Is the Xeon right for me?

PezFX

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Jan 27, 2015
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I'm looking to spend 200 pounds or just over on a CPU and I'm stuck if I should get a Xeon or i5? I will be doing heavy gaming, heavy streaming, heavy video editing, medium 3d rendering and heavy adobe work as well (Photoshop, premier, after effects etc) so what do you think? Leave the suggestions below :)
 
Solution
The e3 Xeons are great at all tasks. The 1231v3/1241v3 will perform identically the the 4770.
The 1241v3 is not worth the extra money over the 1231v3. The 1245v3/1246v3 may be worth a little extra though since they have integrated graphics.
I'd say in this case, it would be more dependent on what you plan to do more of. Traditionally, Xeons aren't really designed for gaming performance as they're workstation / server class CPUs. Other things come into play as well like which models of the i5 / Xeon specifically you're looking at and how much cache etc. each one has.

Given your budget though, and the fact that you basically want an all purpose CPU, why not go with an i7-4790k? That will essentially give you the best of all worlds. Which motherboard are you using / planning to use anyway?
 



For the Adobe, video editing etc., Xeon would certainly be better, but on the gaming front, a Core i series CPU would have the edge. Few, if any games would be able to take advantage of the amount of threads a Xeon has available and higher clocks typically provide more of an advantage in games than higher threads.

It all depends what the higher priority is - workstation or gaming performance.
 


the Xeon 1231v3 is essentially a 4770 without a IGPU for 70-80$ less. it will play games just as well as any i5/i7 haswell Cpu's, OP if you plan to use any Program that take advantage of hyperthreading then the Xeon is perfect for you, it cant be overclocked but you can lock the turbo to 3.7/3.8 ghz if i remember correctly, the Xeon 1231v3 is an awesome CPu that does everything a 4770 does for cheaper and it also supports ECC memory if your into that stuff.

Xeon 1231v3 > any current i5 for the needs you posted above.
 


It was the 4790, not the 4770 I was suggesting. The Xeon is perfectly capable on all fronts, including gaming, but coming back to my point about priority - it depends which is of more importance. With the turbo setting, the 4790 achieves 4.4 GHz without overclocking and higher clocks usually have the advantage in games vs. more threads.
 

\\the 4790 does not acheive 4.4 with turbo. Thats the 4790k....
 


If you read my original message carefully, that's exactly what I said - the 4790k:

"Given your budget though, and the fact that you basically want an all purpose CPU, why not go with an i7-4790k? That will essentially give you the best of all worlds"

 


That is your post... It says 4790, but what ever lol no point in arguing anymore
 


I said the original post, which is where I referenced the 4790k. Given that's what I was originally talking about, it was implied it was the k version I was talking about when I said 4790 😛

 
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1241 V3 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£218.60 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£70.16 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£58.56 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£37.99 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB Video Card (£169.15 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Thermaltake Versa H21 ATX Mid Tower Case (£27.72 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£38.87 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £621.05
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-25 20:49 GMT+0000

That is the best bet you could do. You could find a cheaper GPU, aka 280, but its really up to you
 
If you want to fit anything above a 280/960,

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1241 V3 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£218.60 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£70.16 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£58.56 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£37.99 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 280X 3GB Dual-X Video Card (£217.80 @ Dabs)
Case: Thermaltake Versa H21 ATX Mid Tower Case (£27.72 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£38.87 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £669.70
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-25 20:56 GMT+0000

Its over 650. I would go for those cards if you put a budget of atleast 680 pounds
 
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 V3 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£205.06 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£70.16 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£54.00 @ Kustom PCs)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£37.99 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 280X 3GB TWIN FROZR Video Card (£175.54 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Thermaltake Versa H21 ATX Mid Tower Case (£27.72 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: Antec TruePower Classic 650W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£59.98 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £630.45
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-25 20:59 GMT+0000
 


That is acutlayy your best bet. If you base ot off of 1241, you wont be able to fit in a 290/280x.

The 1234 performs similar to the 1241..
 


That is acutlayy your best bet. If you base ot off of 1241, you wont be able to fit in a 290/280x.

The 1234 performs similar to the 1241..
 


I would personally go with the Xeon if you plan on doing some heavy video editing in addition to gaming.
 

save yourself the money on the 1241v3 and just get a 1231v3 the 100mhz difference is not worth the extra $, use the extra cash and get a better mobo.