Need Some Tips on Turning a Dell Precision T3500 Into a Gaming Computer

[thenicknac]

So, just as a quick intro, My name is Nick. I'm a young (17) CompTIA A+ Certified Technician, while I have experience in building and repairing PCs, I cannot get a stable job at my age. While i'm very interested in PC gaming and maybe one day starting a tech YouTube channel, I don't have a lot of money. I won't let money stop me though! I've done a few months of research into the "Used Xeon Gaming PC" market, and i've decided that this is likely my best option at a gaming PC until I can get a good job and some work experience under my belt. So, this brings us to the build:

I'm gonna be putting a 5000 series Xeon into a used LGA 1366 workstation PC, throw a Mid-Range GPU inside, cross my fingers and hope for the best! Lol maybe not that last part... I've done a decent amount of research into these 32nm Xeons and they're not half bad, especially for the price! multi-core performance is quite great in these, but they lack in single core performance. They're something like an older FX-8000 CPU minus the unlocked multiplier. They do a great job in modern titles, they get a little slow in older open world titles with APIs that don't utilize all the cores properly, but at the end of the day its a $300~ USD gaming PC.

If you're unfamiliar with the Xeon X5677, its a 4 core 8 thread CPU, its about as good as an i7-2600 in muilticore processes. I could pay a few extra dollars  for a 6 core at .4ghz lower clock speed, but im not sure if it will perform much better in games.

Heres a very similar processor with an RX 480 playing overwatch at 1440p, then 4k (yeah, I know, its not exactly the most CPU intensive game, but this is all i got lol) 4k starts at 14:27.

If any of you have any tips or past experience with builds like these I would really appreciate the help

thanks!

-Nick

[Electronics Wizardy]

SHould work fine.

[TheDankKoosh]

3 minutes ago, thenicknac said:

So, just as a quick intro, My name is Nick. I'm a young (17) CompTIA A+ Certified Technician, while I have experience in building and repairing PCs, I cannot get a stable job at my age. While i'm very interested in PC gaming and maybe one day starting a tech YouTube channel, I don't have a lot of money. I won't let money stop me though! I've done a few months of research into the "Used Xeon Gaming PC" market, and i've decided that likely my best option at a gaming PC until I can get a good job and some work experience under my belt. So, this brings us to the build:

I'm gonna be putting a 5000 series Xeon into a used LGA 1366 workstation PC, throw a Mid-Range GPU inside, cross my fingers and hope for the best! Lol maybe not that last part... I've done a decent amount of research into these 32nm Xeons and they're not half bad, especially for the price! multi-core performance is quite great in these, but they lack in single core performance. They're something like an older FX-8000 CPU - the unlocked multiplier. They do a great job in modern titles, they get a slow in older open world titles with APIs that don't utilize all the cores properly, but at the end of the day its a $300~ USD gaming PC.

If you're unfamiliar with the Xeon X5677, its a 4 core 8 thread CPU, its about as good as an i7-2600 in muilticore processes. I could pay a few extra dollars  for a 6 core at .4ghz lower clock speed, but im not sure if it will perform much better in games.

Heres a very similar processor with an RX 480 playing overwatch at 1440p, then 4k (yeah, I know, its not exactly the most CPU intensive game, but this is all i got lol) 4k starts at 14:27.

If any of you have any tips or past experience with builds like these I would really appreciate the help

thanks!

-Nick

get a good cooler for the cpu and OC the shit out of it. If the mobo is non-overclocking (very likely) then flash the bios and try to get it around 4.4 ghz.

[thenicknac]

1 minute ago, TheDankKoosh said:

get a good cooler for the cpu and OC the shit out of it. If the mobo is non-overclocking (very likely) then flash the bios and try to get it around 4.4 ghz.

its an OEM workstation motherboard, I almost definitely won't be able to change voltage in the BIOS. but if all else fails I have turbo boost and throttle-stop

[BenoitWW]

maybe just get a h110m and a i5-6400 / i5-6500 ??