[SOLVED] I7 950 vs x5650 for gaming

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Lga1366 isn't that hard to find in decent shape, especially considering it wasn't mainstream like 775 or 1156, so very few Dell, HP, knockoff low grade boards.

I'd stick with the Xeon. It'll do everything even an OC 950 can do, and have threads to spare. For a work/play secondary pc, it's kinda hard to beat for the price.
Guessing a Xeon would be murder trying to find a good board.

If you OC the hell out of the i7 I’d expect that to come out on top. Especially older games because I doubt the 6 core will make enough of a difference for modern CPU intensive games as they’re both so old.
 

mgallo848

Commendable



I agree,

Neither one of these CPU's are going to run modern games without struggling / stuttering taking place. If you were to play games from around the same era that these CPU's were born I would say the i7 would be the way to go. Games back then relied on single threaded speed to achieve the highest frame rate.

 
The benchmark shows faster single-core and multi-core from the X5650. Unless you overclock the i7-950 would it have higher single-core speed.

And as the OP stated, it's not a primary system. Either will run any game you want to play, just not as well as a newer CPU.
 

Karadjgne

Titan
Ambassador
Lga1366 isn't that hard to find in decent shape, especially considering it wasn't mainstream like 775 or 1156, so very few Dell, HP, knockoff low grade boards.

I'd stick with the Xeon. It'll do everything even an OC 950 can do, and have threads to spare. For a work/play secondary pc, it's kinda hard to beat for the price.
 
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