Core 2 Quad vs XEON gaming build

[ninjosh97]

Okay, so for starters, I'm trying to spend as little money as possible. My friend is giving me an older machine (2008) and I want to turn it into a cheap gaming rig.

I've found a Radeon 7850 on ebay for about $100.

What I'm really wondering about is what cpu I should get. It's a lga775 socket, so it has to be older.

I've found this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/SLGUR-Intel-Core-2-Quad-Q8300-2-5GHz-4M-Socket-LGA-775-Desktop-Processor-CPU-/271728765329?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3f444be991

and more interestingly this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Quad-Core-Q9450-X3350-From-Xeon-E5430-SLBBK-Ultra-Low-Power-Standby-31W-/171574964238?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27f2aa300e

is there any reason to NOT get the xeon x3350?

Does anyone else know of a better option?

I'll be getting the MOBO and RAM from the older machine (desktop, not server).

Thanks in advance.

Edit: Just to clear it up, I know I'll need a heavier psu as well, found a corsair 430w for $19 after a rebate.

 

[hftvhftv]

DO NOT GET THE XEON!! That's a mod for LGA 775, aka a wreck that won't work unless your board supports the 1333mhz FSB and you are comfortable modding your BIOS. Get the Core 2 Quad for shore. The price is excellent, and it should be compatible. But if your PC is OEM, make sure the VRM supports the Quad, and your BIOS does too.

 

[hftvhftv]

What's your specs for curiosity?

 

[ninjosh97]

What's your specs for curiosity?

Not sure. Thanks for the replies by the way.

I'll be getting it (probably) tomorrow, so I'll post the specs then.

 

[Xibyth]

Xeons microcode is not setup of encoding and calculation, it's intended for raw data processing. The Core two quad will destroy a Xeon at gaming, for managing data bases and compressing data the Xeon will make the Core 2 seem useless.

 

[ninjosh97]

What's your specs for curiosity?

Okay, I got the PC, but I've noticed a few issues:

1. It's a vostro 200, and I found this:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/282904-28-upgraded-quad-core-wont-boot

So I found a core2 duo E8500 for $16 on ebay... Not nearly as good as the core2 quad Q9400 but... about the best that motherboard can get I guess.

2. I didn't have quite as much money as I thought, so I was going to scale down the gpu a bit. I found this:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Durable-NVIDIA-GeForce-GTX650-2GB-256Bit-DDR3-Express-3-0x16-Graphics-Video-Card-/251714169765?pt=PCC_Video_TV_Cards&hash=item3a9b556ba5

Any thoughts on that gpu?

Also... I've read that you basically need a quad core (or hyper threading) to get a decent frame rate in demanding games these days... is the E8500 just gonna choke?

Thanks.

 

[mikasa9]

I don't have much experience but i own a e7500 which is like e8500 but slightly worse i think, and next gen games lag a bit, for instance watch dogs i experience stuttering but again that might be due to the game's optimization,
Planetside 2 that has thousand players online at the same time i experience lags there as well,
If todays games arent open world like gta v or watch dogs, and not massive online like bf4 or planetside 2 then your cpu can handle them otherwise you will experience lags and stuff, sometimes less sometimes more depenting on how well the game was made for pc.

I also want to change to core 2 quad and im looking on ebay 😛