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Help with purchase?

danewesley

danewesley

danewesley

Soldato
Joined
19 Jan 2010
Posts
3,385
Location
Merseyside
Hi all, I'm looking in to building a new system now and thinking what to go for. Had to ask though, I have been offered a xeon x5660 for £120, I know it's an amazing CPU but is it worth this much, and over newer gen CPUs priced the same?

Thanks
 
Hi there, It really depends what you are using it for and what your current system is. For example, do you already have an X58 board?

As you probably know, the X5660 is a Westmere hex core server grade CPU with a stock clockspeed of 2.8GHz, but a high overclocking ability. However, as it is based on 1st generation core i7 technology it doesn't have the same instructions per clock horsepower of more modern CPUs such as the Haswell and Ivy Bridge-E models.
 
Well at the moment I have nothing, I was doing a z87 build with a 4770k but my board is faulty so waiting to Rma it, in the mean time I sold the 4770k to pay some bills.

So as of now I have a good power supply, corsair 650d and a samsung ssd, so no main components, I'm waiting to get the cash together to buy some stuff and spotted this CPU on an auction site for a lot more, emailed them explaining why I think it's worth less and they accepted that low offer.

I do however have a silverstone sg05 as a media server/torrent box so I'm thinking of selling the low end mobo, CPU and ram and buying an fm2 Richland apu for basic games like league of legends.
 
Ok, so are you thinking of two PCs (one gaming PC and one HTPC) or just rolling them all into one PC with the SG05 case?

In either case I wouldn't suggest picking up the X5660. It's a nice chip for sure, but only really worthwhile if you do a lot of multi-core processing and/or already have an X58 board.

For the same money you could pick up a second-hand i5 2500K or 3570K which would generally be much better for gaming.

Also, as their are mini-ITX Z77 motherboards readily available, so you could use that chip in your SG05 case - coupled with a decent graphics card it would make for a nice SFF gaming box.
 
Yes I'm thinking of consolidating all my computers in to one, I'm thinking about getting the gigabyte fm2+ board and the a10-7850k and just to run the server and play some league on. I don't have much cash available now and it's all constantly running through my head what to buy.

Another option is, in the clearance lines there is the asus z87i-professional itx board for £80, so the same as the fm2+ one, add on to that an i3 and a discrete card and I think I might be better off?
 
danewesley said:
Another option is, in the clearance lines there is the asus z87i-professional itx board for £80, so the same as the fm2+ one, add on to that an i3 and a discrete card and I think I might be better off?
Click to expand...

I would say so, yes.

It will probably cost a bit more, but in the end give you a good deal more CPU and GPU power.
 
I will have to mod the sg05 to fit an atx psu in then, unless I can sell that and buy the newer sg08-lite case. Will see how this all goes anyway, thanks for the help.
 
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