[SOLVED] I7 1st Gen

[ChrisJJ]

Howzit everybody

Is is still possible to get a i7 980 or 990x
Cpu still, really looking for 1.
Preferably in south africa.

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

You can look on Ebay and Aliexpress though you should be investing in that generation of hardware/ecosystem.

 

[jay32267]

Yes they are on EBay.

I actually bought an i7-980 on Ebay a few years ago and I'm still running it on an ASUS P6T motherboard from 2009.

 

[ChrisJJ]

Yes they are on EBay.

I actually bought an i7-980 on Ebay a few years ago and I'm still running it on an ASUS P6T motherboard from 2009.

Thanks, I am also running a p6tse board with a 960 cpu, 24gig ram, decent gpu but want to maximize the cpu

 

[jay32267]

Thanks, I am also running a p6tse board with a 960 cpu, 24gig ram, decent gpu but want to maximize the cpu

My P6T originally had an i7-920......so it was quite an improvement. from what I recall the performance difference between the 980 and 990x is pretty small.

 

[ChrisJJ]

My P6T originally had an i7-920......so it was quite an improvement. from what I recall the performance difference between the 980 and 990x is pretty small.

Will the xeon x5690 run on our mobo?

 

[jay32267]

Will the xeon x5690 run on our mobo?

It's not specced to run>>>

P6T SE - Support

www.asus.com

I have a P6T Deluxe and it's not specced to run on that either....but I've heard Xeons can sometimes run in place on certain boards.....even when not on the list.....but I wouldn't know with these boards specifically.

 

[GarrettL]

I see a 980 in the US on Ebay for $75.

If you're gaming on this old platform it's going to suffer a bit. I had a i7 920 in my Gigabyte U3DR mobo and installed a 960 with a mild overclock to 3.8GHz. This didn't help with micro-stutters in some games such as BF V when using a RTX 2070S.

That was my first real gaming PC and it's still running today. The biggest upgrade to improve performance was an SSD. But it's been retired from gaming.

 

[uWebb429]

The Xeon W3670 is a good processor for X58 motherboards. They sell for only $25 on eBay.

The Xeon W3680 is exactly the same as the Core i7-980X but the Xeon always costs less. Both have an unlocked multiplier so they are easy to overclock on any X58 motherboard. The Xeon W3690 and i7-990X are the same CPU. All of these overclock to more or less the same speed so no need to spend extra money on a more expensive processor.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Generally ebay is your best bet for sourcing CPUs of this era, although AliExpress can also be useful.

The Xeons are often much better value than the i7s. I recently got a Xeon X5670 for all of $10. Out of the box it's a bit slower than the i7 980x/990x, but I was able to overclock it to ~4.3ghz (via bclk) which would make it outperform a 980x/990x for a small fraction of the cost.

I cannot say for certain, but I would be very surprised if your motherboard did not work with Xeons. Most X58 boards can accept Xeons even if the board doesn't specifically list support for it.

For example, I use the X5670 on an MSI X58A-GD65, which doesn't officially support any Xeon X series chips. My Asus Rampage iii Formula doesn't have support for any Xeons officially, but has worked with both the x5670 and e5620 I have tried.