Cheap old Xeons are truly valuable treasures.
Cheap old Xeons are truly valuable treasures.
Hello everyone, I aim to keep things clear and concise. Let me briefly explain my setup first: CPU is an i7-3930K at 4.4GHz (custom loop), RAM is 32GB G.Skill @ 2300MHz, motherboard is ASUS Rampage IV Formula (updated BIOS), GPU is an nVidia GTX 1080 Ti (recently upgraded). My friend and I are considering buying a used Xeon E5-2687W v2 for general use and gaming. I want to know how to proceed with this upgrade, what challenges might arise, especially regarding overclocking. I understand Xeon models aren’t typically overclocked, but could a 4.2GHz setting be possible? I’m hoping someone with experience can share their insights and tips for this project. Thanks in advance to all the budget-conscious DIYers who’ve helped out!
None of the 26xx models come with unlocked settings, meaning overclocking isn't possible. Consider getting a Xeon E5-1680v2 instead. It's an unlocked version with eight cores, comparable to the 5960X.
This concept is superior to the 26xx xeons even though they may lack more cores. It's feasible to achieve some performance gains with the base clock, though not significantly. I'm using an e5-2680 on a Lenovo board and opt for the 26xx model to cut costs, as overclocking isn't practical here. If you intend to use ECC memory with the Xeon, you might encounter difficulties during overclocking. There have been reports of issues with used ECC memory due to compatibility constraints in certain setups, though I haven't experienced any problems myself.
The e5-2687w performs similarly to a Ryzen 1400 or Ryzen 2400g 1680v2. While a better motherboard and DDR4 RAM might cost more, the power consumption is significant—1680v2 has a 130W TDP, Ryzen six cores are 65W TDP, and they draw around 80W.
We like them too. Me and my friend are big fans of the X79 platform... I think it was such a great product back in the day and you wouldn't believe how long our PC's have been running... Pretty much 24/7 for the past 9 years without a single issue! So basically we just don't want to let go. So if there's an option for us to achieve modern like performance with the same platform at a fraction of the cost we're totally down! System is planned to be used for rendering, but also gaming; we're both flight sim enthusiasts and as you may have seen Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 requires a pretty beefy system - most importantly you need a good GPU (something like an RTX 2070 and above), 32GB of RAM and a decent CPU, with lots of bandwidth (which we have - quad channel)
Hey @KingTdiGGiTTy thanks for the reply! Yep, prob going to be running ECC, unless normal DDR3 would work fine in this setup? What about the BIOS? does that need to be.. erm.. unofficially (sort of "hacked") updated? I've heard some people say you might need a special BIOS to run Xeons on X79 boards..
Sure, I understand. We appreciate repurposing outdated technology, hehe.
Using ECC in x79 depends on the specific board; it seems the system would work but not in ECC mode. For BIOS, most xeons have official support for these models. On a Sandy Bridge Xeon, you might need a BIOS tailored to those processors. The current drivers appear limited to v2 versions and Ivy Bridge CPUs only.