Affordable options with 8, 10, 12, or 14+ cores on Xeon processors
Affordable options with 8, 10, 12, or 14+ cores on Xeon processors
this machine will stay active around the clock, likely set up for a Runescape account. It’s mainly used for gaming, maybe some video work, and occasionally streaming.
Since you didn’t specify your plans, it’s understandable why we feel unsupported by vague advice. If an i9 struggles with your workload, a 2017 Threadripper with 16 cores should suffice, yet you’re questioning why an older 10-core machine would be adequate.
it's just a short-term deal, right? i sold my 9900k for a quick profit. i'm looking for a decent build under $150, maybe something simple like an xeon. some cheaper models might perform better than the i9 on multiple cores. i'm planning to upgrade later, maybe build pc components and flip it for a profit in a few years. 8+ cores, 32gb will still be valuable long-term unless i can make it pay off.
That's completely fine. Your Runescape servers/instances don't sound like an extreme workload to be honest, and to me simply seem to need a dedicated core or two per instance to run smoothly. That wouldn't surprise me for any game. It's solid architecture, around the same age and has literally twice the number of cores while being only 23% slower in single core performance (see link below). It doesn't surprise me it's better. If you can get a steal on a recent one then sure. The Xeons I see on ebay around $50 are like 2011-2013 era ones though, e.g. a Xeon E5 2670 v2, which is worse than both the 9900k and the 1950X despite having 2 more cores than the 9900k: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/Int...3058vs2152 (side note: when did passmark modernise their site? looks quite nice) The other problem with cheap Xeons is that in my experience the motherboards are the opposite of cheap. If the workload still suits them, like yours which simply needs cores, then yeah more power to you and they can be great value, but it's by no means a blanket statement that these things are on par with modern stuff. Good luck in that extremely tough market. People won't even buy your used 3080 at what you paid for it. Let alone currently already decade old hardware 5 years from now. An entire system as you are looking for, for $150, really will come down to just scouring the market for deals. Looking around a bit the Xeons seem easy enough to get cheap for $30-50, but as I expected the motherboards are expensive and hover around the $100 at the cheapest.
I discovered several 2011 mobile platforms from Dell/Lenovo workstations for about $30, which led me to choose this build.