X79 CPU upgradebility

[samoTh137]

I currently have an MSI X79A-GD45 motherboard paired with an i7 3820 at base speed and i was wondering what i could upgrade it with to gain some performance.

Or is this a dumb question and should i just get an i5 8600k or i7 8700k?

[airdeano]

you can always overclock the 3820.

are you being held back in any programs/applications/games to warrant spending money and gaining possible fraction of performance?

[paddy-stone]

You'd probably be better off selling the mobo and CPU separately, for one thing the x79 boards are well sought after because you can use some good CPUs with them such as some xeons. The board should fetch around $200 or so on it's own IIRC.

[Damascus]

I'd pick up a 1680 V2 if the budget allows, it's an octa core that you can usually OC past 4.5ghz afaik

 

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2322090.m570.l1313.TR3.TRC2.A0.H0.TRS0&_nkw=+E5-1680v2&_sacat=0

[samoTh137]

12 minutes ago, airdeano said:

you can always overclock the 3820.

are you being held back in any programs/applications/games to warrant spending money and gaining possible fraction of performance?

I sometimes have lag spikes/frame drops but that may also be because of my GPU (gtx 970). I'm playing at 1440p

I wanted to know because i've heard people say that it's about time to upgrade to kaby lake because of the 6 core CPU's etc.

Do you know whether it's the cpu or the GPU? Or do you know any program that i can use to test it?

 

 

11 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

You'd probably be better off selling the mobo and CPU separately, for one thing the x79 boards are well sought after because you can use some good CPUs with them such as some xeons. The board should fetch around $200 or so on it's own IIRC.

What's the best place to sell it (Where can i find the right buyer for it?) I live in Belgium/Netherlands BTW

 

9 minutes ago, Damascus said:

I'd pick up a 1680 V2 if the budget allows, it's an octa core that you can usually OC past 4.5ghz afaik

 

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2322090.m570.l1313.TR3.TRC2.A0.H0.TRS0&_nkw=+E5-1680v2&_sacat=0

Isn't it better to get a new CPU for that price ( it's 441 and 20 USD shipping)

[Gaurav S Rao]

Just now, samoTh137 said:

I currently have an MSI X79A-GD45 motherboard paired with an i7 3820 at base speed and i was wondering what i could upgrade it with to gain some performance.

Or is this a dumb question and should i just get an i5 8600k or i7 8700k?

For gaming,get the new Coffee Lake CPU's if you can.For other multi-threaded stuff,get a used 8 core Xeon for the platform off of eBay if you can.

[Jurrunio]

Overclock the 3820 and see if it's good enough (I believe there's a limit of 4.3GHz) at that point.

 

E5-1650 v2
E5-1660 v2
E5-1680 v2 (8 core)
E5-1650 v3
E5-1660 v3 (8 core)
E5-1680 v3 (8 core)

are all unlocked Xeons, so they are possible choices other than 3930k, 3960x, 3970x, 4930k and 4960x (all 6 cores and unlocked). 4820k is a 4 core CPU so screw that.

 

3 minutes ago, samoTh137 said:

(gtx 970). I'm playing at 1440p

970 isnt a 1440p card now, so probably that's causing you problems.

[Damascus]

Just now, samoTh137 said:

Isn't it better to get a new CPU for that price ( it's 441 and 20 USD shipping)

Possibly, though it's better than almost any mainstream CPU (8700k is the exception)

[Gaurav S Rao]

Quote

(gtx 970). I'm playing at 1440p

Issue = the 970.

 

2 minutes ago, Damascus said:

Possibly, though it's better than almost any mainstream CPU (8700k is the exception)

For gaming,a xeon can play nope.avi very easily.Its not cores that matter much in gaming (unless you have like a 2 core with no ht)

[Damascus]

1 minute ago, Gaurav S Rao said:

For gaming,a xeon can play nope.avi very easily.Its not cores that matter much in gaming (unless you have like a 2 core with no ht)

It's like a highly overclockable 1800x

[samoTh137]

5 minutes ago, Damascus said:

Possibly, though it's better than almost any mainstream CPU (8700k is the exception)

Do you have any proof because i can't find any benchmarks to compare it with on userbenchmark

thank you!

 

6 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Overclock the 3820 and see if it's good enough (I believe there's a limit of 4.3GHz) at that point.

 

E5-1650 v2
E5-1660 v2
E5-1680 v2 (8 core)
E5-1650 v3
E5-1660 v3 (8 core)
E5-1680 v3 (8 core)

are all unlocked Xeons, so they are possible choices other than 3930k, 3960x, 3970x, 4930k and 4960x (all 6 cores and unlocked). 4820k is a 4 core CPU so screw that.

 

970 isnt a 1440p card now, so probably that's causing you problems.

When nvidia launches the 2000 series i will buy one asap and if not i will get a 1070

[airdeano]

your RAM is is at a default 1333MHz (doubtful its 1333MHz modules) if its 1600MHz, that'd pick up some of the 'lagginess' 

i'd look into possibly overclocking the CPU to 4.5GHz

[paddy-stone]

4 minutes ago, samoTh137 said:

What's the best place to sell it (Where can i find the right buyer for it?) I live in Belgium/Netherlands BTW

Ebay is usually a good starting point, unless you don't want to ship, in which case a local paper/website forum might be better where you can meet up and exchange. They are very well sought after, because of the xeons you can drop in there... just make sure to update to the latest BIOS first though cos anyone wanting to buy it won't be able to update the bios without a compatible cpu to do it with.

Or you can just buy a xeon yourself if you wanted to, there are some 8 core variants that are pretty good, I saw a 2687W 8 core for only £150 on ebay + shipping.

