Any shoestring or scrapheap workstation fans?

[Rasseru]

I just recently built a cheap dell T3500 with xeon X5687, as a cheap base for my gaming build. then slapped a new 1080 in it, rendering it un-cheap

Its alright an' all, but my other passion is 3D rendering & memory intensive graphics, and the 4-core xeon & low memory of the 3500 wont cut it, so i've been thinking about a dual-cpu build with 96 gigs, but can also handle SLi so I can game on it.

Seems like a balancing act between getting a lower clocked CPU, and potentially losing single thread performance & cost.

Anyone else into this kind of thing? I'm finding it really fun

 

[Doogles]

Isn't it a bad move bottlenecking a expensive card with older CPU's?

 

[Akagi]

I fail to see how the thread title is relevant to the post content?

 

[Rasseru]

it was my only option at the time, and the card is future-proofed, I will upgrade when I have more money -

I fail to see how the thread title is relevant to the post content?

eh? its a pc-on-a-budget (well the base isnt even £200), I wondered if anyone else here does this, i think thats fairly relevant?

 

[Akagi]

The base was £200 but you slapped a GTX1080 in it, and you are now considering a dual CPU 96GB RAM build. Nothing sounds 'shoestring' or 'scrapheap' about any of this to me.

 

[Rasseru]

The base was £200 but you slapped a GTX1080 in it, and you are now considering a dual CPU 96GB RAM build. Nothing sounds 'shoestring' or 'scrapheap' about any of this to me.

I think for what it is, its pretty cheap. (minus the 1080) - yes i agree that part isnt cheap, but this isnt really what i'm asking, its more about if anyone buys seriously discounted parts from eBay to make pretty powerful PCs.

 

[Akagi]

Fair enough, title threw me thats all!

I built a Socket 771 / DDR2 ECC based machine with two quad core Xeons, 24GB of RAM, 2TB storage, boot SSD and a GTX460 for £100 all in a couple of years ago. I thought that was pretty good! Not a powerhouse by any stretch though.

 

[Rasseru]

Fair enough, title threw me thats all!

I built a Socket 771 / DDR2 ECC based machine with two quad core Xeons, 24GB of RAM, 2TB storage, boot SSD and a GTX460 for £100 all in a couple of years ago. I thought that was pretty good! Not a powerhouse by any stretch though.

That kind of machine would be worth a fortune years ago, its amazing how tech progresses. I want to build my housemate something like this for music production

 

[crazyDAJT]

I'm looking at a supermicro or Chenbro dual 1366 CPU server, slap in some X5650 and run unraid with a win 10 VM for remote gaming for old / thin clients. + get all the NAS focused goodness.

Transplant into my old case and slap in my GTX960 when i upgrade come Vega (if I can wait).

Can be done for around £200

Power efficiency won't be grate however.

 

[wildman_33]

I run dual Xeon x5670s with a gtx 970 and the cpu usage is pretty low whilst gaming. Mine are in a 2009 Mac Pro, it was relatively cheap (although I'm sure a dell/Hp equivalent would be less) and it's really quiet. I had a custom built 3770k desktop with an h100 before and it was much louder.

 

[crazyDAJT]

I run dual Xeon x5670s with a gtx 970 and the cpu usage is pretty low whilst gaming..

this is roughly what I'm look at spec wise, what your power usage like at the wall if you can measure it?

 

[Emlyn_Dewar]

I've ran a dual X5355 Precision 490 in the past (upgraded the 80mm memory fan or I'd have went deaf) got that when it was being junked from work.
Those xeons went in to a Mac Pro 1,1 updated to 2,1 firmware with 32gb memory and a 5770. Cost for that would be about £150 all in.
A dual E5520 T5500 was also put on the scrapheap recently, which I keep around for testing.

They're comically heavy on the power usage, but the build quality is pretty great on those old Precisions.