Best Price for Performance Used Xeon

[Votivee]

Title pretty much says it all. I'm looking to build a home server and I know it's possible to get some Xeon chips dirt cheap on ebay. 

 

The server is basically going to be used for a backup of all my devices. I'm going to be running a couple of drives in raid, and I may run a private game server on it from time to time, but it won't have more than 5-6 people max on it. 

 

Tldr; What's the best Xeon/motherboard combo I can get for less than $100?

 

Note: I found a set of dual 5130's with a motherboard and dual gigabit Lan for $50. Good deal? 

[Ashiella]

I would say x58 mobo and x5650 if you can find them for the right price, maybe a dual socket, sometime theyre cheaper.

[Jarsky]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/S5520HC-Intel-Server-Board-Mboard-Dual-LGA-1366-Intel-5520-E26045-457-I-O-Plate/142548535297

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Matched-Pair-Intel-Xeon-SLBVD-L5630-2-13-GHz-12M-5-86-LGA1366-Quad-Core-CPU/191909890623

 

about $70 and will give you 8C/16T and newer technologies than those old dual core 51xx series Xeons. 

[SlowMixit]

Long as you can find cheap X58 mainboard then X5650, X5670 or X5690 overclocked is best, ofc you can find dual lga1366 mainboards for about same as X58 mainboard.

 

@Jarsky

That mainboard looks good, but i would choose Dual X5670 or X5690 with it, bit more expensive but much more performance. 6cores 12threads at 3.33Ghz or 3.73Ghz Turbo. How ever theyre bit more expensive than that 100$ budget of op.

[Votivee]

2 hours ago, SlowMixit said:

Long as you can find cheap X58 mainboard then X5650, X5670 or X5690 overclocked is best, ofc you can find dual lga1366 mainboards for about same as X58 mainboard.

 

@Jarsky

That mainboard looks good, but i would choose Dual X5670 or X5690 with it, bit more expensive but much more performance. 6cores 12threads at 3.33Ghz or 3.73Ghz Turbo. How ever theyre bit more expensive than that 100$ budget of op.

I'll probably go with the Dual x5670 option. It's more than my $100 budget, but only by $20. It seems like it's worth it to me.

[Jarsky]

3 hours ago, SlowMixit said:

Long as you can find cheap X58 mainboard then X5650, X5670 or X5690 overclocked is best, ofc you can find dual lga1366 mainboards for about same as X58 mainboard.

 

@Jarsky

That mainboard looks good, but i would choose Dual X5670 or X5690 with it, bit more expensive but much more performance. 6cores 12threads at 3.33Ghz or 3.73Ghz Turbo. How ever theyre bit more expensive than that 100$ budget of op.

I know what the performance is of those, I run 3 machines with X56xx processors, but I was working within his budget, and considering the fact this is an always on backup NAS primarily, the L56xx CPU's are considerably less power draw. 8C/16T is plenty for running the odd gaming server on, and its about 1/4 of the power draw. 

[NelizMastr]

Avoid the ancient s771 server boards and chips like the plague. You're basically building a Core 2 Duo with higher power draw. Bad idea

 

Dual s1366 is a pretty good bang for the buck right now, especially if your budget is tight. The best bang for the buck would be a dual socket 2011-0 though with E5-2670s  

 

I'm with @Jarsky on the subject of CPUs. The L56xx are more than plenty and pretty damn efficient.

[owluitar]

I run my daily driver as a DL 380G7 with dual X5670's that I bought off eBay for $110. I would highly recommend this setup even for gaming. I installed Windows 10 and took the drivers from windows server 2016 on their website and it works like a dream. 

[Dark]

I've got some X5670s and memory laying around, incoming pm.