Douple CPU Build?

[MangoMursu]

I'm interested in building a PC like this:

http://www.techspot.com/review/1155-affordable-dual-xeon-pc/

Is the E5-2670 still the best bang for a buck CPU or should I coinsider something else? Also is there any potholes that I should be aware of when it comes to double CPUs?

Oh.. and I'm planning to utilize my GTX 1070 with this, it should work, right?

 

[LouieSmith66]

tbh i was thinking the same thing apart from the motherboards for these CPU's are expensive if you are looking for Dual CPU but for using one in a system it is just shy of a i 7 4790 but having them in a dual system will be better for like lets say cinebench r15 but not really gaming.

Hope this helps.

I would get a i7 4790k or 6700k or 7700k thats your best bet.

 

[captaincharisma]

not sure what you mean by potholes but you will have to use ECC ram as it is the only option for most server boards which is more expensive then normal DDR ram but it sounds like you have a blank cheque anyway for considering something like this

 

[TechyInAZ]

If your using your rig exclusively for gaming, you can pretty much forget a dual Xeon build.

Games require good single threaded performance, which is why core i5s and i7s usually always beat out highly threaded xeons.

 

[MangoMursu]

If your using your rig exclusively for gaming, you can pretty much forget a dual Xeon build.

Games require good single threaded performance, which is why core i5s and i7s usually always beat out highly threaded xeons.

I do some gaming but not a lot anymore. I would use it mostly for content creation like rendering, modeling and audio design

 

[fluked]

I agree with the above. Most modern games should benefit from more cores if it comes to that. Most, but not all modern games run on the GPU, which in theory, don't even need 2 cores. ..in theory.

I ran a couple of modern games on my current system that uses 2 x 2630v4 with 256GB of memory and didn't notice any difference due to the GPU, however I'm not really a gamer. There would arise issues if I tried older games.

But you're sort of thinking right. With mutiple threads increasing, the window of which a game won't run on the GPU or fall back on multiple cores is shrinking fast. Hence the uptake on builds like you originally found.

And BTW, on most dual socket mobos you only have to run 1 CPU. You can install another later on if you need to double up power.

 

[TechyInAZ]

If your using your rig exclusively for gaming, you can pretty much forget a dual Xeon build.

Games require good single threaded performance, which is why core i5s and i7s usually always beat out highly threaded xeons.

I do some gaming but not a lot anymore. I would use it mostly for content creation like rendering, modeling and audio design

Ah ok. Then a build like what your suggesting would benefit you.

 

[TechyInAZ]

If your using your rig exclusively for gaming, you can pretty much forget a dual Xeon build.

Games require good single threaded performance, which is why core i5s and i7s usually always beat out highly threaded xeons.

I do some gaming but not a lot anymore. I would use it mostly for content creation like rendering, modeling and audio design

Ah ok. Then a build like what your suggesting would benefit you.

 

[shisai]

If you are focusing on Gaming or Standard PC usage (pretty much anything outside of Video Editing/Compositing and 3D Graphics Rendering or SETI/Folding@home stuff) More cores do not necessarily mean more end user performance.

Tom's Hardware did a great article in relation to CPU core scaling in Gaming. (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/multi-core-cpu-scaling-directx-11,4768.html) It shows that beyond 4 usable cores there is barely an increase in performance assuming similar clocks. Its also assumes no Hyper-threading which is something that will further decrease the difference in performance between chips. That's not to say that this won't eventually change down the road as this was done using DirectX 11 but by the time it does the older xeons will be even more outdated. (here's hoping for Part2: Direct X 12).

Point is that anything you would gain in cores and available memory (8slots vs 4) is quickly lost in the internal IPC improvements in the now 5 generations of processors since that Sandy Bridge based Xeon, Chipset improvements in the Z170/270 series including support for PCI-express/M.2 based drives, DDR4 support which is far more economical than when that article was written, and Clocks on the cores (4.2 Ghz with 4.5boost is more than 1.5 times the base clock of the xeon).

Its not that there isn't more power in Dual CPUs with more than 4 cores/8 threads but most applications don't know how to use it. Multiple Cores have been around for a long time but many new apps/games at their core are not efficiently threaded. Also keep in mind that 2x 8core CPUs is not going to run the same speed as 1x 16 core CPU for the same reason that SLI isn't exactly double the speed of a single GPU. Those are probably the closest things you could compare to 'potholes' of this setup.


**Edit: I would also advise waiting to see AMDs offerings with Ryzen. (8core/16T chips) Even if you aren't interested in AMD, based on their alleged performance, I could see Intel being forced to drop prices to compete for the first time in years.