Using Xeon on a normal computer, also, xeon MOBO

[captainvera]

Hi,


So, I won a xeon processor in a contest (weird right?) and i know they are mainly used for servers, but can i use it as the processor of a normal pc? what are the advantages/disadvantages? The main problem is that i don't know if there are any xeon MOBOS with pcie lanes...

On a side note, how does a xeon compare to normal cpu's in, for example, gaming?


Thanks in advance!

 

[Xylon123]

Hi,

You'll need to say what socket Xeon it is, i.e. 1155, 1156, 1366, 2011. All motherboards with these sockets have PCI-E lanes.

Also, since Xeons are mainly used in server environments, as you noted, they're optimised for multithreaded workload by having lots of cores. Games don't use more than four at most, but Xeons are very respectable processors still.

 

[WR2]

Xeon is the server version of Intel's CPUs.

The model of Xeon makes a lot more difference than the brand name.

Xeons mostly match up with the consumer versions of CPUs very closely.

Sandy Bridge versions of
i5-2500K / i7-2600K and Xeon E3-1240 / Xeon E3-1270

Main difference between those is the i5-2500K 3.3Ghz $220 has no hyper-threading w/ 6MB L3 cache and Xeon E3-1240 3.3Ghz $266 has hyper threading w/ 8MB L3 cache. All use socket 1155 motherboards.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

The Intel® Xeon® processors share a common microarchitecture with our desktop processors. Now some features will be turned on and other off (like ECC memory on the Intel Xeon® processors). So you shouldn't have any problems running anything on these processors.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

 

[captainvera]

i'm currently at work so i can't really check the sockets =/ i'll do it later... sry!

 

[Xylon123]

i'm currently at work so i can't really check the sockets =/ i'll do it later... sry!

No problem.