Upgrade 5820K to 6950K or part out and replace?

[pdxgfx]

This is a pretty straightforward question. You can get a 6950K off Ebay for $750-900 a pop. That kind of upgrade to my workstation would run circles around my 5820K in Cinema 4D. But is it throwing good money at something better used for a threadripper/i9 system?

 

[theonerm2]

Personally I'd just get the 6950x and upgrade my current system or go threadripper. An i9 7900x system wouldn't be that much better than a 6950x but a threadripper 1920x might be worth looking into. It has similar ipc to the 5820k but double the cores. It comes in at a good price too. Just $668.90. That's a good bit cheaper than the 6950x.

 

[pdxgfx]

The processor is cheaper but I would need to get a new motherboard which cancels that out pretty handily. It's close though, in theory I could scavenge my M.2 drive, 64GB of ram, video card and storage from the original workstation.

 

[mdd1963]

I'd be fearful of getting a dud or relidded/relabeled processor on E-Bay (i.e., a scam, such as a dead 6800/6850 labeled as a 6950, etc...; these happen daily)

Were I willing to spend $900+ dollars on a 'the more cores, the better' solution, if the R7-2700X is not enough, I'd be jumping to the TR1950X or forthcoming 2950X. (which should be worth another 100 MHz across all cores)

 

[theonerm2]

I'd be fearful of getting a dud or relidded/relabeled processor on E-Bay (i.e., a scam, such as a dead 6800/6850 labeled as a 6950, etc...; these happen daily)

Were I willing to spend $900+ dollars on a 'the more cores, the better' solution, if the R7-2700X is not enough, I'd be jumping to the TR1950X or forthcoming 2950X. (which should be worth another 100 MHz across all cores)

And that is exactly why ebay has feedback. If you buy from a seller with good feedback who is in good standing then you most likely won't have to deal with a fake or dead CPU. I've bought at least 5 out of my last 6 CPU's used and the only problem I had was 1 of them didn't wanna overclock very far. The thing to do is never buy from China and always buy from sellers with good feedback. If you see too much negative feedback avoid that seller. Sometimes you'll still get something bad even if you're careful though. There's always the ebay money back guarantee even if you can't work things out with the seller. Still you're taking a risk any time you buy something from ebay. Doesn't matter what you buy. Just be careful who you buy from and don't buy from China. I'd get the 6950x. It's a good upgrade and easy to deal with. You won't have to worry about selling anything. You won't have to reinstall windows.. It would just be a lot less hassle.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Core-i7-6950X-10-Core-3-0GHz-Unlocked-Broadwell-E-Processor-Grade-A/272894563519?epid=15007558289&hash=item3f89c894bf:g:kJ0AAOSwqbxZ6YYs:sc:USPSPriority!41230!US!-1

That seller is likely to sell you a good working CPU.

Just remember if you try overclocking. Broadwell was lucky to go beyond 4.2GHz. Don't expect a very high oc.

 

[pdxgfx]

That 2700 is sure putting out some stellar Cinebench scores which when combined with AE tend to run the gamut on processing power. I can still scavenge the RAM, M.2 drive and Video card from the old workstation too. With the 2700 plus motherboard and another seat of Windows 10 it still comes in less than the $850 I would pay for a used 6950x. Thanks guys, I wouldn't have come up with this solution earlier. I was stuck in Threadripper land which as pretty as it is, isn't cheap. If I need more rendering power than that I can always rent time on a render farm.