Is intel really that good?

Martini1991 · 17 Dec 2012 at 14:54

Woops Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2

humbug · 17 Dec 2012 at 15:00

Martini1991 said:
Woops Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2

Found it.

(BX80637E31230V2) £175, £180 with Shipping.

That leaves £40 for the Motherboard (without shipping)

How much is the Motherboard?

Zaim · 17 Dec 2012 at 15:19

Intel all the way for me, AMD simply can't compete, they run hot and use a stupid amount of power when overclocked.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2012/05/01/intel-core-i5-3570k-cpu-review/6

humbug · 17 Dec 2012 at 15:35

How about this.

ASRock 970 Pro3 £48 (Inc Shipping)

FX-8350 £149 (Inc Shipping)

XFX HD7950 Double D £220 + 4 Games (Inc Shipping)

Comes to £416, all in with Shipping

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 17 Dec 2012 at 15:39

An FX8320 is still around £45 to £50 than a Xeon E3 1230 V2,so for those situations you need 8 threads the AMD CPU is an acceptable altenative.

I still would also take a FX6300 over a Core i3 though having had the latter. I am not sure I would take an FX8350 over a Core i5 purely for gaming,although again it depends on the games you play. I suspect anything relatively modern should not be massively different between the two,but if you play some of the older stuff I am not so sure.

OTH,I probably would be pleased with either,if someone gave me one for free!!

For some reason even though I have been going on about the Xeon E3 1230 and E3 1230 V2 since last year,it only seems to have been only noticed by many in the last few months!!

Martini1991 · 17 Dec 2012 at 15:40

humbug said:
How about this.

ASRock 970 Pro3 £48 (Inc Shipping)

FX-8350 £149 (Inc Shipping)

XFX HD7950 Double D £220 + 4 Games (Inc Shipping)

Comes to £416, all in with Shipping

But you could get the 7950 DD with the Xeon set up, I paid 207 with my 7950's.
The board is sub 35 quid.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 17 Dec 2012 at 15:43

Martini1991 said:
Why doesn't that surprise me.
The Xeon is cheaper.

4 RAM slots,USB3.0 and SATA3.0 for £48 delivered looks a very good price.

Martini1991 said:
The board is sub 35 quid.

Sounds a pile of rubbish TBH. A Dell motherboard might probably be better overall.

You can get,cheap AMD motherboards which are AM3+ too,still wouldn't touch them.

Martini1991 · 17 Dec 2012 at 15:45

The H61 board would be rubbish, but it'd run the Xeon and the 7950 at PCI-E 3.0 while you'd have USB 3.0 and SATA 3, it'd fit everything you run.
Not saying that Asrock doesn't look good quality.

Nothing wrong with cheap boards in the slightest.

If I was OC'ing I'd get the FX8320 with a more expensive board.

EDIT : That XFX cooler is abysmal like, as is the AMD stock cooler.
EDIT 2 : By sub I mean 34.99, and the B Grade Z68 Gigabyte board used to fit in that budget, now a days I use a cheap Gigabyte H61 board for cheap builds, but they're 40 quid now ; http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-400-GI&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1965 or the Asus that isn't really OEM as I've used one recently too ; http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-528-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1965

Given you're an advocate of lower end stuff Cat, you do yo-yo with your opinion.

humbug · 17 Dec 2012 at 15:58

There are AM3+ Motherboards for £30.

Now we are just getting into which cheap motherboard is better than what.

I wouldn't touch any Motherboard at that price, nor would i ever recommend one, especially with high end CPU's

If i can get a 7950 for £207 (including shipping) then i'm on my maximum £400 budget with the FX, £25 under if i get the FX-8320.

