should i swap my i7-5960x for a dual E5-2678v3?

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BLinux

cat lover server enthusiast
Jul 7, 2016
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my current main workstation/gaming machine is a i7-5960x in a ASRock X99 Extreme11 board with 32GB DDR4 and a 1080TI. It's been good, but with the recent price drop on v3 Xeons, I think I can part out the current setup and use that money to buy a HP or Dell workstation class PC with dual E5-2678v3 Xeons, with possibly more RAM. I think I will keep the 1080TI and just move that over.

The 5960x overclocks easily and I have it running at 4Ghz without a sweat (temperatures are still very low even under load). I know I won't be able to overclock the Xeons, so I may lose on single threaded performance. But recently, my work loads involve video editing, and I think I will benefit from more cores and RAM with the editor i'm using.

Thoughts? Does that sound like a good idea?
 

DavidB

Member
Aug 31, 2018
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you single thread speed performance penalty will make this not worth it. As an alternative you could consider replacing your whole setup with a Z390 or X299/X399 setup and get both better power consumption, single threaded performance and more cores. Especially with the Ryzen 3 launch tomorrow many retailers are heavily discounting the Threadripper 2920/2950. (threadripper single thread is ~20% faster than 5960X and multi thread around 40%).

Especially because it's likely that you will be able to sell the whole machine easier than selling the 5960X on its own.
 

BLinux

cat lover server enthusiast
Jul 7, 2016
2,669
1,081
113
artofserver.com
you single thread speed performance penalty will make this not worth it. As an alternative you could consider replacing your whole setup with a Z390 or X299/X399 setup and get both better power consumption, single threaded performance and more cores. Especially with the Ryzen 3 launch tomorrow many retailers are heavily discounting the Threadripper 2920/2950. (threadripper single thread is ~20% faster than 5960X and multi thread around 40%).

Especially because it's likely that you will be able to sell the whole machine easier than selling the 5960X on its own.
Do you have a recommendation on X299/X399 workstation board? I'd like to look at that option, but I was under the impression that the cost would far exceed what I can get for parting out the current system. I'm not looking to spend more for the upgrade; looking at recent ebay sold prices for the components I currently have, it just looked like i could do an even swap to a dual socket v3 xeon. Nonetheless, I'm interested in other options so let me know what X299/X399 boards you might recommend...