What's going on with cheap Xeon?

[Simon771]

So I was looking at few topics on this forum and found out that you can buy Xeon CPU with 12 cores / 24 threads for under 200$.

E5-2658 v3 for exmaple ... it cost 1800$ at release, and now price is 10x lower?

 

What's going on with prices of that CPUs?

 

I know Xeon isn't best idea for gaming, so I'm not looking into that.

But my gf is going to "graphic school", and she will be using Photoshop and other video/audio editing software. So instead of buying another i7 in my country for 350$, I could just buy that Xeon CPU for under 200$ and it would perform better for video editing etc.? 

 

I just don't get it, why prices are so low for those CPUs lol.

[Alexzz_]

well its usually because they used to be in servers, these servers usually have enough money to upgrade as soon as the newer cpu's come out. most servers need to have a very low failure rate so they always need the latest tech. this is moslty what i heard on other sites but it seems like a legit theory

[Lehti]

What @Alexzz_ says is mostly true. These chips you find on ebay for a handful of pennies are being retired from use in data centers and the like and as such are selling for a lot less than their retail price. The problem with buying used CPUs is that you have to do your research and see if they're still worth getting after you factor in motherboard and power supply costs.

[hex4]

Got my x5650 for 80 GBP.

[SLAYR]

6 minutes ago, Simon771 said:

So I was looking at few topics on this forum and found out that you can buy Xeon CPU with 12 cores / 24 threads for under 200$.

E5-2658 v3 for exmaple ... it cost 1800$ at release, and now price is 10x lower?

 

What's going on with prices of that CPUs?

 

I know Xeon isn't best idea for gaming, so I'm not looking into that.

But my gf is going to "graphic school", and she will be using Photoshop and other video/audio editing software. So instead of buying another i7 in my country for 350$, I could just buy that Xeon CPU for under 200$ and it would perform better for video editing etc.? 

 

I just don't get it, why prices are so low for those CPUs lol.

Most likely it is an engineering sample that will say "confidential" on it. It is most likely not guaranteed to work, illegal to sell, and you should do some more research to determine what issues the chip has as ES cpus are preproduction samples. 

 

If it isn't though that that is a good deal.

[jacobhall]

This is a topic that greatly interests me, I am currently planning a new Plex / Handbrake transcoding server so I am basically looking for the most powerful, cheaper used Xeon I can find. I want something at about the E5 2660 level with 8 cores/16 threads at 2.2GHz. However, I am having trouble finding a reasonably priced socket 2011 board. In the UK, the cheapest on eBay is still around £170 used even though the CPU is only £80. I know used motherboards can be expensive, but that feels too much for me? Does anybody have any advice on a cheaper generation or even any links to good CPU motherboard combos (must support ECC). Thanks in advance, any help would be greatly appreciated

[SLAYR]

5 minutes ago, jacobhall said:

This is a topic that greatly interests me, I am currently planning a new Plex / Handbrake transcoding server so I am basically looking for the most powerful, cheaper used Xeon I can find. I want something at about the E5 2660 level with 8 cores/16 threads at 2.2GHz. However, I am having trouble finding a reasonably priced socket 2011 board. In the UK, the cheapest on eBay is still around £170 used even though the CPU is only £80. I know used motherboards can be expensive, but that feels too much for me? Does anybody have any advice on a cheaper generation or even any links to good CPU motherboard combos (must support ECC). Thanks in advance, any help would be greatly appreciated

You might want to create your own thread with your budget also.

 

the e5 2670 might be cheaper then the 2660, you could go lga 1366 and save money as well though a lot less powerful, and most desktop boards will not support ecc.

[jacobhall]

4 minutes ago, SLAYR said:

You might want to create your own thread with your budget also.

 

the e5 2670 might be cheaper then the 2660, you could go lga 1366 and save money as well though a lot less powerful, and most desktop boards will not support ecc.

I will create my own thread now, the UK is really bad for used proper server boards like the Supermicro ones, so at the moment am looking at more Asus WS boards that support ecc.

 

As for budget, around £200 but can stretch if it will be worth it. And at minimum I would like a 3GHz Quad core, and anything more will be a bonus

[Simon771]

Will wait few months for my gf to acctually go to that school, and will decide then  

But yeah, I will be sure to buy CPU that is acctually working. There is always Ebay and Paypal protection.

[hex4]

Just remember you can OC X58 XEONS, but you can't OC any other ones on later platforms as intel locked it all out.

A Westmere X5640/50 will keep up with newer CPU's in single thread as they are 32nm and have superior IPC vs Nehalem.

Not as good in work loads as newer XEON CPU's though.

[jacobhall]

3 minutes ago, hex4 said:

Just remember you can OC X58 XEONS, but you can't OC any other ones on later platforms as intel locked it all out.

A Westmere X5640/50 will keep up with newer CPU's in single thread as they are 32nm and have superior IPC vs Nehalem.

Not as good in work loads as newer XEON CPU's though.

Isn't Westmere so old that is uses QPI instead of a front side bus though? I haven't been into CPU's long enough to know a lot about QPI, but I remember in Linus' 2 quad core xeons for under $150 that he said keep away from QPI stuff.

[hex4]

1 minute ago, jacobhall said:

Isn't Westmere so old that is uses QPI instead of a front side bus though? I haven't been into CPU's long enough to know a lot about QPI, but I remember in Linus' 2 quad core xeons for under $150 that he said keep away from QPI stuff.

QPI does nothing for these chips, if anything it makes them unstable, think of AMD's hypertransport link and QPI is pretty similar in regards to overclocks.

I use the Bclk, it helps if you have a mobo capable of doing really high bclk overclocks like the one in my sig.

X58 will cost you more for a mobo than it will CPU, and it's easy to see why.

 

Here is a video of the E5640 which is one down from my CPU at 4.2ghz.

 

 

[jacobhall]

1 minute ago, hex4 said:

QPI does nothing for these chips, if anything it makes them unstable, think of AMD's hypertransport link and QPI is pretty similar in regards to overclocks.

I use the Bclk, it helps if you have a mobo capable of doing really high bclk overclocks like the one in my sig.

X58 will cost you more for a mobo than it will CPU, and it's easy to see why.

 

Here is a video of the E5640 which is one down from my CPU at 4.2ghz.

 

 

I'm finding with most used Xeons that the motherboards are most expensive.

 

And thanks for clearing up QPI