For Xeon users, this question is about value—does it justify the investment?
For Xeon users, this question is about value—does it justify the investment?
Hello. It's time when my Xeon 1270v2 is struggling because it lacks certain features, making games like Alan Wake 2 impossible to play. Is upgrading to the 2697v3 worth it? I've seen them being sold at extremely low prices. They come with missing features like AVX2. Many games run at high frame rates or barely. Emulation is probably not worth it, but still. Can anyone here offer some advice? People often buy cheap Chinese motherboards with ECC/NON-ECC RAM sticks. They tend to fail over time. I bought my Xeon for a low price and swapped it into my existing board. Thanks.
For pure gaming, focus on single-thread performance rather than core count. An R5 3600 can match or exceed the 2697v3 in many titles without needing risky Chinese motherboards. Even an R5 1600 often performs better than the 2697v3 in games. If you need heavy PCIe usage, a Xeon might be worth considering, but it’s not ideal for gaming.
Sure. The best deals for gaming came only a few years back when Ryzen wasn’t available, allowing you to purchase an affordable 6-8 core chip with an X chipset board and easily boost it to 4.2-4.5Ghz while maintaining solid performance at the time. Zen and Zen+ models threatened those Xeons, but Zen 2 ultimately eliminated them.
It’s worth mentioning that this applies mainly in the US market; overseas, used Ryzen or Intel chips can be significantly more costly. This explains why Chinese boards emerged to capitalize on the drop in demand for Xeons during datacenter upgrades.
it's not worth investing in a hazwell gaming PC right now. Opt for something basic at least like Kaby Lake unless you already have a full setup with a motherboard and RAM. If you're serious, consider a $10 CPU upgrade but don't go all the way to build a complete system—just get 8th gen Intel or 3rd gen Ryzen minimum.
Xeon isn't suitable beyond gaming. Its weak single-core speed doesn't match today's processors well.