What is better for gaming? Xeon X5687 or Xeon X5690?

[Bobguyawesome]

There is two Xeon processors that are top of the line for my motherboard. The Xeon X5687 has 4 cores and 8 threads at 3.60 GHz. The Xeon X5690 is a 6 core 12 thread at 3.46 GHz. As of now I have 2 Xeon E5649s and they are not going well with my GTX 970. Would it be worth upgrading my Xeon processors or just ditch the entire computer itself and get something entirely new?

 

[delaro]

X5690 with it's slightly more physical cores would be better. Anything on 1366 is going to struggle a bit now just because of the improvements on the motherboard, ram speed and IPC newer CPU's are capable of delivering.

Gaming wise your only making use of 1 CPU.

 

[dontlistentome]

I'd go with the Xeon X5687, the higher clockspeed will make a difference in gaming more than the extra cores or threads of the X5690. Your current Xeons are slow, due in part to being lower power demanding CPUs. The X5687 will be using a lot more power.

One thing I'd do before I spent money on this is to make sure either a X5687 or X5690 can give you the kind of framerate you're looking for with a 970 class videocard. There's no point of buying the fastest CPU your motherboard can handle if it still won't be enough. Ditching it for something new as in 'brand new'? That would be expensive right now but if you have the money then yes, brand new would be better. You could also buy used, maybe move all you components to an Ivy Bridge/Haswell based system. It would be better than what you have, work well with your 970, and not cost as much as an all new system. The downside is you'd be sinking more money into outdated tech and it's used, so reliability might be questionable.

 

[jaslion]

There is two Xeon processors that are top of the line for my motherboard. The Xeon X5687 has 4 cores and 8 threads at 3.60 GHz. The Xeon X5690 is a 6 core 12 thread at 3.46 GHz. As of now I have 2 Xeon E5649s and they are not going well with my GTX 970. Would it be worth upgrading my Xeon processors or just ditch the entire computer itself and get something entirely new?

You will still be only using 1 cpu since there are only a couple games that actually use more than 12 thread but they barely use those extra threads anyways (other thread are rarely used to max anyways).

You need to seriously evaluate if the upgrade will get you the improvement that you want since it's just a 0.5ish ghz upgrade over the cpu's you have. Currently both x5867 or x5690 are min spec for almost all new games now and have quite weak single core performance.

 

[Bobguyawesome]

I'd go with the Xeon X5687, the higher clockspeed will make a difference in gaming more than the extra cores or threads of the X5690. Your current Xeons are slow, due in part to being lower power demanding CPUs. The X5687 will be using a lot more power.

One thing I'd do before I spent money on this is to make sure either a X5687 or X5690 can give you the kind of framerate you're looking for with a 970 class videocard. There's no point of buying the fastest CPU your motherboard can handle if it still won't be enough. Ditching it for something new as in 'brand new'? That would be expensive right now but if you have the money then yes, brand new would be better. You could also buy used, maybe move all you components to an Ivy Bridge/Haswell based system. It would be better than what you have, work well with your 970, and not cost as much as an all new system. The downside is you'd be sinking more money into outdated tech and it's used, so reliability might be questionable.

Framerate, I would have to say better than what it is now, currently like 20-35 fps in GTA5 on generous settings and i'm not happy with it because I know how good this card could do. Also I have 12GB of ram at 1333Mhz and on the other CPU side I have 24gb at 1066Mhz could this mess with things?

 

[dontlistentome]

Personally I'm not a big fan of doing things...unusual let's say. Gaming on a system with two CPUs and two different speeds of ram, that's not what GTA V was designed to use.

If you were to run MSI Afterburner while playing GTA V, what does it show you for CPU usage and memory used?

 

[jaslion]

I'd go with the Xeon X5687, the higher clockspeed will make a difference in gaming more than the extra cores or threads of the X5690. Your current Xeons are slow, due in part to being lower power demanding CPUs. The X5687 will be using a lot more power.

One thing I'd do before I spent money on this is to make sure either a X5687 or X5690 can give you the kind of framerate you're looking for with a 970 class videocard. There's no point of buying the fastest CPU your motherboard can handle if it still won't be enough. Ditching it for something new as in 'brand new'? That would be expensive right now but if you have the money then yes, brand new would be better. You could also buy used, maybe move all you components to an Ivy Bridge/Haswell based system. It would be better than what you have, work well with your 970, and not cost as much as an all new system. The downside is you'd be sinking more money into outdated tech and it's used, so reliability might be questionable.

Framerate, I would have to say better than what it is now, currently like 20-35 fps in GTA5 on generous settings and i'm not happy with it because I know how good this card could do. Also I have 12GB of ram at 1333Mhz and on the other CPU side I have 24gb at 1066Mhz could this mess with things?

That odd ram config does impact cpu performance on dual cpu boards. It can be from a little to a lot. So I would say remove the 1333mhz ram and spread the 1066mhz out and see what that does.
With that new cpu you will only see about a 17% increase in single core performance so that should make the game stay at above 30 fps at least.

 

[Bobguyawesome]

Personally I'm not a big fan of doing things...unusual let's say. Gaming on a system with two CPUs and two different speeds of ram, that's not what GTA V was designed to use.

If you were to run MSI Afterburner while playing GTA V, what does it show you for CPU usage and memory used?

Here is a bench video, "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGECYPJsjh4&t=107s" apologies if we are not suppose to send links.

 

[dontlistentome]

Looking at the video, I see you have vsync on. That can impact your framerate if your system is unable to keep the framerate over 60fps at all times assuming you're using a 60hz monitor. What happens if you run the benchmark with no vsync?

As to the memory, you could try running your 1333 memory at 1066 and test the game to see if it makes any difference. A 1ghz bump in clockspeeds makes a big difference to how the older Xeons perform.

 

[failboat]

you want an acceptable single thread score and highest possible multi-thread. The X ones are 40-50% faster in single thread. You should feel nice performance increases. New cpus have 90% more single thread.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

You are going to burn so much power using that old stuff.

 

[c.meul1979]

you want an acceptable single thread score and highest possible multi-thread. The X ones are 40-50% faster in single thread. You should feel nice performance increases. New cpus have 90% more single thread.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

You are going to burn so much power using that old stuff.

I do agree and i don't agree with your last statement here..

I'm running a x5650 coupled with a 1060 3 gb and its amazing... I do feel the lack of speed when i play total war warhammer for instance... eg if i play 1080p and use fxaa i have a tremendous experience... If i oc to around 3,6 ghz with 3,99mhz in turbo i can play 1080p high anti alias times 4.. Yes i'm using somewhat more power and yes new systems will literally obliterate my ratings but don't forget with high speed ddr 4 4k graphics and such and way higher strains on the machine there prob won't be that much of a difference and certainly not when the gpu is the place where the most activity is happening...

I'm actually ordering a new board in the next weeks... I blow up on of my pcie slots on my old and trusted p6t replacing it with a board thats xeon worthy.. This post even made me consider to grab a x5687 for 50 bucks to see if this will satisfy my gaming needs in a other way