12 Cores & 24 Threads For $30 - "Maxing Out" an HP Workstation PC For Gaming

Ive been running my workstation with dual xeon e5 2630 v2 since about 2015
I do 3d modeling and rendering
I bought a asus rtx 2080ti just before covid hit for 1250 dollars
No gaming though
I want to upgrade my whole setup like a z90 mob and i913900 plus 4090
Gonna by it slowly since im short on cash 💸 💰 🤑 😌 🤧 🤪

HELLO, I HAVE HP Z620 WORKSTATION PC. MY MOTHERBOARD IS Hewlett-Packard 158A. I HAVE XEON E5 2620 PROCESSOR.
DOES THEY SUPPORT XEON E5 2690 OR
I HAVE ONE MORE QUESTION, CAN YOU RECOMMEND ME AMD GRAPHICS CARDS COMPATIBLE WITH THESE PROCESSORS THAT WILL NOT CREATE A BOTTLENECK?

I bought an E5-2696 v2 and I can't get it to boot, bit it works with my old cpu (E5-1603).

How did you manage to make it work, since these CPUs arent listed in HP z420 quickspecs?

I own a XEON E5-1650 V2 with RTX 2080 and it runs better on gaming, but sometimes 40 fps with 60% GPU utilization

You alude to the fact many times in this video that with a better motherboard you could over lock this chip. You can't. The most you could do us lock the multiplier at its max. Only the 1650, 1660 and 1680 v1 and v2 CPUs are the only xeons that are overclockable on this socket.

HP workstations are beasts. our 24/7 facility uses them and they very rarely break down

hey matie wanted to point out that for cyberpunk i would disagree with it being more gpu intensive, rather if you check the on screen stats it is using all the cores, so i think its just simply using the cpu more efficiently than other games

i absolutely love builds like these. just taking some random business desktop and slamming a GPU in there.

We have a Z620 in our home office, still cuts 4K footage no problem with effects and color grading included. It features e5-2696v2, 48GB of ram and a RX 480 8gb, literally can render and run on all 100% for days.

👍👍👍👍

just found e5 2630 v3 (8/16) for $2 on aliexpress

Can would love to see you take a 4070ti and put it into different generations of machine to see if the frame generation makes up for low cpu power

Very interesting, i maybe wanted to upgrade my old pc, it has p9x79 board pro i think with intel i74820k with gtx1060 and maybe more cores for 50 euro is a good idea

The Xeon E5 2697 v2 is a multithread power horse, maybe not the best for gaming. the figures in the video show low cpu usage at high Mhz speed so you would prefer a lower CPU count with higher turbo speed like the E5-2667 V2 . Try it, It would be nice to be the result and the E5 are soooooo cheap now...

Hi i have xeon w3680 with 1660 super but im not able to play games like uncharted and last of us they don't even open, kindly help if anyone know about this!

What would be the best cpu compatible?

I'm impressed that this processor will run on this CPU. I have this very same Z420, with the 1650 processor. it lists the 8-core 2667v2 as the top compatible chip, but I suppose that's because the 2697v2 hadn't been created yet. I'd like to know if the system gave you any troubles when installing this 2697v2?

Hai where did u find these cheap pc parts?

You can find a 8x slot 256gb ddr4, 2 dual cpu slots for this cpu for 100$. Pretty impressive for 140$ for motherboard and cpu

I had stuttering problems in some games with Elpida ddr3 registered ram, all memory did test ok, tried samsung and hynix and no problems.

Hello I have a hp 420 and an gtx 1080 ti , If possible I want to put an atx 1000 psu, how did you attach the psu to the hp case, the holes don't align?

These aging Xeons can be a good deal sometimes .. I was about to buy one, plus motherboard and Ram for a really good price on Ali, 6 months ago .. I'm gonna say it right away, if you need something to do pretty much anything, including gaming, they are not the best choice in my opinion .. why ?? .. they have lots of cores, which can be great for encoding, 3D rendering, but games won't use all these cores .. they are still using about 8 threads on average, not much more .. frequencies are pretty low ln these cpus, again this won't help to have a good framerate in your games .. they are also power hungry, so they can be a bit challenging to cool down .. See ?? Old Xeons are not the best choice out there .. but if you don't care about new AAA games, if your budget is low, and if you like to tweak/build stuff by yourself, a cpu like this can make you happy 👍👍

Seemed odd that the CPU stat hardly ever showed much of a load.

I run that processor with a cheap chinese MB abd an rx 570

i still left the motherboard in the dusk under my desk... when i see this.. i might wanna turn on that thing back...

I dont know where you found this system for $30 but in my country these systems are sold for arount 400 Euros with lower spec cpu. The cpu you are refering to is sold for around 100 Euros. So it is not only power hungry, it is also quite costly for a so old system. For the same money you buy a Ryzen 5900X which is a far better cpu. Thanks for the info though.

