Build with a W3680 as CPU

[salatji]

Hey there. I am planning to build a PC with older parts.

I already do own a prebuild DELL T3500 with a xenon W3680, 12 GB 6x2 ddr3 memory and a quadro 5000/1050 ti (will sell the excessive gpu). I also have a used 650W PSU (XFX XXX 650 Watt), however I might swap it out for a new psu.

I do plan to get a different motherboard (currently have my eyes on a MSI X58 pro due to reasonable price) to do some minor overclocking.

So now my questions:

Is the MSI x58 pro a ok motherboard to do some moderate overclocking? Nothing to crazy, however I want to get a little more performance out of the CPU (will also add a 240 AIO if I can find a fitting one to get proper cooling)
The motherboard does only have PCIe 2.0, while the 1050 TI I'd love to use would have PCIe 3.0, will this cause problems? (I've found a old tomshardware-thread where they said that this isn't too much of a problem.)
If I'd mount a SSD as boot-drive, will it give me a similar boot-speed to my current battlestation or is it limited due to older SATA-connections? Is a SSD even smart to be used or should I simply stick with a HDD for this rig?

In general, I'd appreciate any tips you could give me in this regard, maybe even recommendations for different motherboards or tips during the build/swap.

 

[James Mason]

The W3680 isn't compatible with x58 boards.
And it's not overclockable anyways.
I doubt any non server boards would support a CPU with that many cores.

 

[salatji]

Well, that's a bit depressing then....

I did a bit of searching and I found only posts that were talking about overclocking a w3680 and those were saying it's possible and you can oc it to 4.5 or 4.8...

Meh, good to know, however, guess I still got a decent work-PC that can run some of the older games :/

 

[salatji]

The W3680 isn't compatible with x58 boards.
And it's not overclockable anyways.
I doubt any non server boards would support a CPU with that many cores.

Ok, can you please give me the source that a W3680 is a) not compatible with x58 boards when both have a LGA 1366 as socket and b) the W3680 is not overclockable.

Everything I can find is that they are compatible and the W3680 is overclockable...

 

[James Mason]

MSI's own CPU compatibility list, If it's not on the list, it's far more likely than not to work on the board:
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/X58_Pro.html#support-cpu

Hmm, well it's BLCK overclockable with custom BIOS... which is a rather extreme and indepth form of overclocking. And the custom BIOS may also enable support for the CPU.

Considering it's a gen1/1.5 intel CPU... it's still not super great by today's standards even OC'd.

I'm not sure a modest x58 board like the MSI pro would be enough.

You also need the "right memory" that the CPU is happy with to OC.
https://hardforum.com/threads/1366-x58-xeon-enthusiast-overclocks-club.1820772/page-52

That PSU isn't... what i'd call an OCer's PSU either, you'd likely need a pretty spectacular one.
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story5&reid=181

The PCIE thing isn't an issue.
SATA2 probably will hold you back SSD speed wise, but i'm not sure how that measures up for actual boot time, as that's not a particularly large load.