Mi7agent1 :
Im heading down the vastly superior route of socket 2011 and wonder how cheap a Xeon E5 would be or how cheap i can pick one up in the uk allready have some parts running at min that i'll use i.e modxstream 500W 8GB ballistix elite Panasonic viera 1080p tv LG 24x Dvdrw internal Wd caviar etc
Mi7agent1,
Looking to spend 350 for motherboard and cpu buy the way
I'm a big fan of LGA 2011 too as it accommodates a wider range of CPU's than any socket I can think of, up to the new 12-core Xeon E5-2697, so upgrading can be extreme- from $250 to $3,200 CPU's. The LGA 2011 CPU's have twice the memory bandwidth of i5's, i7 Haswell, and Xeon E3's (51.6Gb/s as compared to 25.6), more cache, and I like that there's no integrated graphics. In Haswell, the IG can take up to 25% of the CPU.
If you're set on LGA 2011 and a Xeon E5, the cheapest is probably the E5-2603 for £190, but that is only 1.8GHz, a lazy server CPU. The best cost / performance model is the E5-1620, quad-core, 3.6 / 3.8GHz with 10MB cache, an OEM/tray CPU. The 3.6GHz has the highest base clock speed of E5's and is not extremely expensive £269.61 at amazon UK>
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Xeon-E5-1620-3600MHz-Tray/dp/B00830TQGI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376523726&sr=8-1&keywords=Xeon+E5-1620
If you can buy from the US, it's only $290- £187 - about the same cost as the 1.8GHz in the UK>
http://www.superbiiz.com/detail.php?p=E5-1620&c=fr&pid=8574a11b54ed01c70f8ff3f19de7d0e2d6c84b83a2a0b1f65446798bb73b60ba&gclid=CIfo1qKV_rgCFUei4Aod7WMAng
If you are doing renderings and can use all the cores, that would suggest the E5-1650 six-core 3.2 / 3.8 > £518.12
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Xeon-E5-1650-3200MHz-Tray/dp/B00830SPE2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376525484&sr=8-1&keywords=E5-1650
There are some very good motherboards for this that are also good performers for the cost, like the ASRock Extreme 3 > £144.98 at Amazon.
Cheers,
BambiBoom