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Xeon Upgrade for Intel i7-5930K

Danger Phoenix

Danger Phoenix

Danger Phoenix

Soldato
Joined
21 Jul 2004
Posts
6,360
Location
Harrow, UK
My PC is getting a bit old now and CPU is often getting maxed out (Windows VMs, Plex Server, Docker Containers etc.) so I'm thinking of upgrading the CPU and RAM.

Current Hardware:
  • Asus TUF X99 Sabertooth Intel X99 (Socket 2011) DDR4 ATX Motherboard
  • Intel i7-5930K 3.50GHz (Haswell-E) Socket LGA2011-V3 Processor
  • Corsair Vengeance 32GB (4x8GB) DDR4 PC4-21300C15 2666MHz Quad Channel Kit
  • MSI GeForce GTX 980Ti Gaming 6144MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
RAM from 32GB to 64GB is easy enough, but in terms of the CPU I am a little lost. There are so many E5 LGA2011-V3 variants and after spending a day Googling, I'm probably more confused than before.

From what I can tell, maybe a E5-26xx v4?
 
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From a quick search, think I would go for: Intel® Xeon® Processor E5-2680 v4 (14 core). I would make sure its on the supported list first though. The Intel Xeon E5-2699 V3 (SR1XD) 2.30GHz 18-Core LGA2011-3 CPU is also a cheap option.
 
If you want desktop performance then 1680 V3 is one of the better options - 8 cores / 16 threads, reasonable turbo clocks, and usually multiplier unlocked, the V4 only a small number were unlocked (though with a 4GHz turbo reasonable out the box). The 2xxx chips are designed for dual-socket systems and usually have relatively pedestrian clock speeds - but lots of cores if you need broad multi-threaded performance.

To be honest at this point I'd probably be looking to upgrade to a newer platform though as anything within the last few years will be significantly faster, albeit more recent HEDT/Xeon platforms are stupidly expensive so not really a good option for consumer setups.
 
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If it's just CPU you're maxed on (and assuming just on core count, not clockspeed) then might be worth a punt on a cheapo CPU upgrade (I did this with my Xeon system, going 1620v2 to 2680v2 for £12):

2650v4 (12 core) can be had for under £10 or 2683v4 (16 core) for about £20.

But by the time you're adding a 64GB RAM kit (£50 minimum) then as Rroff said it's edging towards the territory where I'd be looking at something newer and consumer grade (personally an older Ryzen or something), which second hand you could probably get for under £150 with 32GB or a bit more for 64GB

Edit: and my use was VMs to learn IT stuff on or game servers, which needed cores but not clockspeed - I'm not sure which your uses would need more of, but would assume plex's encoder deals well with many cores, as OBS/Handbrake certainly does in my experience!
 
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You could get a cheap 3900x AM4 setup for not a lot of cash - 12 cores and significantly faster
 
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subbytna said:
IPC improvements would be noticeably better. Would seem faster to use. Clock speed isn't everything.
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yes thats what i mean AMD didnt match skylake till 5000
they was still behind, but yes haswell is very old now maybe 3000 would be better
 
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subbytna said:
You could get a cheap 3900x AM4 setup for not a lot of cash - 12 cores and significantly faster
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the differnace is about 10% after some google foo,


JollyJamma said:
A used B450 or B550 motherboard and an AMD 5950X (or 5900) would be cheap and fast and powerful.
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yes this would be much faster in ever way, but compared to the £22 spend on a CPU would also be massively more expensive.
and as everyone likes to point out, an upgrade to a dead socket
 
Sinking money into X99 system just seems like a bad idea all things considered.

You could also take into consideration how likely the X99 motherboard is to become defective given how old it is and how expensive it would be to replace over a B450 motherboard.

I saw a B650 motherboard for £80 (ish) the other day so spending money on a used X99 CPU just seems bonkers given the options.
 
JollyJamma said:
Sinking money into X99 system just seems like a bad idea all things considered.

You could also take into consideration how likely the X99 motherboard is to become defective given how old it is and how expensive it would be to replace over a B450 motherboard.

I saw a B650 motherboard for £80 (ish) the other day so spending money on a used X99 CPU just seems bonkers given the options.
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If getting into the platform i 100% agree. But X99 is still decent if you already have the kit. The xeon CPUs are so cheap.
 
Sone said:
If getting into the platform i 100% agree. But X99 is still decent if you already have the kit. The xeon CPUs are so cheap.
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Sure.

I think our point is that a cheap Ryzen system represents excellent price to performance so it should be considered.

One factor I hadn’t really considered with a Ryzen upgrade is that a new PSU might be required if X99 uses the old format - that somewhat reduces the price to performance ratio but hey.
 
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I am a little bit biased. In previous job had to use lots of VMs; quite often multiple simulataniously. Company told me the laptop was fine (it really wasn't). Was using my main PC (5900x) but just got annoying.

Got a T7810 for naff all (ironic i know saying not to but in but this was when 5900x was latest), 2 x 2699v3 and 64gb ddr4. Was an absolute beast for its work loads.
 
i dont think its a good idea... but 3700x and a motherboard could be had for £120, he would have it old stuff to sell....
all other parts could carry over
 
JollyJamma said:
Sinking money into X99 system just seems like a bad idea all things considered.
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There are some great options for <£30 though

2690v4 for 14 cores and 3.5Ghz boost - £30
1660v4 or 2667v4 for 8 Cores and slightly higher base clocks - £20


WARburton said:
i dont think its a good idea... but 3700x and a motherboard could be had for £120, he would have it old stuff to sell....
all other parts could carry over
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All depends on how much you want to spend and where you draw the line.. A 3700X isn't that much faster than a 2690 v4 in terms of multithreaded performance. But once you've got an AM4 board the temptation is to then drop in a 5950 etc


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WARburton said:
would it be, AMD didnt match Skylake on core for core speed till the 5000 chips.
i bet haswell wasnt fair off the 3000 chips
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Pretty sure a 3900X would handily beat the vast majority of the Skylake Xeons in most scenarios, the area in question would be memory bandwidth and capacity. It’s a completely moot argument to make though as a Skylake Xeon build would require a full system so you’d be looking at Broadwell.

Skylake has a few advantages but those are now unsupported Intel and don’t have anything to do with CPU performance. Outside of some pretty niche use cases it’s all about Zen full steam ahead.
 
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