Xeon CPU?

[Regz]

Essentially, I would like to know how much better some of the Xeon chips are than Intels range of i7/i5's in gaming. I've seen a few Xeons on ebay noticeably around the £130 mark and compared to i7 chips are significantly cheaper. The motherboards seem to look fairly expensive though however x58 boards can be picked up reasonably second hand. Are there any drawbacks to xeon chips in gaming or should i stick with going for an i-series range.

 

[DominionSeraph]

X58 Xeons are going to be slower than a new Haswell i5 or i7. They're three generations behind. If it was a hex-core for £130 that might be close, but with i5 4670k being £163 I would not say that's an enticing price for a quad.

E: Oh, but this is interesting:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Intel-Xeo...Computing_CPUs_Processors&hash=item3f329b3210

 

[Regz]

Have currently got a z68 board and am considering a i7-2600k for £130, does that xeon perform comparably? there are quite a few xeons around that price, not familiar with the model numbers i'm afraid

 

[DominionSeraph]

If you have a z68 get the i7 2600k. Here's a comparison of what that Xeon hex-core would look like overclocked to 3.33GHz vs a stock clocked i7 2600k. (and the 2600k's are great overclockers -- a few even hit 5GHz.):

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/142?vs=287

 

[ShintaiDK]

Have currently got a z68 board and am considering a i7-2600k for £130, does that xeon perform comparably? there are quite a few xeons around that price, not familiar with the model numbers i'm afraid

They perform exactly the same if the specs are the same.

 

[scannall]

The Xeon x5650's and x5660's are pretty beastly. And cheap. They are great overclockers as well. There is a very long thread with benchmarks over at overclock.net.

I have decided to go that route, instead of Haswell. I'm waiting on the next generation and DDR4. I already have everything except the Xeon though. So it's just a $150 investment for the upgrade.

Xeon thread.

 

[MongGrel]

The Xeon x5650's and x5660's are pretty beastly. And cheap. They are great overclockers as well. There is a very long thread with benchmarks over at overclock.net.

I have decided to go that route, instead of Haswell. I'm waiting on the next generation and DDR4. I already have everything except the Xeon though. So it's just a $150 investment for the upgrade.

Xeon thread.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2335636&highlight=l5639&page=54

 

[DominionSeraph]

They perform exactly the same if the specs are the same.

And which LGA1366 Xeon would have the same specs as a LGA1156 i7 2600k?
They're different generations.

 

[MongGrel]

Yeah they aren't the same.