For the prices you can get those high core count xeons they are surely a nice way to build a cheap system. Not energy efficient and you will have to accept that the cpu will bottleneck in certain games when the core count doesn´t matter. But overall quite usable from my experience.
Sure a brand new 6 core 12 thread cpu is likely running circles around it but those will probably cost you more for the cpu alone then what you would pay for the entire xeon workstation.
I´d argue that hyperthreading should however be disabled as the benefit of more threads is totally offset by the fact that most games do not utilize that amount anyways and that it will negatively impact single core performance. So 12 core 12 threads should be the way to go with this system.

By disable Hyperthreading my games boost up to 10% in FPS

Imagine playing Quake 3 Arena on a 386 (and with decent framerates). That's how much progression in CPU performance has slowed down.

what program is that showing the data in the cpu overlay

The 2680 v2 is also a respectable choice, and may be better for gaming and energy savings. 100 MHz higher turbo and a 15 watt drop in TDP. It's a 10-core, but what modern game actually takes full advantage of that, let alone 12 cores?

Why would you buy pre-built in the first place.

You left a lot of performance on the table by using a pci 4 GPU on a pci 3 system.

These old Xeon systems are often incredible value for money, I have some of the Dell Precision series running Xeon V4s at work and have no need to change them out. Not to mention, despite the age, the chassis/cases are super durable (but heavy) and can withstand being moved around without damage - makes modern cases look like tin cans.

If you upgrade all the thermal paste/pads on the motherboard, cpu, and graphics card to thermal grizzly products like (hydronaught) and (minus pad) and upgrade the fans to more powerful ones you can get the system alot cooler for better speeds and overclocking. Having the airflow setup just right can make a massive difference. Also adding a (M.2 NVME SSD to PCIe) you can add a m.2 slot to the pc and get a decent amount of faster loading speeds. IVe tried a (M.2 NVME SSD to PCIe) mixed with a Hynix P31 M.2 500gb and managed to get 3000mbps on an older pc from the mid 2000's. The main pc i tried it on was a 2006 motherboard with a 4core celeron processor and managed to have 60-80fps 4k ultra settings in gta5 with a 6600xt graghics card with at most the system is at 55 degrees and no overclocking thanks to thermal grizzly and hynix.

What about undervolting?

I wonder what would happen, if you turned off the HyperThreading and just run it with 12 cores / threads? I think the bottleneck is in memory access, so that would cut the bandwidth need and free up cache for the remaining threads 🤔

I had one of these w/s at work and boy! could it crunch some numbers! A perfect little w/s that can be run as s server if you stack out the ram to max. Mine had the nVidia Quadro W/S graphics card in it which cost a fortune at the time (and was hardly used as mine was used for background tasks and mostly without a monitor attached as I used it with rdp).

Great vid. There is a lot of older hardware out there that's very capable with the right video card paring. I have a Phenom II 6 core system (vmware whitebox) with a 1650 in it that I used as a backup to my outgoing 10 year old I5 4690K gaming box. That Phenom holds its own, as did most iterations of that processor. Quite astounding for a 13 year old processor built on 15 year old architecture. I'm moving to an I5 13 gen today, so I'm going to compare the phenom and I5 4th gen with the 1650 to see which one is actually better.

me watching with my i5 9400F waiting to upgrade for 3 generations

I run a z420 with an GTX1080 and a 2697v2 with the stock heatsink.

WHen you get a faster PC.... but have to stay at work just as long!

This BLOWS my MIND, i cant believe any of this you can see al the cores % and even cyberpunk all cores WORK !!!

Core 21 and Core 6 were taking the heat in the Witcher 3. Strange.

I have something similar as my daily for last 3 years. I've got CPU Xeon E5 2667 v4 for free from broken hp server then i've order Chinese X99 mobo from ali also i had used 4gb x4 ram non ECC and gtx1050 and 256gb nvme and 2x256 sata ssd from old pc. Only one issue is long bios boot time and bios settings that you can't change like ram speed and overclock but that is ok for cheap chinese mobo. For total price of 80$ back in 2020 for mobo it is a good upgrade back then to my ryzen 1200.

If these more latest games work like this on it then this is definetly worth it (as some temporary solution atleast) and for saving the money.

CPU powerdraw only 70watt (!?)

not bad for old champ

The 2690 V2 has a higher clockspeed and single thread score. There isn't a big difference in multi-thread performance. They are the same cores and you aren't going to use all 20 threads for gaming. There is no difference in per core cache and 300MHz can make a noticeable difference in gaming performance so if you are building a Xeon for gaming, it is probably wise to stick with the 2690. It is also quite a bit cheaper which matters if you are actually building a 10 year old Xeon to use as your primary PC.
In the US, the 2697 V2 is selling for $40. The R5 2600 is selling for 50. The 2600 is a substantially better performer for gaming. I tested mine earlier this year with my 3060 and was impressed with how it is holding up. It managed to do ok with RT in cyberpunk.

Im using a 2678v3 with the turbo hack and its been running for a year already, 0 problems. the socket is 2011-3

isnt it funny how a decade old ivy bridge xeon is just as powerful as brand new cpus