Intel Xeon or Core 2 Duo for gaming??

PorkPiePenetrator · Oct 30, 2013

Hello

This is my first thread on here so if its in the wrong category can you tell me where to put it

Just wondering what would be better for a first time sub-£300 budget gaming build; a dual Xeon E5450 rig with 8GB RAM or a Core 2 Duo E8500 with 8GB RAM?? I know Xeons are mainly for servers but the older ones are decent for their price and some of my friends use old server PCs for gaming. Please don't suggest buying an i5 or an i7 because just the i7 itself will blow my budget

Thanks

vmem · Oct 30, 2013

well, what games are you trying to play? single player stuff will be fine. if you want anything online, especially anything involving a lot of players, you won't have enough processing power to do it with either of those choices.

Not to be rude and ignore your comment, but I'd honestly suggest getting a low end i5 with a cheap H-series chipset. go for sandybridge or Ivy-bridge if you can find cheap used parts. you'll get MUCH better performance for the money

_guillem · Oct 30, 2013

Go for an i3 or some amd phenom 2

PorkPiePenetrator · Oct 30, 2013

vmem :

PorkPiePenetrator · Oct 30, 2013

Shit, i just typed that in a quote :pfff:

Preecher · Oct 30, 2013

If I had to choose I would go with the quad core zeon over the E8500. Some games would take advantage of the E8500's slightly higher frequency but the difference is 3.16GHz vs 3.0GHz so not much there. However, there are games with will take advantage of the extra two cores. Zeon's also support ECC memory but that shouldnt be a consideration here.

I would have to say that both of these processors are on the verge of becoming dinosaurs. Are you solely choosing these two for budget or do you already have a motherboard and dont have cash to get a motherboard to support the i3\i5 cpus?

If you can afford an i3 or i5 I think you will get alot more cpu power for your money and have a system that will be around longer.

PorkPiePenetrator · Oct 30, 2013

Preecher :

If I had to choose I would go with the quad core zeon over the E8500. Some games would take advantage of the E8500's slightly higher frequency but the difference is 3.16GHz vs 3.0GHz so not much there. However, there are games with will take advantage of the extra two cores. Zeon's also support ECC memory but that shouldnt be a consideration here.

I would have to say that both of these processors are on the verge of becoming dinosaurs. Are you solely choosing these two for budget or do you already have a motherboard and dont have cash to get a motherboard to support the i3\i5 cpus?

If you can afford an i3 or i5 I think you will get alot more cpu power for your money and have a system that will be around longer.

Thanks Preecher, i will probably get a super low end haswell i3 with only 4gb ram

Preecher · Oct 30, 2013

Good compromise!

guggi4 · Oct 30, 2013

with that low budged, id take the amd cpus into consideration. depending on how much you want to spend, id get a fx6300,fx4300 or an athlon x4 750k.

_guillem · Oct 30, 2013

PorkPiePenetrator :

Why dont you get an i5-4670K, the hd 4600 will do for a year of minecraft

and when you have some money get a graphics card?

PorkPiePenetrator · Oct 30, 2013

guggi4 :

If i was to get an amd i would probably go with a phenom ii over fx, apparently theyre designed more for gaming. Also, are apus any good for gaming??

guggi4 · Oct 30, 2013

Thats not true anymore, also phenoms are overpriced since they are eol. Apus arent bad, pared with fast ram they are quite nice. At which resolution do you want to play?

PorkPiePenetrator · Oct 30, 2013

guggi4 :

Yeah looking at phenoms they really are overpriced, and medium settings/720p would be enough. Also, how much ram would be enough, 8gb or 4gb??

guggi4 · Oct 30, 2013

For medium /720p I'd get either for a a10 apu with 2x4gb 1866/2133mhz ram or a athlon x4 750k with a hd7770 and ram depending on your budget since you can always add another 4gb later

PorkPiePenetrator · Oct 30, 2013

_guillem :

I probably will go with that because haswells have integrated gpu i think :??:

will 4gb be enough for most games on at least medium settings??

_guillem · Oct 30, 2013

PorkPiePenetrator :

For that budget 4gb seems enough to me, you can allways ad 4gb more later

guggi4 · Oct 31, 2013

But if you want to play with integrated graphics, an APU is wayyy ahead

A-car-or-i7 · Oct 6, 2016

For 2016, still playing ultra settings on xeon 3220 ovc at 3g on assus deluxe 775, but with help from msi 1060 and ssd. Boot time under 20 sec in win 10 aniversary and all games until now (from steam )in ultra. World of tanks also in ultra, with 8gb ddr2 666
Mb-50£…xenon-20£…msi vcard-230£…ssd240-40£…aircoll-20£.
Compromise for instant power gaming (waiting for buget skylake.)
Hope it helps.
Also i have an e6800, i will try soon.

SEIKA · Nov 3, 2016

2016 here, core 2 duo is actually still a decent gaming chip aside from it being a dead socket.
i specifically built an e8600 based gaming rig, to see if it could be done, because i found an
asus p5b deluxe tossed in the scrap bin at work, and revived it.
plays COD advanced warfare around 100-120ish fps on 70% graphics.
board was free, and the e8600 only cost around 15 shipped.
my buddy says it does almost as well as his i7 & evga 660 build, but i have a 960 ftw.
getting over 1000 fps in q2pro, and around 3-550 in warsow.
actually these chips will hold their own.
http://valid.x86.fr/y4gelm

A-car-or-i7 · Nov 4, 2016

E8600 is a better solution vs xenon3220 for me, now. It is running ovc at 3.9 ghz stable, and i know can reach 4.2+ speeds. So far is enough to play Batefield excelent.

Intel Xeon or Core 2 Duo for gaming??

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