Is the Xeon x5650 a good deal or is it a trap?

[NutJob3869]

I am looking to go gaming on a tight budget and one processor that has caught my eye is the Intel Xeon 5650, which in the UK is selling for around £30, motherboards are a bit pricy but reasonable at £80. Is this processor a good deal or is there something I am missing and this is a terrible idea. Thanks in advance. 

[NoxiousOdor]

That is about equivalent to what they sell for here in the states. I'm not super familiar with the 5650 but It should be fine for gaming and as long as the seller looks reputable it should be okay. I have two xeon x5690 processors and they are great. They dont have the strongest single thread rating but the only downside to that is I will very rarely on occasion skip a frame or two when my game is on max settings

[GrayTech]

6 minutes ago, NutJob3869 said:

I am looking to go gaming on a tight budget and one processor that has caught my eye is the Intel Xeon 5650, which in the UK is selling for around £30, motherboards are a bit pricy but reasonable at £80. Is this processor a good deal or is there something I am missing and this is a terrible idea. Thanks in advance. 

I wouldn't spend so much money on a used motherboard. You could check out first old i7s for the 1156 socket. These boards should be cheaper. Do you want to use this system for gaming?

 

[NutJob3869]

Just now, GrayTech said:

I wouldn't spend so much money on a used motherboard. You could check out first old i7s for the 1156 socket. These boards should be cheaper. Do you want to use this system for gaming?

 

Yes I do but what money you gain in the motherboard you seem to lose in the processor price.

[Evolution90]

Agree with graytech.

 

I don't notice any difference between x58 xeon and the ryzen built that just went up in smoke in games.

[NutJob3869]

Just now, Evolution90 said:

Agree with graytech.

 

I don't notice any difference between x58 xeon and the ryzen built that just went up in smoke in games.

What do you mean?

[agent_x007]

X5650 is a Intel Hex Core (with HT), so no wonder boards for them are expensive
Long live LGA 1366.

[Evolution90]

Just now, NutJob3869 said:

What do you mean?

I broke my AMD PC and am using x58 and a x5670 right now.

[NoxiousOdor]

2 minutes ago, WhisperingKnickers said:

That is about equivalent to what they sell for here in the states. I'm not super familiar with the 5650 but It should be fine for gaming and as long as the seller looks reputable it should be okay. I have two xeon x5690 processors and they are great. They dont have the strongest single thread rating but the only downside to that is I will very rarely on occasion skip a frame or two when my game is on max settings

 

2 minutes ago, GrayTech said:

I wouldn't spend so much money on a used motherboard. You could check out first old i7s for the 1156 socket. These boards should be cheaper. Do you want to use this system for gaming?

 

 

1 minute ago, Evolution90 said:

Agree with graytech.

 

I don't notice any difference between x58 xeon and the ryzen built that just went up in smoke in games.

 

 

While I am always an advocate for xeons because I love them, it might still be worth your while to get a more modern proc. Unless you are an a super low budget or you just want to make a xeon build for fun like I did

[NutJob3869]

Just now, Evolution90 said:

I broke my AMD PC and am using x58 and a x5670 right now.

ok

 

[NoxiousOdor]

1 minute ago, Evolution90 said:

I broke my AMD PC and am using x58 and a x5670 right now.

What kind of tasks do you do?

[Evolution90]

Just now, WhisperingKnickers said:

What kind of tasks do you do?

Video /Audio work, rendering, i use the GPU's OpenCL in video renders.

 

Gaming of course.

[bimmerman]

That's a good price on the processor, and depending on the motherboard and cooling, you should be able to reach a 4+ GHz overclock. 80 GBP for an X58 motherboard is cheap, if I'm honest; they're ~$200 out here.

 

If you're looking for a budget gaming rig, it'll do well. If you're looking for 200+ FPS, probably not the best choice. My X5675 has been great for gaming....but I don't care about FPS so long as it's enjoyable at 1440p ultrawide.

 

I'm normally Team X58, but the cheap Xeons only really make sense if you already have a motherboard, or can find a good one for cheap. 80 GBP mobo cost + 30 GBP processor cost, for me, would be cheap enough that I'd jump on it.