[Damascus]

2 minutes ago, samoTh137 said:

Do you have any proof because i can't find any benchmarks to compare it with on userbenchmark

thank you!

https://www.futuremark.com/hardware/cpu/Intel+Xeon+Processor+E5-1680+v2/review

[samoTh137]

3 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

Ebay is usually a good starting point, unless you don't want to ship, in which case a local paper/website forum might be better where you can meet up and exchange. They are very well sought after, because of the xeons you can drop in there... just make sure to update to the latest BIOS first though cos anyone wanting to buy it won't be able to update the bios without a compatible cpu to do it with.

Or you can just buy a xeon yourself if you wanted to, there are some 8 core variants that are pretty good, I saw a 2687W 8 core for only £150 on ebay + shipping.

The bios was updated a while ago when i added the 970 and thanks for the info

 

I will look further into it tonight because i gotta go now

thanks to everyone who helped

[Jurrunio]

6 minutes ago, samoTh137 said:

When nvidia launches the 2000 series i will buy one asap and if not i will get a 1070

Dont buy 1070, the performance jump isnt that big. It will be enough for 1440p, but wont stay like that for very long. If playing with PCs taught me anything, it will be 'Big leaps save more money than multiple small leaps'.

 

If 20 series is expensive and 10 series gets cheap, buy a 1070ti at least.

[paddy-stone]

9 minutes ago, samoTh137 said:

The bios was updated a while ago when i added the 970 and thanks for the info

 

I will look further into it tonight because i gotta go now

thanks to everyone who helped

No worries, I was looking for an x79 about a year ago, and couldn't find one under £300, so I think you will find a buyer for it pretty quickly if that's what you decide to do.

 

[edit] Just checked and they are going for around as cheaply as £80 or so now... so either my memory failed me again or the prices they were commadning came down extremely far.

[porina]

35 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

E5-1650 v2
E5-1660 v2
E5-1680 v2 (8 core)
E5-1650 v3
E5-1660 v3 (8 core)
E5-1680 v3 (8 core)

are all unlocked Xeons, so they are possible choices other than 3930k, 3960x, 3970x, 4930k and 4960x (all 6 cores and unlocked). 4820k is a 4 core CPU so screw that.

Aren't the v3 2011-3 so wont work on X79?

 

This has got me thinking... if those Chinese X79 mobos allow OC...  

[Tech Wizard]

49 minutes ago, Jurrunio said:

Overclock the 3820 and see if it's good enough (I believe there's a limit of 4.3GHz) at that point.

 

E5-1650 v2
E5-1660 v2
E5-1680 v2 (8 core)
E5-1650 v3
E5-1660 v3 (8 core)
E5-1680 v3 (8 core)

are all unlocked Xeons, so they are possible choices other than 3930k, 3960x, 3970x, 4930k and 4960x (all 6 cores and unlocked). 4820k is a 4 core CPU so screw that.

 

970 isnt a 1440p card now, so probably that's causing you problems.

v3s are X99 (LGA2011-3).

[Jurrunio]

14 minutes ago, porina said:

Aren't the v3 2011-3 so wont work on X79?

 

This has got me thinking... if those Chinese X79 mobos allow OC...  

 

2 minutes ago, Tech Wizard said:

v3s are X99 (LGA2011-3).

Intel's naming scheme certainly isnt making remembering them any easy

 

(though AMD's chipset naming scheme like A88X, A55 arent any better)

[samoTh137]

3 hours ago, paddy-stone said:

No worries, I was looking for an x79 about a year ago, and couldn't find one under £300, so I think you will find a buyer for it pretty quickly if that's what you decide to do.

 

[edit] Just checked and they are going for around as cheaply as £80 or so now... so either my memory failed me again or the prices they were commadning came down extremely far.

yeah ive been looking on some local site and i saw an asus X79 mobo and i7 3820 being sold for just 160€

[DragonTamer1]

Overclock your CPU, you should expect between 4.2 and 4.5 GHz. You may be able to push further, but I have a similar motherboard and I can't push that high. A higher efficiency CPU (silicon lottery) may let me go higher but as of right now the VRMs overheat and shut down, 4.5 is my limit. I wouldn't recommend moving to a xeon because if I'm not mistaken your CPU already has 6 cores with HT so you wouldn't see any real performance improvement outside of an overclock.

 

Apply XMP to the RAM if you haven't done so.

 

Get a new GPU, the 970s VRAM is likely holding you back. Increasing resolution makes your system more GPU bound so an older CPU won't be noticed as easily. Look at a 1070/1080. You should see a big difference.

[samoTh137]

3 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

Dont buy 1070, the performance jump isnt that big. It will be enough for 1440p, but wont stay like that for very long. If playing with PCs taught me anything, it will be 'Big leaps save more money than multiple small leaps'.

 

If 20 series is expensive and 10 series gets cheap, buy a 1070ti at least.

i'll see whats coming and then decide what's best

[SamuraiXV1]

currently running the 1650 xeon 6C 12T which i've got overclocked to 4.1ghz (stock voltage) i could get much more out of it but im not really knowledgeable enough atm to risk it. that said with that and my 2133mhz ram its performing on par with a 1600 ryzen cpu. so something like that would be a good fit and a bit cheaper than the 1680

[samoTh137]

24 minutes ago, SamuraiXV1 said:

currently running the 1650 xeon 6C 12T which i've got overclocked to 4.1ghz (stock voltage) i could get much more out of it but im not really knowledgeable enough atm to risk it. that said with that and my 2133mhz ram its performing on par with a 1600 ryzen cpu. so something like that would be a good fit and a bit cheaper than the 1680

I would rather go with intel because i know more about their CPU's amd i've heard that ryzen is more for productivity than gaming.

but I may be wrong. There's also ryzen 2 which is coming soon...