SKT 2011 (not v3) - why so expensive?

willhub · 2 Mar 2018 at 14:48

Why is an old architecture like this so expensive? My motherboard has the full left bank of ram slots dead so it all works but only on the right side, not sure what implications this has on RAM speed.

Finding these motherboards is firstly like trying to find rocking horse ****, almost impossible then when they're found they cost about 400 quid, I thought old PC components depreciated in value? My Celeron 1.2Ghz and it's 478 or whatever motherboard must be worth thousands now?

Bugbait · 2 Mar 2018 at 15:07

Supply and demand

. These haven't been manufactured in a while and plenty have probably died since. The i7 platforms seem to stay in service longer as well. The resale price difference for my i5-4670K vs i7-4790K is considerable!

Armageus · 2 Mar 2018 at 15:19

willhub said:
My motherboard has the full left bank of ram slots dead so it all works but only on the right side, not sure what implications this has on RAM speed.

Sounds like it could be a bent pin in the CPU socket.

willhub said:
I thought old PC components depreciated in value?

They still do to some degree, but with the pc market being fairly stagnant only the real older kit (e.g. core2duo etc) has dropped off in price substantially. Unfortunately newer, still good performing kit is still decent money, and it's a pain for people like yourself who still have an expensive processor etc that isn't necessarily cost effective to replace.

willhub · 3 Mar 2018 at 14:18

Wonder if that bent pin could be the reason why OC'ing isn't successful or if ram on one side probably causes this? I think I tried to check for bent pins it's really hard to identify anything. Saying that I'm not sure if I I've now killed a ram slot, a few months ago I somehow managed to put the ram in the wrong way (serves myself right for playing with PC in darkness), the ram set on fire and died not sure if the slot will have too?

I'm a bit stuck I think it's almost impossible to upgrade this system to working and OCable. Perhaps the price of a 2011 mobo I could get a faster RAM/Mobo/CPU combo?

BongoHunter · 5 Mar 2018 at 14:56

If your will to go for refurbed then dual 2011 boards are easy to find and cheap - what CPUs and Memory do you have, and how many PCIE slots do you need?

You can get a 2 socket Quanta for about £90 with 30 days of warranty - but will only take PCIE cards on a riser, has 2 usb2 ports and 10gb spf+ NICs integrated - so really going to depend on what you need it for

willhub · 5 Mar 2018 at 15:13

I only have one CPU, and I have DDR3 XMS Corsair memory as in sig, need a new mobo so I can properly overclock I think.

BongoHunter · 5 Mar 2018 at 17:30

Ah no ex-server kit for you then - as all the server and most of the workstation motherboards need registered dimms, not unbuffered like your XMS unfortunately

willhub · 5 Mar 2018 at 17:36

Workstation, isn't that like a normal desktop PC?

BongoHunter · 5 Mar 2018 at 17:56

willhub said:
Workstation, isn't that like a normal desktop PC?

Workstation motherboards tend to bring some extra server / Enterprise features such as SAS connectors, ECC support, and often support for much higher memory capacities (registered memory) and server type CPUs

Yeah - a seat in an office can be called a workstation too

willhub · 6 Mar 2018 at 09:00

I'm trying to get as much performance now out of my dodgy mobo as I can as it's becoming apparent I'm going to need a new Mobo/CPU/DDR4 ram to move from 2011. If I can successfully overclock it to 4.5Ghz, with 8Gb of ram and a GTX1080 I think it'll be a sweet system surely until 2020 I'd hope anyway.

ZXSpectrum · 6 Mar 2018 at 09:51

Unfortunately the X79 Motherboards are silly money because of the influx into the market (About a year or so ago) of cheap Xeons that have been replaced/upgraded for lifecycle from Datacenters/Server banks etc. These are good for general use and some of them are excellent performance (E5-2670, 2667, 2687W, 1650 Etc) in games even though the power limits are significantly higher. My Server has a 2670 and its brilliant. Anyway, unfortunately you will have to pay the current price, keep an eye out on Ebay/mm(Unfortunately prices are still high making the overall package less attractive) or.. Just buy one of the influx of Chinese X79(H77) Chipset motherboards from Ebay/Amazon.

ubersonic · 6 Mar 2018 at 10:58

willhub said:
My motherboard has the full left bank of ram slots dead so it all works but only on the right side, not sure what implications this has on RAM speed.