[GrayTech]

Just now, NutJob3869 said:

Yes I do but what money you gain in the motherboard you seem to lose in the processor price.

Then check out the G4560. It seems like an unfair comparison since the Xeon has 3 times the amount of cores but when looking at the G4560 and how it competes with first gen i7s, the G4560 is sometimes the better cpu. So I would suggest that you check out how your CPU of choice would compare to the G4560.

[NoxiousOdor]

Just now, Evolution90 said:

Video /Audio work, rendering, i use the GPU's OpenCL in video renders.

 

Gaming of course.

Nice, that is cool that is performs similarly for you. That is encouraging for the build I just finished. It runs great so far but I haven't done a whole lot of testing yet

[NutJob3869]

Just now, GrayTech said:

Then check out the G4560. It seems like an unfair comparison since the Xeon has 3 times the amount of cores but when looking at the G4560 and how it competes with first gen i7s, the G4560 is sometimes the better cpu. So I would suggest that you check out how your CPU of choice would compare to the G4560.

I would like to stay away from dual cores if possible as it seems to be a trend right now for some games to just not work on them.

[GrayTech]

2 minutes ago, NutJob3869 said:

I would like to stay away from dual cores if possible as it seems to be a trend right now for some games to just not work on them.

But you have 4 threats. GTA V is on of the games which doesn't run on 2C/2T CPUs but it runs on 2C/4T CPUs as far as I know.

[NutJob3869]

Just now, GrayTech said:

But you have 4 threats. GTA V is on of the games which doesn't run on 2C/2T CPUs but it runs on 2C/4T CPUs as far as I know.

Ok, thanks for telling me this. But the G4560 seems to get far worse geekbench scores than the x5650

 

 

[Evolution90]

x58 will have the advantage because of overclocks, but motherboards are not cheap at all.

[NutJob3869]

Just now, Evolution90 said:

x58 will have the advantage because of overclocks, but motherboards are not cheap at all.

Not just because of overclocks, I don't plan to overclock as I am a cretin who doesn't know anything about overclocking and overclocking capable motherboards are super expensive. It comfortably beats the g4560.

[GrayTech]

Just now, NutJob3869 said:

Ok, thanks for telling me this. But the G4560 seems to get far worse geekbench scores than the x5650

 

 

Of course it gets worse Geekbench scores. But you have to look at actual games if you want to compare gaming performance. The Pentium has less faster cores and the Xeon has more slower cores. Geekbench appariently likes having more cores but most games could benifit from havaing those fast cores of the Pentium. But I'm not compleatly sure how they both stack up. Thats why I said that you should probably check out actual gaming performance and of corse the price where you live. If a Pentium system is even more expensive for about the same gaming performance as the Xeon but with worse multicore performance, then you could go for the Xeon.

[bimmerman]

Just now, NutJob3869 said:

Not just because of overclocks, I don't plan to overclock as I am a cretin who doesn't know anything about overclocking and overclocking capable motherboards are super expensive. It comfortably beats the g4560.

If you're not going to overclock, or at least look into it, I would not go with X58.

 

The reason they hold up well today is purely because of overclocking. Without overclocking they are WAY behind.

 

However, depending on which motherboard you get, overclocking these is pretty simple albeit a couple hours' of effort. I learned how to do it, you can too.

[Evolution90]

I would say these two chips are perhaps about even, where games can use more cores, the x5650 will clearly win out, those games that use 2 or 1 core, the Pentium will win out.

[GrayTech]

3 minutes ago, Evolution90 said:

x58 will have the advantage because of overclocks, but motherboards are not cheap at all.

Yeah of course. But therefore the 1151 boards will have newer features like support for DDR4.

[agent_x007]

I doubt DDR4/PCI-e 3.0 will have as big performance gain in the long run as having six actual cores.
Also, X58/LGA 1366 is Triple Channel - so bandwidth isn't an issue here (Triple 1600MHz = Dual 2400MHz).

You can buy a Kaby Lake quad core in future for xxx$, but I would go with Hex Core Xeon and wait for what post-Ryzen Intel comes out with.