from California (i live in New england, it shipped in two days!) and the seller responded to me within 2 hours on two occasions regarding some questions I had. Really couldn't have asked for a better experience. The only inconvenience I had was they make you sign for it when you get the package to protect themselves, and I was gone, so I had to drive 15 minutes to go pick it up. But that is completely reasonable and my fault.

[Xiauj]

5 minutes ago, suchamoneypit said:

honestly, 10, 10, and a 10.

Wow  I'll take your word for it! haha!

 

7 minutes ago, suchamoneypit said:

(i live in New england, it shipped in two days!)

Hooray! I'm in the UK as well  Glad to hear international shipping from USA to the UK didn't take that long!

 

8 minutes ago, suchamoneypit said:

The only inconvenience I had was they make you sign for it when you get the package to protect themselves, and I was gone, so I had to drive 15 minutes to go pick it up. But that is completely reasonable and my fault.

That I don't mind, as long as the CPU itself isn't damaged in the slightest and still fully works upon installation on the mobo.

My local delivery place(s) aren't that far even if I do have to pick it up  .

[suchamoneypit]

4 minutes ago, Xiauj said:

 

Hooray! I'm in the UK as well  Glad to hear international shipping from USA to the UK didn't take that long!

Heh, New england. Its a region comprising of multiple states like New Hampshire, Main, Massachusetts, ect..

 

We separated from the UK a long time ago ;P

 

As far as packaging, the CPUs and RAM were packed very nicely, the CPUs coming in their only little padded box that seems to be made just for them, the RAM was carefully arranged in static proof bags, then folded,then wrapped tighly in bubble wrap. You could have chucked the packages at a wall and I wouldn't have worried about damaging them.

[Just Monika]

If you go with a Xeon, keep in mind it will be much more difficult to resell compared to the i7 counterpart since most people don't know that Xeons are basically locked i7s with/without iGPUs and equivalent in performance clock-for-clock. The general misconception is Xeons are for servers and i7s are for gaming.

 

This is a moot point if you do not plan on reselling the Xeon in the future.

[Demonking]

Don't buy AMD FX cpus

[Xiauj]

23 minutes ago, suchamoneypit said:

Heh, New england. Its a region comprising of multiple states like New Hampshire, Main, Massachusetts, ect..

 

We separated from the UK a long time ago ;P

 

As far as packaging, the CPUs and RAM were packed very nicely, the CPUs coming in their only little padded box that seems to be made just for them, the RAM was carefully arranged in static proof bags, then folded,then wrapped tighly in bubble wrap. You could have chucked the packages at a wall and I wouldn't have worried about damaging them.

Oh.... I didn't see the word "..new......" lol, my bad  

 

 

21 minutes ago, Weird Face said:

If you go with a Xeon, keep in mind it will be much more difficult to resell compared to the i7 counterpart since most people don't know that Xeons are basically locked i7s with/without iGPUs and equivalent in performance clock-for-clock. The general misconception is Xeons are for servers and i7s are for gaming.

What are "iGPU(s)"..? I dunno what that means.

Does it help towards gaming? That would be my guess..

 

 

17 minutes ago, Demonking said:

Don't buy AMD FX cpus

Yeah I kind of realized. My rig which I'm using at the moment is one that I've had since 2013 but I should of chose Intel there and then.

It was either this AMD Rig or a Intel-2500k Rig at the time based on my budget  .

[suchamoneypit]

1 minute ago, Xiauj said:

 

What are "iGPU(s)"..? I dunno what that means.

Does it help towards gaming? That would be my guess.

integrated graphics. Its the GPU that comes on something like a i5-6500 that you plug into your motherboard for. Much weaker than a dedicated GPU.

[Xiauj]

1 minute ago, suchamoneypit said:

integrated graphics. Its the GPU that comes on something like a i5-6500 that you plug into your motherboard for. Much weaker than a dedicated GPU.

Oh I see.

I would be having a actual GPU as part of my build, not sure which one.

[suchamoneypit]

3 minutes ago, Xiauj said:

Oh I see.

I would be having a actual GPU as part of my build, not sure which one.

keep in mind that something like a Xeon that you would buy from gfsi (who sell used server hardware) won't have an iGPU, meaning unless you get a special server motherboard with it built in on the motherboard, you will need a GPU for video output (which is needed to do anything). A $30 GPU would be sufficient if you aren't going to be playing games. This is the reason why my dual xeon server currently has a GTX 760 running in it.

[Xiauj]

15 minutes ago, suchamoneypit said:

keep in mind that something like a Xeon that you would buy from gfsi (who sell used server hardware) won't have an iGPU, meaning unless you get a special server motherboard with it built in on the motherboard, you will need a GPU for video output (which is needed to do anything). A $30 GPU would be sufficient if you aren't going to be playing games.

So, if I have say... a 1070 or 1080 (NON FOUNDERS EDITION) as the GPU, it wouldn't matter if the CPU itself has iGPU or not?

 

And yes I would be using this PC for gaming, video/photo editing and rendering quite a lot!

[suchamoneypit]

1 minute ago, Xiauj said:

So, if I have say... a 1070 or 1080 (NON FOUNDERS EDITION) as the GPU, it wouldn't matter if the CPU itself has iGPU or not?

 

And yes I would be using this PC for gaming, video/photo editing and rendering quite a lot!

nope, it wouldn't matter, you just plug the video cable into the GPU rather than the port on the motherboard.

[Xiauj]

1 minute ago, suchamoneypit said:

nope, it wouldn't matter, you just plug the video cable into the GPU rather than the port on the motherboard.

Ohhh I see , that makes perfect sense.

 

[SLAYR]

If this is a build for gaming something like an i5 6600k, an x99 i7 or i7 6700k would be better then a xeon due to the higher clockspeeds.

 

The xeons would only be better for more workstation tasks like video editing or rendering things, or having a lot of vms, the xeons also can support up to 512Gb on some and officially the i7s support up to 64Gb. The xeons may be expensive new, but if you so go second hand most xeons may say "confidential" on them signifying that they are engineering sample (ES) cpus. They may be cheap, but they may have issues with them, and they are illegal to sell, some people have had good experiences with them, but you will have to do a lot more research on them to know exactly what you are buying, and what issues they have.

 

There is a new builds and planning section if you need help with the rest of your build.

[Xiauj]

1 minute ago, SLAYR said:

If this is a build for gaming something like an i5 6600k, an x99 i7 or i7 6700k would be better then a xeon due to the higher clockspeeds.

 

The xeons would only be better for more workstation tasks like video editing or rendering things, or having a lot of vms, the xeons also can support up to 512Gb on some and officially the i7s support up to 64Gb. The xeons may be expensive new, but if you so go second hand most xeons may say "confidential" on them signifying that they are engineering sample (ES) cpus. They may be cheap, but they may have issues with them, and they are illegal to sell, some people have had good experiences with them, but you will have to do a lot more research on them to know exactly what you are buying, and what issues they have.

 

There is a new builds and planning section if you need help with the rest of your build.

Well, the build is actually going to be used for all of these aspects: Gaming, Video/Photo Editing and Heavy-3D_Model-Rendering when using CINEMA 4D (If you're aware of it and how it works).