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High Core Xeon for Gaming

Nikumba

Nikumba

Nikumba

Soldato
Joined
4 Dec 2002
Posts
3,983
Location
Bourne, Lincs
I have the oppotunity to get my hands on a pair of E5-2686V6 Xeon so would be 36c/56t with base clock of 2.3 GHz with a turbo burst frequency of 3 GHz for a single active core, or 2.7 Ghz for all cores and some 2400Mhz DDR4

Currently have a 3770K OC'ed to 4.2Ghz base and it boost up to 4.7Ghz

Will the Xeon offer better performance in games overall? Currently using a 970GTX but want to replace it, i know my 3770 will limit a 2080Ti so would need a CPU upgrade, its just do I get a high end Ryzen setup or do I get a dual socket board for the Xeons which would cost about £500.

The Xeon route would be cheaper as only need to buy the board, where with Ryzen would need cpu, mobo and RAM. I am not including the cost of a 2080Ti in this as its needed for either route.

Kimbie
 
Ps , that Xeon doesn't exist as far as i can tell , are you sure you have the right model number ?

Pps Also you probably need more ram to occupy the the channels on a dual socket mother board, it will probably be quite picky with the ram , maybe require ECC ram , it wont overclock at all.

All in all it would make a pretty poor gaming setup, in the vast majority of games it would massively bottleneck a 2080ti and be substantially slower than your 3770k .

On the upside you could swap gaming for rendering or run a dozen or so Eve clients at the same time if thats your thing ....
 
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Go Ryzen, will handily outperform the XEON from a gaming perspective. While more cores are nice on a fast architecture (say more cores on Skylake (6700k) to 9900k) where your not dropping clock speed / IPC for cores) not so much the case when looking at a much older architecture running at slower clock speeds and when the core count available on mainstream Intel and Ryzen are sufficient for gaming needs.

Only reason I would contemplate that Xeon system would be if you have a workload bias towards something which scales across 56 threads extensively. Even then would only contemplate it as while Ryzen for example lacks in core count as 24 thread Ryzen CPU with its architecture and clock speed advantage could cut down the raw core count delta fairly significantly in workloads that scale.
 
Nikumba said:
I have the oppotunity to get my hands on a pair of E5-2686V6 Xeon so would be 36c/56t with base clock of 2.3 GHz with a turbo burst frequency of 3 GHz for a single active core, or 2.7 Ghz for all cores and some 2400Mhz DDR4

Currently have a 3770K OC'ed to 4.2Ghz base and it boost up to 4.7Ghz

Will the Xeon offer better performance in games overall? Currently using a 970GTX but want to replace it, i know my 3770 will limit a 2080Ti so would need a CPU upgrade, its just do I get a high end Ryzen setup or do I get a dual socket board for the Xeons which would cost about £500.

The Xeon route would be cheaper as only need to buy the board, where with Ryzen would need cpu, mobo and RAM. I am not including the cost of a 2080Ti in this as its needed for either route.

Kimbie
Click to expand...

No it wont.

Linus tried this experimenting a few months back (so you should be able to find the video as its recent).

He got an old high core xeon, played a bunch of games and it was pretty bad. Core count isnt totally irrelevant of course, but once you get past 2-4 cores extra cores become less and less of an impact, and per core performance is still king in most games.

I expect the 4.7ghz 3770k to comfortably be better in most games you try with maybe a few exceptions.

What is interesting, I was very recently assessing a intel upgrade vs ryzen. For myself they both make very bad financial sense. The price premium of intel over AMD has gone to almost nothing, with 3000 series chips getting an expected price bump but also the motherboards going to insane levels of pricing.

Using OCUK prices i came to.

9900k + Asus rog z390 board £750
3700X + Asus rog x570 board £710

Thats no ram. Both 8/16 chips.

I dont think I can stomach paying £710 just to get a thread buff from 6 to 16 whilst also nerfing my single core performance.
The intel position isnt great either as the 9900k is basically the same per core performance as I have now, so for that I would be paying £750 to go from 6 to 16 threads, and maintaining same per core performance.

In your case tho you are on ivy bridge not CL like me, so the decision is a bit easier. However I feel x570 pricing is mental, the value in ryzen 3000 chips seems to really come from using previous gen boards. Also I observed the price gap from 3700x to 3800x has come right down now and I think the 3800x may be the better buy now as well over the 3700x.

so if you need that upgrade just go for newer intel desktop gen chip or ryzen 3000.
 
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chrcoluk said:
Using OCUK prices i came to.

9900k + Asus rog z390 board £750
3700X + Asus rog x570 board £710

Thats no ram. Both 8/16 chips.
Click to expand...
Why are you looking at a £400 motherboard? Get a X470 for half the price, or a B450 for 1/4 price. Hell, if you must have X570 then there are still £200 options.

And this applies to the OP too: unless you're wanting to do full-speed PCIe Gen 4 RAID M.2 drives then there's little point in getting an X570 motherboard for Ryzen 3000. A solid B450 board for £150 ish will pair perfectly with a 3700X (and be the same price as a 9900K on its own).
 
darket said:
Ps , that Xeon doesn't exist as far as i can tell , are you sure you have the right model number ?
Click to expand...
Nikumba said:
Yes it is the right number, got it from the heat spreader, it is possible its a custom one for us
Click to expand...

Sounds more like a E5-2686 v4 (There were no v5 or v6 Dual socket parts)

Nikumba said:
I have the oppotunity to get my hands on a pair of E5-2686V6 Xeon so would be 36c/56t with base clock of 2.3 GHz with a turbo burst frequency of 3 GHz for a single active core, or 2.7 Ghz for all cores and some 2400Mhz DDR4
Click to expand...

