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i5 4690k vs Xeon E3-1230, which one?

ugly ferret

ugly ferret

ugly ferret

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19 Jan 2006
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As title, both can be had for the same price so a straightforward choice?!

I have a pretty cramped HTPC case and I'm not sure how far I'd be able to overclock the hot running Devil's canyon. So I was thinking the Xeon might be a better alternative with it's 8 threads and more cache and still boosts to 3.5ghz on 4 cores. Not sure what kind of clocks most people get from their 4690k's I'm guessing with my HTPC I won't get as far so maybe something like 4ghz? Use my PC almost exclusively for gaming so not sure how much benefit the extra threads and extra cache in the Xeon will be..... at least at the moment. But bare in mind I don't like to upgrade CPU often, still using my q6600 which is getting on almost 8 years old now! Can't help but feel like the Xeon would be a better long term option despite the lower clockspeeds.

So in a nutshell, 4-ish ghz 4 thread 6mb cache devil's canyon or 3.5ghz 8 thread 8mb cache Xeon for a gamer who doesn't like to upgrade often??

Any thoughts and advice would be greatly appreciated!
 
i5 4690k, newer tech, clocks faster, runs cooler than the E3-1230 by default (maybe!?!?!). The extra threads wont make much of a difference in games on the E3-1230.
 
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E3-1230 is basically a 4770k. If ur going to use multi gpus in the future deffinatly e3 i used to have 1 brilliant in games. Upgraded to a 4790k and not much more fos tbh.

Remember though the e5 has no onboard gpu so needs a gpu to work
 
Thanks guys, two different opinions! I can't help feel that while not the obvious choice, the Xeon will be the better choice long term. I would imagine the extra threads might come in useful a few years from now? Knowing how bad my case is for temps, I can't imagine the 4690k clocking too high which is it's main advantage for me. I don't really want an onboard gpu either, just causes unnecessary heat....
 
Another vote for the Xeon then! It also seems that my motherboard (Asus Z97-A) should have a feature to let the Xeon run with all 4 cores at turbo speed, a sort of mini-overclocking? That would narrow the clock speed gap by a fair bit to an OC'd 4690K.

Definitely 90% leaning towards the Xeon now...
 
If you have no intentions of overclocking go for the xeon, else go for the 4690K, extra threads mean almost nothing for 95% of applications, but the extra clock speed of an overclocked i5 will, since you already have a Z97 board you might as well get the 4690K. Even with a terrible case and a hyper 212 plus/evo you can get them up to 4.2GHz with ease and that will destroy a xeon in anything that can't use all its threads, which is most things.
 
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Just finished putting together my lounge build with the 4690k and the cheap TeamGroup 2x8 1600 C11 kit.

Seems to be ticking along nicely at 4.4 1.15v and 4.0 uncore 1.185v. Just pushing the TeamGroup kit up to 2133 C10 with 1.6v. For the money, you can't complain
 
Thanks guys,

Still not sure which to go for, but if I go for the xeon I'd definitely go for the newer refresh 1231v3 which with my motherboard's MCE I can set to run at 3.8ghz on all 4 cores. If I got a 4690k it'd probably only go to about 4.2ghz in my case, so it's only about a 10% difference. It'd probably take the hyperthreading over that!
 
For anyone who's interested, I went for the Xeon E3-1231 in the end! Boosts to 3.8ghz on 4 cores with 8 threads for less than £200, quite happy with that! Probably wouldn't have overclocked the i5 anyway other than for benching..... managed to recycle my s775 arctic freezer on it too, thought the mounting would be different but it was fine.

Quite a nice jump over my q6600, surprised to see a boost in plenty of games at 4k, didn't think there'd be much cpu bottleneck at such a high res but I guess the q6600 is just that old. Hopefully the Xeon will last me another 7 years haha!
 
Just to be safe, the xeon 1230 has 3 different versions up till this point.
Xeon E3 1230 (V1) = i7 2600
Xeon E3 1230 V2 = i7 3770
Xeon E3 1230 V3 = i7 4770
Xeon E3 1231 V3 = i7 4790

It is a very popular CPU in Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, etc... Since the price for the xeon is quite low compared to here but it has i7 equivalent performance. Major retailers in Vietnam offer as low as £165-170 for a new xeon e3 1231 v3.
I have 4 render machines in Vietnam which utilise this CPU and I can't complain. Run super cool, reliable and fast.
 
The better long-term option is the one that can OC, so not Xeon. People have been dreaming of games making better use of more threads for almost a decade now. Sadly, they're still dreaming. On the other hand, OC'ing for a HTPC can be more costly & tricky so probably not worth too much in that case. I'd say go for Xeon if you don't want the hassle, DC if you do.
 
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