Change a Xeon X5650 for a X5677/87 or X5680 for gaming perf?

[ZbeeeulTonight]

Hi guys , i'm looking for a better cpu than my X5650 Xeon (secondarily i sell it on ebay if you're looking for..) and i wanna know your opinion about a X5677/87 QuadCore (about 120$) or a X5680 HexaCore (about 140+$), which of them will be good for a principally gaming use?
Thank's


Specs :
P6T Deluxe V2
12G RAM DDR3 1600Mhz (Corsair XMS3/NQSERIES G.Skill)
Velociraptor 500Go with Sandisk Ready Cache SSD + Hitachi Desktar 1TO
Gigabyte GTX 770 OC 2GD5
PSU Corsair TX650W
Case Antec Three Hundred
CPU Xeon X5650
Cooling fan Akasa Venom Voodoo

 

[Calculagator]

You could get better gaming performance with the quad core at a higher clock, but I don't think the minor performance bump is worth the price.
If I were you, I would overclock the x5650. Its basically the same chip as the x5680 and just like the i7 920, it should be a great chip for overclocking. I would guess that it could overclock as high as the x5680.

 

[GhislainG]

Most likely the X5687 because of its faster base frequency.

 

[ZbeeeulTonight]

Well i already tried to OC the X5650 to @4.25 but it did not seem to be incredibly better..to be precise the X5677 is around 70-80$ , the x5687 around 100-130$ , and the X5680 the most expensive of course around 140 - 170$. I guess a X5677 Oc to 4.5 could be worth for the price?

 

[GhislainG]

It won't be much faster than the X5650 at @4.25.

 

[Groza Adrian]

Given the CPU you have I would say that your overclocked Xeon is plentiful for most if not all games currently available.I would suggest upgrading the GPU,while the gtx 770 is still a capabile card on many new games it begins to show its age.

 

[sammy sung]

If this is an upgrade that's going to have to last you for some time I'd consider the X5680. Depending on how hard you can overclock it, the utilization will carry more weight into the coming years. Mind you all of these chips are becoming and are minor bottlenecks across some titles.

If money is no issue, go X5680. All of these chips will likely overclock similarly. If you can manage a stable 4.4-4.7ghz that'd be ideal.

 

[Calculagator]

If you already have 4.25 GHz on the x5650, you won't be able to get much more from any 1366 cpus. The ones with faster stock clocks don't necessarily overclock any higher. If you really want to upgrade the CPU you will need to upgrade your platform as well. For gaming performance it will be hard to do much better unless you also upgrade your GPU.
I would spend your money on a good SSD instead or save for a GPU upgrade. The 770 is a great card, but the GTX 970/80 are significantly better.

 

[ZbeeeulTonight]

Hi!
First of all thank's for all your answers , @sammy sung i think i gonna sell it in the next months, so upgrade to the X5680 could be worth for easier sale ?(maybe because of the TDP of the X5680 which is 130w (vs 95w for 5650) it will be hard to OC without watercooling)

Well i don't wanna spend a lot of money for a GPU, so i guess the two best options are to continue using the X5650 at @4.25 or upgrade to the X5680 .

A SSD will be worth on a SATA II mobo? i already use a Sandisk Ready Cache on my VelociRaptor HDD and it seem to work efficiently .

 

[GhislainG]

For gaming the X5680 will be faster only if you can overclock it higher; games don't use 12 threads. You'll also need a very good cooler for that 130W CPU (overclocked or not). A SSD won't improve gaming performance.

 

[Calculagator]

I doubt that changing the CPU will increase the value any. I would save your money there.
You can add a pci-e sata 3 card to take full advantage of a new SSD. It wouldn't be a huge increase over your current setup, but it may still be noticeable and would increase the value.

For the cost of a new CPU, you could probably find a used 770 and enable SLI. That would boost your gaming performance significantly for less than $200.

 

[ZbeeeulTonight]

I have a Antec Three Hundred case it's a middle tower..i don't know if i have enough space and if two GPU will be a good thing for the global cooling of the case, i think i'll need to take a wc kit for my cpu if i rly wanna set a SLI. I'm looking for Pcie Sata card but the prices looks pretty expensive o_o

Edit : I looked in my case for the space..it's not possible without a case change

 

[GhislainG]

A good air cooler should be fine for an older 130W CPU. No matter what you do, you'll never recover the costs when selling it.

 

[ZbeeeulTonight]

This is the problem..someone wanna buy my X5650 but i think i'll keep it , anyway the delivery time for international purchases is really long i would not have my computer for 2 or 3 weeks. Thank's for the answers.
I have a last question , i tried yesterday to OC at 3.6Ghz , the computer seem to be stable , but i figured out that my FPS on Guild Wars 2 who were about 100 with the base frequency are about 40 with the 3.6Ghz frequency, what is the problem? o_o (the temps were about 30°c idle and 45° full)

 

[GhislainG]

It depends on how you overclocked; did you modify the BCLK?

 

[ZbeeeulTonight]

I put the multiplier to X22 , and the bclk to 167 (approximatively 3.69 ghz). Then i put QPI to the minimum , and i set Cpu voltage to 1.25.

 

[GhislainG]

What's your PCI Express frequency? You have to keep it at 100 (or very close to 100). You could read this very long thread: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2335636&page=64

 

[ZbeeeulTonight]

My pcie frequency is set to 100 , i will read it and try it , thanks!