Would be 36c / 72t
 
chrcoluk said:
No it wont.

Linus tried this experimenting a few months back (so you should be able to find the video as its recent).

He got an old high core xeon, played a bunch of games and it was pretty bad. Core count isnt totally irrelevant of course, but once you get past 2-4 cores extra cores become less and less of an impact, and per core performance is still king in most games.

I expect the 4.7ghz 3770k to comfortably be better in most games you try with maybe a few exceptions.

What is interesting, I was very recently assessing a intel upgrade vs ryzen. For myself they both make very bad financial sense. The price premium of intel over AMD has gone to almost nothing, with 3000 series chips getting an expected price bump but also the motherboards going to insane levels of pricing.

Using OCUK prices i came to.

9900k + Asus rog z390 board £750
3700X + Asus rog x570 board £710

Thats no ram. Both 8/16 chips.

I dont think I can stomach paying £710 just to get a thread buff from 6 to 16 whilst also nerfing my single core performance.
The intel position isnt great either as the 9900k is basically the same per core performance as I have now, so for that I would be paying £750 to go from 6 to 16 threads, and maintaining same per core performance.

In your case tho you are on ivy bridge not CL like me, so the decision is a bit easier. However I feel x570 pricing is mental, the value in ryzen 3000 chips seems to really come from using previous gen boards. Also I observed the price gap from 3700x to 3800x has come right down now and I think the 3800x may be the better buy now as well over the 3700x.

so if you need that upgrade just go for newer intel desktop gen chip or ryzen 3000.
Click to expand...

Good Grief why would you go for a near £400 board for a 3700X?

Here... ASRock X570 Extreme4 £249 https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asro...4-x570-chipset-atx-motherboard-mb-16s-ak.html

I would go even cheaper than that. Gigabyte X570 AORUS ELITE £210 https://www.overclockers.co.uk/giga...4-x570-chipset-atx-motherboard-mb-57w-gi.html

Or even this for £175 https://www.overclockers.co.uk/giga...4-x570-chipset-atx-motherboard-mb-57x-gi.html

3700X https://www.overclockers.co.uk/amd-...hz-socket-am4-processor-retail-cp-3b7-am.html

Comes to £584 or £545 or £510. The 9900K on its own costs as much as one of two of those MB + CPU combo's
 
darket said:
Ps , that Xeon doesn't exist as far as i can tell , are you sure you have the right model number ?
Click to expand...

On a bit of a tangent - there are a few Xeon numbers floating around that don't officially exist - not really sure what to make of it they can't all be incorrect information and/or fakes - not sure if Intel has occasionally made specific models for specific clients or something.
 
Rroff said:
On a bit of a tangent - there are a few Xeon numbers floating around that don't officially exist - not really sure what to make of it they can't all be incorrect information and/or fakes - not sure if Intel has occasionally made specific models for specific clients or something.
Click to expand...

Have you got any examples? Whilst there are some extremely rare parts, Intel ARK at least recognises they exist
 
Armageus said:
Have you got any examples? Whilst there are some extremely rare parts, Intel ARK at least recognises they exist
Click to expand...

Can't remember the exact model numbers off the top of my head - there was one case which I'm pretty sure was marked as an E5 4870 when Intel only recognises E7s with that number - I doubt it was a fake as it came out of an NHS system.

EDIT: Might have been 4890 as it was higher than 10 cores I do remember that.
 
Armageus said:
Have you got any examples? Whilst there are some extremely rare parts, Intel ARK at least recognises they exist
Click to expand...
Rroff said:
Can't remember the exact model numbers off the top of my head - there was one case which I'm pretty sure was marked as an E5 4870 when Intel only recognises E7s with that number - I doubt it was a fake as it came out of an NHS system.

EDIT: Might have been 4890 as it was higher than 10 cores I do remember that.
Click to expand...

E5 2696V4 isn't in ARK (at least it isn't listed among all the other V4s) but is available (at least eng. samples are available on fleabay, or were last time I checked). Pretty sure it is a company specific SKU.

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u.../91287/intel-xeon-processor-e5-v4-family.html

https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/xeon_e5/e5-2696_v4
 
I have just started assembling a server around a Xeon e5-2673 v4 (20c 40t) according to the Intel site this doesn’t even exist.

Some SKUs are manufactured specifically for the likes of Dell or HP.

No listed motherboard support but it’s working fine in my Asus x99 WS/IPMI with Samsung ECC ram.

All core turbo is 2.6GHz so as others have said above it won’t be great for gaming.
 
Bluntwrapped said:
All core turbo is 2.6GHz so as others have said above it won’t be great for gaming.
Click to expand...

Although not insurmountable usually there are scheduling optimisations, etc. with these kind of setups that make them slower than the desktop chips for gaming - sometimes that is offset though by sheer RAM bandwidth or latency depending on game and setup.
 
Rroff said:
Although not insurmountable usually there are scheduling optimisations, etc. with these kind of setups that make them slower than the desktop chips for gaming - sometimes that is offset though by sheer RAM bandwidth or latency depending on game and setup.
Click to expand...

I’ve found without disabling cores, it’s incredibly difficult to reach the max turbo boost bin (3.6GHz) as Windows likes to randomise which core it’s using at any given time. Setting CPU affinity doesn’t appear to work. The moment the 8th core kicks in for example, it pulls the others down a peg or two. ‘By individual core’ doesn’t appear to make any difference either.

As you said depending on the workload the memory bandwidth can help, but in general the lower clock speed doesn’t make a great setup for gaming.
 
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