Question Considering upgrading from a 3770K to a socket 2011-v3 system

[hoorah]

So my main rig is an I7 3770K with 16GB of DDR3 on a Z77 board. I actually found it at the electronics recycling dropoff 6 years ago and its been working great ever since. I don't remember if its overclocked anymore - it was, then I turned it down when I was having cooling issues, and I don't remember if I turned it back on after I got a new cooler. I think I might have just set it for 'performance' in the UEFI/BIOS. Bottom line, the system is still pretty adequate. GPU is an RX580 4GB card and I play games (rarely) at 1080P. Games played are PUBG (rarely), project cars 2, Division 2, and I might start getting into iracing. I have a backlog of AC games that I never finished from several years back.

Recently, I've found this workstation PC at the recycling center that I thought might make a good upgrade.

Dell Precision T5810.
Xeon E5-1607 V3 cpu (3.1ghz x 4, so slower than the i7 3770K)
No overclocking
Intel C612 chipset (not X99)
16GB (2x8) DDR4 ECC RAM, with 8 slots (6 open), and ability to do quad channel
Has a hardware RAID card, which might be a nice performance boost as my current O/S storage is on a RAID 0 of 2x240GB SSDs.

Going to the dell system, I'd have to pick out a new CPU from ebay and it would be an easy way to get a 6 or 8 core system. In the past, I've gotten some fantastic price/performance spots with de-commissioned xeons, though briefly browsing ebay these 2011 chips seem expensive. I'd lose overclocking support. It seems I can get 8GB sticks of DDR4 ECC ram for $25 each, which seems reasonable, but for now I am okay at 16GB. As an example, I found a Xeon E5-1650 v3 (6 core, 3.5ghz) for $116 shipped on ebay.

I also have a few Dell Optiplex systems with 4790 CPUs, but again, no overclocking support. I think I might use the optiplex 4790 to replace my file server/emby server (an i5 3570).

What do you think? Worth it to switch to the 2011-v3 for just the price of a CPU? Or just sell it for whatever I can get for it and move on with a custom build?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Worth it to switch to the 2011-v3 for just the price of a CPU?

I vote yes.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I don't know much about Socket 2011 or 2011-3 platforms, myself, having never used or owned one, but I've seen posts, I think, about some "Rare" highly-clocked or high-core-count CPUs for those platforms, at the time, being available for peanuts on ebay, coming from some super-secret servers being decommissioned. Something about those CPUs, being an OEM-only and not part of Intel's normal lineup. They may all have been ES's, but I won't say any more about them here. I only have a vague memory about some talk about them.

Edit: I mean, it could a lot of fun, but also consider the platform quality-of-life issues, compared to, say, a modern Ryzen AM4 or TR4 platform. Certainly, the CPUs wouldn't be as cut-rate, but things would be supported, in-warranty, upgradable, and potentially higher-performing, in some use-cases.

But used "big iron x64" rigs, like older decommissioned servers / workstations, do have a certain allure, like 60s muscle cars...

 

[Markfw]

Selling 14 core Xeons at $200 ? They might run at 2.5 ghz, but they almost equal a Ryzen 8 core.

 

[Ajay]

Worth it to switch to the 2011-v3 for just the price of a CPU

I'm with @DAPUNISHER, seems like a great deal!

 

[hoorah]

but I've seen posts, I think, about some "Rare" highly-clocked or high-core-count CPUs for those platforms, at the time, being available for peanuts on ebay,

Generally server level stuff is super cheap on ebay, because there is a big supply and a small market. Im not sure if 'server' scares people off or the compatibility issues (sockets, ECC vs standard RAM, etc) but it seems that nobody buys the stuff. I remember getting 32GB of DDR2 or DDR3 ECC ram for like $25 once for a dual socket build. I used to do a lot of 771 mod systems for people where the equivalent core2quad would be $175 but the same Xeon was $50.

Edit: I mean, it could a lot of fun, but also consider the platform quality-of-life issues, compared to, say, a modern Ryzen AM4 or TR4 platform. Certainly, the CPUs wouldn't be as cut-rate, but things would be supported, in-warranty, upgradable, and potentially higher-performing, in some use-cases.

As much experience as I have building PCs, I have to say that the 'quality-of-life' on OEM systems can be better stability wise on the workstation class machines. You generally don't get the "it bluescreens when running X app while I have my USB mouse plugged into the 3rd port on a tuesday" issues. You can't put it in a nice case to make it pretty though and you cant overclock. I don't really consider warranty in anything I do though.

But used "big iron x64" rigs, like older decommissioned servers / workstations, do have a certain allure, like 60s muscle cars...

They have a certain appeal in that they are workhorses and generally don't complain much. I actually really like the Dell Precision line and have built a lot of gaming boxes out of them for kids, nephews, craigslist buyers, etc. They are unique looking enough that they don't look like your standard optiplex box, but not exactly covered in RGB either.

 

[hoorah]

Selling 14 core Xeons at $200 ? They might run at 2.5 ghz, but they almost equal a Ryzen 8 core.

For my main workstation, I'd be more interested in a higher clocked 6 core since nothing I do is that multi-threaded. I'd possibly consider a 14-core chip if I was going to use this as my emby/plex server, but lately as usage has gone up, more and more people are getting devices that can natively play h.264 and h.265, so my need to transcode has been dropping. I'm not sure where its going to go in the future. Also, it might be more cost effective to get a cheap h.265 capable GPU and offload the transcoding to that. Nothing is forcing my hand right now, which makes it hard to make a decision.

 

[hoorah]

I'm with @DAPUNISHER, seems like a great deal!

Thanks, yeah, I think so too. I'm probably going to go for it.

 

[Shmee]

Free is great, but the lack of OC support really kills it for gaming. I would fix it up and sell it, and use the money towards a faster GPU or better monitor or something, and OC the 3770k with a good cooler.