Martini1991 · 17 Dec 2012 at 16:00

So you wouldn't put http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-528-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1965 with the Xeon? I'm not sure why not, it'd handle it fine while getting PCI-E 3.0

Runs perfectly fine, you wouldn't notice any difference if you ran the Xeon with my board (Maximus IV Extreme)

To be honest, I'd take the 7870 LE (The higher one) at 185 with the Xeon, if you're not OC'ing, it's going to be better (While being the much quieter set up)
The LE comes with more games (The one I've seen) I actually worked it out you'd get 50 quid selling the games (Far Cry 3, Sleeping Dogs, Hitman, Deus Ex HR, Nexuiz, Dirt showdown, Sniper Elite V2)

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 17 Dec 2012 at 16:09

I decided to look at quite a few of the sub £40 H61 motherboards:

http://uk.msi.com/product/mb/H61M-P31--G3-.html
http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4090#sp
http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4197#sp
http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/P8H61MX_USB3/#specifications
http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?cat=Specifications&Model=H61M-GS

I had a look at three retailers(including OcUK) and those are the H61 motherboads I can find for under £40. I can see some of them have USB3.0 but none of them have SATA3.0 it seems. Some of the specifications on the retailer pages are wrong,as OcUK for example list H77 specifications on some of their H61 based motherboards.

TBH,every build I have done with a mATX or ATX motherboard has had SATA3.0,USB3.0 and 4 RAM slots this year. Motherboards with these for both Intel and AMD can be had for between £45 to £55.

Martini1991 · 17 Dec 2012 at 16:10

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-528-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1965

That's USB 3.0 and SATA 3.

And sub 40.
Also doesn't come as OEM, don't know why they say it does.
OCUK did 8GB RAM sticks for 20 quid a shot, I bought 2 and threw them in, 16GB RAM for 40 quid.

8GB RAM sticks aren't very expensive at all.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 17 Dec 2012 at 16:14

Martini1991 said:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-528-AS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1965

That's USB 3.0 and SATA 3.

And sub 40.
Also doesn't come as OEM, don't know why they say it does.

I listed that motherboard before.

Wrong specifications:

http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/P8H61MX_USB3/

Asus webpage said:
Storage Intel® H61(B3) chipset :
4 x SATA 3Gb/s port(s), blue

OcUK webpage said:
Intel® H77 chipset :
2 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), gray
4 x SATA 3Gb/s port(s), blue

Plus is has a VIA codec which makes the Realtek ones look uber fantastic.

Martini1991 · 17 Dec 2012 at 16:15

Agh crap yeah, I just checked it myself.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 17 Dec 2012 at 16:16

TBH,though for £45 to £55 you can get a B75 motherboard which has USB3.0,SATA3.0 and 4 RAM slots.

Only £10 to £20 more though.

Martini1991 · 17 Dec 2012 at 16:17

Guess for the extra tenner this is a steal then http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-222-MS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1990

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 17 Dec 2012 at 16:20

Martini1991 said:
Guess for the extra tenner this is a steal then http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-222-MS&groupid=701&catid=5&subcat=1990

Looks good,but the B75 version can be had for around £45 IIRC,which with a Xeon E3 1230 V2 would not make much difference.

If only we had overclockable Core i3 CPUs!!

Still,like I said £45 to £55,is a good amount to spend as a minimum anyway.

ubersonic · 17 Dec 2012 at 16:29

I ran a Xeon 1245V2 (same as the 1240 but wit a HD P4000, which is lick a HD 4000 but faster) in a Gigabyte Z68 board, worked great and was awesome for the price. In truth I regret parting with it.

BTW you can raise the multi on the E3 Xeon's with the right board but I think its limited to a couple of multipliers above the max turbo like with the 3770 non-K.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 17 Dec 2012 at 16:33

Well,ATM I am running a Xeon E3 1220(this lacks HT but has the extra L3 cache),undervolted in a SFF PC.

humbug · 17 Dec 2012 at 16:37

Does that 7870 LE @ £185 Include shipping?

Also i'm not spending less than £45 on a Motherboard, no way am i plugin high end components on to rock bottom budget Motherboards, seriously i just wouldn't be comfortable with that at all, there are limits.

And is that Xeon E3 1230 V2 as fast as a 3770K? because that 3770K is not a great deal faster than the FX-8350, as a mater of fact the FX-8350 is faster (all be it very slightly) in Photoshop which is one of my needs.