Xeon E3-1230 vs i5-3570

[Forever Oleg]

I am currently on an extremely tight budget.

The idea is to sell my Steam items and my laptop and buy a cheap trash laptop to run Linux on and get a good gaming rig.

I already have a 25 inch monitor, keyboard, and a mouse. I will be playing F2P games and simple Source-based games on my PC.

I would really like my PC to last through college and be able to handle anything I throw at it - such as Photoshop, OBS, very light video editing, streaming games etc.

I was also thinking about the ability to fix things. I don't think Xeon's platform and its origin will be very easy to fix while i5 will definitely be a more flexible system to replace and repair.

These are the 2 PC's I am looking at:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Z220-Workstation-Bundle-Intel-Quad-Core-i5-3-40GHz-16GB-250GB-HDD-19-KB-MS-/201787997707?hash=item2efb807e0b:g:HxwAAOSw44BYPtHu
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Z210-Workstation-Intel-Xeon-E3-1230-3-2Ghz-8GB-DDR3-1TB-HDD-Quadro-600/112265931079?_trksid=p2047675.c100011.m1850&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D40839%26meid%3D82afa0d6c4954070b8dcd198163ae912%26pid%3D100011%26rk%3D3%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D381926040242

What do you all think?

 

[k1114]

There's no difference in fix-ability, flexibility, replace-ability, or repair-ability. Xeon is but a name and in this case, it's compatible on the same platform. You can stick that xeon into the i5 pc. Even without that difference in name, they're similar model hp workstations so will be similar in most aspects. They're both decent deals I'd expect off ebay. The xeon pc is a better cpu, gpu, hdd and having less ram won't much difference. Plus it has a windows coa if that matters any.

 

[Forever Oleg]

There's no difference in fix-ability, flexibility, replace-ability, or repair-ability. Xeon is but a name and in this case, it's compatible on the same platform. You can stick that xeon into the i5 pc. Even without that difference in name, they're similar model hp workstations so will be similar in most aspects. They're both decent deals I'd expect off ebay. The xeon pc is a better cpu, gpu, hdd and having less ram won't much difference. Plus it has a windows coa if that matters any.

There is something I didn't add in my original post. I will be adding a GTX 1050 2GB to my PC to make it into a gaming rig. I have been looking at the benchmarks of the i5 and the Xeon but do you think Xeon can perform like a champ and even better than the i5?

This may be due to efficiency differences and due to architecture but the benchmarks aren't that astonishing:
https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-3570+%40+3.40GHz
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E3-1230+%40+3.20GHz

I am really thinking about all this in terms of long term performance - will it last me the next 4 years doing all and anything I could think about, but I really don't need anything special - general work, light games, recording, light video editing/Photoshop.

 

[Susquehannock]

As said, those two chips are very similar. However, they do have differences which pertain to their intended usage.

When work is primary concern the Xeon would be the better option since they can utilize ECC memory and TET (Trusted Execution Technology). Also hyperthread capable with larger cache.

The i5 has advantage of faster clock speed and onboard graphics and may be better for a game dedicated set up. Really depends which way you want to go.

 

[k1114]

Don't get caught up in names. It's a sandy bridge 4c/8t that is .2ghz lower vs a ivy bridge 4c/4t. Longer lasting, games will be using more threads in the future. It's already better for the other work you've stated because of the multithreaded performance. Single is only slightly lower from ipc and clock decrease. Overall, there is not even a second thought of which is better.

Txt is for security which shouldn't be a concern. Ecc won't matter for light work. People put too much importance to cache in performance. You'd likely see no difference from it. To mention .2ghz as an advantage for the i5 makes it sound like it'll make more difference than it actually will. Igpu is irrelevant for gaming.