XEON for gaming????

[John Hattam]

Saw the Xeon processors going for a decent price...comparable to that of an i5. was thinking of building this system. budget 750 including monitor. have i made any glaring errors of judgement?

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/johnttam/saved/#savedbuild_1446348

thanks

EDIT: this is not a build exclusively for the gaming, i will be running crystal modelling software also, and this pc will serve me throughout my duration at university

 

[iron8orn]

Looks pretty good.

The Xeon will perform as an i7 but I would recommend the v3 with a higher clock.

I would consider the r9 290x or gtx 970 if you can fit it into the budget.

 

[g-unit1111]

On that budget you're better off getting an i5-4430/i5-4440 and then spending more on the GPU and the PSU. Also avoid Hannspree monitors - they're very cheaply made, not known for quality control and a lot of their displays are prone to dead pixels. Here's what I would do for your budget:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4430 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£130.74 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£65.40 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory (£67.79 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£53.94 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 280 3GB TWIN FROZR Video Card (£146.74 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case (£31.45 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12G 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply (£67.97 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £604.02
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-31 21:30 GMT+0000

That gives you 100 quid left over for whatever monitor you want. Asus, Acer, BenQ, Eizo, and Dell are usually the best monitor manufacturers.

 

[mdocod]

The E3-1220 series does not have hyper-threading enabled, clock for clock they are generally equal in performance to an i5 of the same architecture generation and clock speed. The E3-1231V3 is where things get interesting, as it is typically priced only slightly higher than a nice i5, but DOES have hyperthreading enabled, giving it that i7-like edge in highly threaded workloads.

For gaming, the E3 series works just as well as the i5/i7's that they share guts with. The E3-122X series has been a source of confusion for years, as it is "assumed" to be a hyperthreaded "i7-like" CPU, when in fact, it isn't. The 1220 series is best suited to applications that require the reduced error rate of ECC memory, but do not have high performance demands. (ECC memory is only supported on C200 series chipsets for E3 CPUs). In my experience, the 1220 series is rarely priced competitively enough to bother with as an alternative to an i5 for a gaming machine.

 

[John Hattam]

in terms of the gpu, do i need something above a r9 280 to get decent framerates at ultra 1080p. i know decent is arbitrary, but this is my first build??

i just look at the price of macs and think damn what i could do for that

 

[iron8orn]

my bad, thought it was hyper threaded.

 

[John Hattam]

The E3-1220 series does not have hyper-threading enabled, clock for clock they are generally equal in performance to an i5 of the same architecture generation and clock speed. The E3-1231V3 is where things get interesting, as it is typically priced only slightly higher than a nice i5, but DOES have hyperthreading enabled, giving it that i7-like edge in highly threaded workloads.

For gaming, the E3 series works just as well as the i5/i7's that they share guts with. The E3-122X series has been a source of confusion for years, as it is "assumed" to be a hyperthreaded "i7-like" CPU, when in fact, it isn't. The 1220 series is best suited to applications that require the reduced error rate of ECC memory, but do not have high performance demands. (ECC memory is only supported on C200 series chipsets for E3 CPUs). In my experience, the 1220 series is rarely priced competitively enough to bother with as an alternative to an i5 for a gaming machine.

does this mean that you would recommend the i5 in my situation?
the thing is you can usually tell the kind of specs you will need by what the standard pc's are in the university department. i have looked, and all of the pcs are running i7s (cant tell whether ivy bridge or haswell)
this tells me i might need more grunt but i really dont want to shell out for an i7 if i can help it

 

[iron8orn]

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/ubisoft-assassin-s-creed-unity-requirements,27952.html

You can get ultra a lot/most games with the 280 but if you want to stay at those settings for some years^

 

[mdocod]

Any recent architecture GPU with 24-32ROPs can play any game at 1080P@60FPS. The difference between say, an R7 265 or GTX660, vs an R9 290 or GTX970, is that the 290/970 class of GPUs will pretty consistently be able to deliver 60FPS or better at 1080P with ultra detail setting and a healthy dose of post processing, while the 265/660 class of GPUs will need to have the visual quality and post processing adjusted downward to accommodate the narrower render pipeline.

Performance originates with the CPU. The soft limits of performance imposed by a GPU are typically adjustable (visual quality and FPS are inversely adjustable). If you lock in a resolution, then some of that adjust-ability has been removed.

If this machine is intended to be used for both gaming and productivity, I would advise the E3-1231V3, as it offers the most bang for the buck in its class (locked CPUs in the $200-350 price range).