Used Xeon Build

[Hero423]

Hello everyone, I am considering if I will buy a used xeon for my Heavy Gaming and some productivity work like programming,Unreal,Unity and photo and video editing.
I would like some suggestions from you guys suggesting a build. The build mainly needs a CPU,Motherboard,Ram. Other parts are optional but can be considered.

There are 3 budget price points consisting of Around(more or less) $120, $200 and $300

I currently have a spare 2*4 (8gb) ddr3 memory at 664mhz. This might be used too.
I want to avoid compatibility issues too so I need your opinion.

I am open to any suggestions at any price points. I am also planning to pair this with a GTX 1060 6gb. 
Just ask me if you need more information  
I appreciate any help from you guys and Thank you in advance
 

 

[NelizMastr]

DDR3 means you can use X58 and X79 boards for the Xeons, or the consumer level Xeon E3 v1,v2, v3 and v4 on the 6,7,8 and 9 series chipset.

 

With your workload you need both clock speed and cores. The X58 boards are a little bit cheaper than X79 boards, but the CPUs are much much cheaper. You'll max out at 6 cores but the X56xx Xeons overclock pretty well. 

 

Also budget an extra 8GB RAM kit as 8GB is rather inadequate nowaday for both gaming and productivity.

[Hero423]

12 minutes ago, NelizMastr said:

DDR3 means you can use X58 and X79 boards for the Xeons, or the consumer level Xeon E3 v1,v2, v3 and v4 on the 6,7,8 and 9 series chipset.

 

With your workload you need both clock speed and cores. The X58 boards are a little bit cheaper than X79 boards, but the CPUs are much much cheaper. You'll max out at 6 cores but the X56xx Xeons overclock pretty well. 

 

Also budget an extra 8GB RAM kit as 8GB is rather inadequate nowaday for both gaming and productivity.

Thanks for that information. Do you have any suggestion at what specific CPU should I look for? The Best performance at a reasonable price with my GTX 1060( and future upgrades of GPU).

[NelizMastr]

I'd opt for the best bang for the buck Xeon and OC it. My bet would be the X5660 or X5670. Put a decent cooler on it and they'll do 4GHz-ish and more, on 6-cores with more or less Sandy Bridge IPC, that's pretty baller. Boards are upwards of $100. 

 

I would forget the $120 price point, as all you'll be able to get is a X34xx series on s1156 which maxes at 4C/8T.

[MaratM]

As for x58 mobo, there are 2 types of 6-core xeons x56xx and w36xx. There both at the more or less same price.

however it is better to get a x58 mobo with i7-920 (usually can be found on ebay for around $10) so you can easily install the latest bios for you mobo which will support all the mentioned above xeons

[Hero423]

7 minutes ago, MaratM said:

As for x58 mobo, there are 2 types of 6-core xeons x56xx and w36xx. There both at the more or less same price.

however it is better to get a x58 mobo with i7-920 (usually can be found on ebay for around $10) so you can easily install the latest bios for you mobo which will support all the mentioned above xeons

$10 really? Can you send me a link of deals like that. Thats surprisingly cheap 

[MaratM]

28 minutes ago, Hero423 said:

$10 really? Can you send me a link of deals like that. Thats surprisingly cheap 

The cpu itself, without the mobo, it is needed to install the latest mobo bios, just incase the mobo will not start with a xeon cpu

just search ebay or aliexpress for i7 920 with price filtering

[Blebekblebek]

Processor yes, motherboard? not really...

[asand1]

https://m.ebay.com/itm/Dell-T7500-CAD-PC-Xeon-6-Core-2-66GHz-X5650-12GB-RAM/172642233077?hash=item2832476af5:g:bLkAAOSwhxVaHc61

 

Add an X5680 for $70 

[Hero423]

On 1/4/2018 at 7:17 AM, asand1 said:

https://m.ebay.com/itm/Dell-T7500-CAD-PC-Xeon-6-Core-2-66GHz-X5650-12GB-RAM/172642233077?hash=item2832476af5:g:bLkAAOSwhxVaHc61

 

Add an X5680 for $70 

Thanks for that recommendation. Sorry for the super late reply because I was out of town for a while. 
 Will the X5680 give a significant noticeable differences in performance than the x5650? In gaming performance, what intel i series cpu can I compare these? Thank you again. I appreciate all the help. 

[MaratM]

On 04.01.2018 at 4:17 AM, asand1 said:

https://m.ebay.com/itm/Dell-T7500-CAD-PC-Xeon-6-Core-2-66GHz-X5650-12GB-RAM/172642233077?hash=item2832476af5:g:bLkAAOSwhxVaHc61

 

Add an X5680 for $70 

It is a workstation pc and it's got a server board, it does not support overclocking, it is not really good for gaming and even if the cpu is upgraded to x5680 it will not be a gaming machine. You need something like asus, gigabyte or evga board, ones of the later revisions so it can support sata 3 and usb3.0.

Also if you going to overclock the cpu the heatsinks on the vrm area and north/south bridge got to be big.

High performance ram will increase its performance (it is kind of hard to get a 3-chanel kit nowdays, but if you buy a 4 stick kit you can easily run it in 3 chanel mod)

if you want to compare x56xx xeons overclocked to 4+gHz in multithreaded work performance (rendering, editing, ect) it is on par with modern coffee lake i5 or sky lake i7 at stock clock. my x5680 (oc to 4,2ghz) scores 965 points in cinebench r15

it can go even higher with 4,5 but 4,2 is just enough for me.

in games it is around i7 6700 or rizen 5 1600 oc 3,9gHz

cpu's has not improved as much as gpu's in the last 10 years