3970X a bad idea?

[TyantA]

From a purely TDP standpoint @ 150w, seems to be a less than ideal choice - but I have one - is it workable? 

 

I have a small server case currently in an enclosed room. Seems like a lot of heat to be dumping in there. I guess I have to weigh the climate management with the cost of going a different direction. Also, I don't have a cooler that would fit this processor in this case, so I'd have to buy that. 

 

Otherwise, 6 cores, 12 threads is an upgrade. There's 32GB of ram in there (it's my current workstation) and room for twice that. The pro board has 8 sata ports and at one point I was using (just the mobo) in the server so I know it virtualizes well. On paper, everything looks good except heat and power. 

 

Budget is super tight right now. 

Thoughts? 

[Vr2Io]

You may try figure out does CPU & MoBo have ability limit the power usage in dynamic, in simple say, let CPU have full speed in short duration or light loading, but low speed in opposite, so that could control average power usage.

 

Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 ( 3970X )

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/turbo-boost/turbo-boost-technology.html

 

Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and-technology/turbo-boost/turbo-boost-max-technology.html

[TyantA]

Interesting idea I hadn't considered - thank you! Most of the time this will be under-utilized but it would be nice to have the power if/when needed. If this chip goes in my server, I'd consider making it render videos for me instead of on my workstation. I suppose with it currently in my workstation I could get a sense of what it consumes at idle as well to help inform the decision. 

[TyantA]

The other option is to see if I can find a buyer for the 3970X and pick up a Xeon E5-2697 v2 that this motherboard should support. 12c 24t is a decent upgrade in cores, 20w drop in TDB and also 800Mhz drop in clock per core (500Mhz boost differential). In theory, that would set up the server for multiple VMs, potentially allowing me to sell another computer (replaced by VM) which *should* cover the cost of the upgrade. 

 

Only thing is, I had originally been planning to sell the entire LGA2011 setup and starting from scratch (while it was still worth *something*. If I go this route, I'm pretty much cementing it into server-hood for the remainder of its life. 

 

Then there's still the challenge of finding an LGA2011 cooler that will fit in a 4U case! 

[TyantA]

Update: 

• I went with the 3970X.
• Turns out I used the Noctua cooler I had my my HTPC to cool it; no new purchase required. 

6c/12t is a nice bump over 4, however, I still have plans for min 2 VMs, 1 to be used for gaming, the other, casual gaming. I feel a little short on cores. 

 

Now I found someone selling the aforementioned Xeon E5-2697 v2 (12c 24t) with 128GB of ECC 1866 ram. It's more than I wanted to spend but that would max out this X79 system. 

 

My concern is the drop in clock speeds. It hadn't occurred to me that the Xeon wouldn't be unlocked like the EE chip is. With gaming being a close secondary goal for the VMs, am I better off with more, slower clocked cores of the Xeon or fewer higher clocked cores of the I7 EE? Certainly my wallet prefers the latter option. 

 

The other boon of course is going from 32 > 128GB of ram & DDR 1600 > 1866. 

 

Man I wish Adobe let you install Media Encoder on 3 systems so I could make use of the extra cores if I went the Xeon route...  

[Decto]

It really depends on the game, many games are mostly single threaded so 3Ghz is going to cap the frame rate, and  144FPS at 1080p is unlikely in modern games.

 

If you are looking for a more modest 60FPS then you should be OK with almost any CPU, one of my kids PCs has a i5 2500T 3.3Ghz boost (45W) 4C4T and it seems fine for casual gaming, though does suffer in some of the latest games due to lack of threads.

[TyantA]

On 1/19/2020 at 6:09 PM, Decto said:

It really depends on the game, many games are mostly single threaded so 3Ghz is going to cap the frame rate, and  144FPS at 1080p is unlikely in modern games.

 

If you are looking for a more modest 60FPS then you should be OK with almost any CPU, one of my kids PCs has a i5 2500T 3.3Ghz boost (45W) 4C4T and it seems fine for casual gaming, though does suffer in some of the latest games due to lack of threads.

That's encouraging both as I contemplate server hardware and I literally just received that CPU and unpacked it today to do a budget build with. 

 

For the server, I think I'm passing on the Xeon setup. 2.7Ghz is just feeling to slow this day in age. Better to test use cases with existing hardware first and see how it performs before worrying about spending a munch on other hardware that might actually perform worse. 

 

The objective is totally casual gaming. The projector hooked up to the VM is 60hz. My workstation is more capable in the gaming dept should I feel the crave for higher FPS! 

 

Thanks for your input. I'd still love to hear from anyone running a Xeon E5 V2 to see whether I should even be entertaining that option in the future.