Help for dual xeon gaming pc!

arnab.pers · Nov 8, 2017

I was thinking of building a gaming pc with dual Xeon 2660 2.2ghz cpus. I have researched about the topic and most say that the Xeons will bottleneck the 1070 but the Xbox one X has 2.3 ghz cores and the Xeons can boost to 3 ghz. I also have seen benchmarks where the Xeons would perform about 5-10% worse in most games compared to i7 and ryzen 7 with a 1080/1080ti (dont remember).

The main reason I want to build with the Xeons is since I could save some cash as one of my friends works at a place with servers and the servers are soon going to changed so I could get hold of 2 cpus a mother board and 64 gbs of ddr3 1666 ram. I have made a build https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/nmZNKZ for the Xeon build. I want to know if this is a good build or if there will be severe problems eg bottlenecking. I have also made an alternate build which is built up straight from the ground with a ryzen 5 1600 https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/RK9kVY .

The Xeon build is 150 gbp cheaper which I could spend on games and other interests. Is it worth building with Xeons and a 1070 or just get a ryzen 5 1600 with 1060?

I intend to upgrade my pc in 2-3 years to a better motherboard,cpu and ram if i go the Xeon build. I know there are things to such as if the motherboard has allows for video out etc which I will have to research.

If you guys have any other comments to make about my build or anything in general please do! Anyway thanks for any responses!

Snipergod87 · Nov 8, 2017

What Xeon model? between the cost of the two xeons + a dual processor motherboard you would be much better off getting a desktop CPU and would get more performance too.

Dugimodo · Nov 8, 2017

Why? there's no point to it. The second CPU will not help with your games.

WildCard999 · Nov 8, 2017

Unless your getting those Xeon's/motherboard for dirt cheap I would pass as a new Ryzen or Coffeelake will easily outperform them.

arnab.pers · Nov 8, 2017

Snipergod87 :

I accidentally posted the question without writing out the while thing

WildCard999 · Nov 8, 2017

While the CPU can boost up to 3ghz the single core performance is pretty bad and gaming requires good single core performance over many cores. I'd take a $110 Ryzen 1200 over the Xeon's unless you actually have software that can utilize that many cores.

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Xeon-E5-2660-v2-vs-AMD-Ryzen-3-1200/m13068vs3931

The 1600 though would obviously be the better choice.
http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Xeon-E5-2660-v2-vs-AMD-Ryzen-5-1600/m13068vs3919

DSzymborski · Nov 8, 2017

Still doesn't make much sense. Two CPUs does nothing for gaming and while Xeons were fun little alternatives to i7s in the Sandy Bridge/Ivy Bridge days, the 2660 is just about the worst choice of the series. This would be an extremely disappointing gaming build.

A car can handle a heavier workload than a lawnmower. But if I want to cut my grass, the lawnmower does it far more effectively than the car will.

arnab.pers · Nov 8, 2017

DSzymborski :

I understand but how much worse will the dual xeons be? How much less fps will I get? I only want to use the xeons since then I can buy the 1070 and upgrade to a better CPU in the 2-3 years when I have more money. I can survive even playing on 1080p ultra since then I wont need to upgrade my gpu as soon as if I bought a 1060.

Snipergod87 · Nov 8, 2017

Quite worse in games, most games prefer less threads and higher clock speeds. An i3-8100 would be much better at gaming than to E5-2660v0. Your system would accel at work loads like rendering, content creation, and running VM's but thats it.

arnab.pers · Nov 8, 2017

WildCard999 :

I know that the xeons arent better than a 1600 but as a whole build which one will be better? Which one would give me maximum fps?

TJ Hooker · Nov 8, 2017

How much would the Xeons+mobo+RAM cost you?

arnab.pers · Nov 8, 2017

Snipergod87 :

So a 1600 and 1060 will be better than dual xeon and 1070?

arnab.pers · Nov 8, 2017

TJ Hooker :

I can get them for free from a friend

TJ Hooker · Nov 8, 2017

Hmm, that changes things. If you can find benchmarks for an i7-2600(K), non overclocked, those Xeons will probably be ~20% slower than that.

A Ryzen 1600 would definitely be better, but it's obviously not free...

WildCard999 · Nov 8, 2017

If your getting them for free then you might as well try them out but I highly doubt there going to be faster then a CPU such as the 1600. With your budget though I would play it safe and go with the GTX 1060 6gb as you don't know how they'll perform and if it is bad then your going to need that extra budget to buy something better.

Snipergod87 · Nov 8, 2017

Also keep in mind you will need a hefty power supply with at least 2x 8 pin EPS 12v connectors, and often recommended to have an additional 2x 4pin EPS 12v connectors as well, plus the necessary power supply connectors for GPU's. Most budget PSU's do not have dual 8pin's so you will need to get a fancier unit.

Rogue Leader · Nov 8, 2017

WildCard999 :

I would not even bother for free.

They are going to perform awful in gaming, some games will have issues even running. No games will use the second processor.

Comparing clock speed between two disparate processors is meaningless. Those processors have no relation to whats in an Xbox One X.

TJ Hooker · Nov 9, 2017

@Rogue Leader those Xeons are Sandy bridge architecture, which I thought had somewhat similar IPC to AMDs CPUs prior to Ryzen. So it may not be a terrible comparison in that regard. But there's still the issue of console vs PC, and how games are developed and optimized for each.

Rogue Leader · Nov 9, 2017

TJ Hooker :

Sandy bridge at 2.2ghz. The low clock speed drags it down. Hardly enough to back up a 1070.

DSzymborski · Nov 9, 2017

Just to expand on Rogue Leader's point, while you can overclock a Xeon's base clock, BCLK overclocking is notoriously unstable and unreliable, with unintended effects to other components being fairly common, so going in there thinking "I'll just get this to 3 GHz" is a big assumption.

arnab.pers · Nov 9, 2017

DSzymborski :

I also saw in a test that the xeons could only overclock to 2.7 ghz on all cores. I will probably try the xeons with a 1060 and compare the fps to a ryzen 5 or i5 with 1060 fps and if the xeons bottleneck then I will just get a proper cpu motherboard etc.

TJ Hooker · Nov 9, 2017

DSzymborski :

It can already boost to 2.7-3.0 GHz depending on number of cores, no overclocking needed.

Help for dual xeon gaming pc!

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