None.

Quad and tri channel memory support is a lot like battery backup, in the fact that if you actually require it then you probably already know you need it. The reason Intel push tri/quad for their enthusiast boards is simply because it's another awesome thing to shout about and make people want to pay extra for, for the vast majority of users it offers zero benefit.

willhub · 6 Mar 2018 at 11:36

Would a cheap Xeon outperform the 4820 I have ? Also I can't find these Chinese specials ELSEWHERE, do they oc well?

ZXSpectrum · 6 Mar 2018 at 13:53

*** NO COMPETITOR LINKS ***
Thanks
- Armageus

Unfortunately from what i hear they are not very good at overclocking as the VRMs are not actively cooled. I am pretty sure its actually a H77 chipset that has been modified to use the X79 CPUs. They work fine and if its to build up a cheap machine if you have the rest of the parts and are not overclocking then its a bargain.

Something i am surprised about is that a major company such as Asus, Gigabyte, MSI etc have not done a batch run as these Chinese boards are currently very popular. People would rather pay £150 for an Asus product that's reliable, has a little overclocking potential and at least 1 year warranty.

willhub · 6 Mar 2018 at 14:01

I'm looking at overclocking to be honest so I'm guessing it'd be a bad choice with a Chinese special, having a hard time at the moment trying to overclock.

BongoHunter · 6 Mar 2018 at 14:11

You might be better flogging your CPU while it still has some value and moving to a more popular socket with a more active secondhand market by the sounds of it

Rroff · 6 Mar 2018 at 14:16

ubersonic said:
None.

Quad and tri channel memory support is a lot like battery backup, in the fact that if you actually require it then you probably already know you need it. The reason Intel push tri/quad for their enthusiast boards is simply because it's another awesome thing to shout about and make people want to pay extra for, for the vast majority of users it offers zero benefit.

X79 CPUs are designed around having that bandwidth on tap - the 4770K with double channel in most games is about similar performance to my 4820K with quad channel but if I drop the 4820K to double channel it sees a performance decrease versus the 4770. Not huge in most cases but it definitely sees a hit.

I think it actually made a bit of a difference with my 780 with DX11 games as well with nVidia's DX11 driver hacks - not seen the same kind of difference with Pascal though.

willhub · 6 Mar 2018 at 14:24

For quad channel I need all ram slots filled though hence new mobo I guess? I've got 14gb of ram just one stick and a functioning mobo short.

ubersonic · 6 Mar 2018 at 14:28

willhub said:
For quad channel I need all ram slots filled though hence new mobo I guess?

No, you don't have to use all the channels a board has, just just can't use more than it has. I.E an X79 board can be run in quad, tri, dual or single channel (will manage this automatically depending on what channels are populated).

Rroff said:
X79 CPUs are designed around having that bandwidth on tap

They are but it makes no difference for 99% of users, hence my comment that it's one of those things where if you actually need it then you already know you require it. I.E in tests the i7 920 had no performance gain between dual/tri in gaming or normal workstation use (I.E no high end professional/scientific) applications specifically designed for as many channels as possible. Likewise my 4930K performed identically (within margin of error) in dual/tri/quad mode.

AFAIK the Threadrippers are the first enthusiast chips that actually suffer performance loss across the board when not running in quad channel due to the way their memory access architecture works.

Rroff · 6 Mar 2018 at 14:42

I'd have to test it again as it was awhile ago and using my 780 but I definitely saw non-negligible (5-15%) though fairly small performance drops from both decreasing RAM speed/frequency and dropping out of quad channel mode in games like BF4.