Another upgrade opinion

So, I have an i7 3820 and it does everything I want just fine, there's nothing wrong with it.

The only benefit I'd really see by upgrading would be my DC work, which I don't mind. Also, maybe down the road there might be a program or other benefit I don't see yet. In any case I have the money so I don't mind spending it, if the value is good.

I've seen some used Xeon E5 2690 chips on Ebay, they're used but going for about 15% of new price. I expect I'd see some performance gains with DC but how about the rest of computing?

Just how well do server chips do with home PC's anyways?

I've had bad experiences asking questions in other areas on OC , hoping someone here might be using xeons.

IMO, it's up to you to decide. The Xeons will give you more cores, but at a slower clockspeed. The other things to consider are mobo and ram. Server ram can add up quickly, server grade boards $$.

Question, are you planning a new build or just a processor upgrade?
Server chips are generally fine for day to day stuff, however, rest of the setup may make it not feel as "snappy".

I'm not currently running any Xeons, though I do have 2 MP Opteron rigs.
On my 4p, the processors were the cheap part. Got 4 for 300.00 on E-bay. Board was about 750.00, ram was 4-500.00, another 100.00 for 4 cheap HSFs and a PSU to power it all.

I'm not trying to talk you out of anything. Look at my sig, I'm the LAST person to try to sway you. Those are pretty much dedicated crunchers, my daily is an antique laptop.

donuts said:

The other things to consider are mobo and ram. Server ram can add up quickly, server grade boards $$..

Click to expand...

I would be replacing my current 3820 with the 2690. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_2011 So, Mobo and ram aren't a consideration. I'm not building a new computer, I'm augmenting my current one.

I'm not looking for better gaming performance. The question is if anyone's put a Xeon chip in their home PC and have the DC gains been significant over an i5 or i7 for instance?

The 2690 is the top of the line with 8 cores (version 1) for my socket.

The price is low enough (for me) that I might just buy it and experiment. I have a spare Mobo, so I could always just build a dedicated DC rig if the 2690 doesn't work well in my current system.

In that case, if it were me, I'd do it. (looking further, my 3930k is a 6 core version, thus "upgrade" path for me also. )

IMO, other than possibly some instruction sets on the chip for server use, it's not really much different than Chevy > GMC
Other than the extra cores, you shouldn't see much difference in day to day operation.

You "may" generate a little extra heat, and be sure to allow enough ram for Rosie usage.
IIRC, Evilsizer is working on a Xeon build.

Update: Installed the new chip today. Nvidia wouldn't work off the old drivers, had to dl new drivers.

I'll see in a short while the impact on my daily rosetta output. A portion of my cpu goes to GPUgrid, we'll see if there's any change to that as well.

I'm gonna stick the i7 3820 I pulled into another system and retire my core2 quad - it still works fine, but just seems too far behind the curve.

Good for you and the project.
Know the feeling, my 775 is sitting on a shelf.

I did re-read this early this morning and wondered the outcome.

Well, Rosie is still going up, and I'm well please with the results. Definitely a good buy.

When I get around to putting the 3820 back to work I expect my RAC will climb well over 10k. Kind of tempted to buy another 2690 instead...

xeons have a few other options enabled that consumers wouldnt need, performance is going to be the same assuming same clock speed. where the xeons come in IMO, is getting hex cores for cheap. my first gen i7 x58 board retails for 200ish some posted for 250, i would spend that or more for a newer board+hex core. the newer hex cores cost quiet a bit more then not to mention i would need DDR4 if looking at a x99 setup. i spent $70ish on a xeon X5660 with a mild oc mind you but its a hex core with a stock speed of 2.8ghz running at 3.6ghz right now. this is just for DC work, i just did another order with newegg for some different ram due to a ram ratio issue so i might be able to get higher speed ram going. as my orignal aim was to have 3.8-4ghz clock at ddr3-1600 but i have to use such a high blck to get 3.6ghz@DDR3-1600. i wound up with some DDR3-2400 sticks 16gb so that means going from tri to dual, i dont think im going to lose all that much BW it is going to affect Rosetta at all, if any.


Sticking with what you have now isnt a bad call and then wait for prices to drop a bit more for the xeons. since i have not used the newer x79/x99 boards i have no idea if you can still use the blck to increase clock speed like the first gen i5/i7's.

Going from a 4 core to an 8 core has had a definitive result in DC. I was previously doing RAC of ~4500, I'm now approaching 8000 with the 8 core. Performance in other areas really hasn't changed (there has been some relatively minor things), but that was as I expected.

As I was considering buying a new i7 6 core for double the money that I spent on a used e5 8 core I feel it was money well spent.

I also feel better about buying a xeon as I believe (personal opinion) that it is likely to have come from a business environment and would not have been over clocked or otherwise screwed around with.