Have a new budget for new desktops (3-5), no idea what to recommend

[dlparisi]

40% still does not sound right so I'm still disputing the numbers... according to http://www.anandtech.com/show/8426/t...5820k-tested/5 a stock 5960 scores 1337 in CBr15 and their OC'd one at 4.3 scores 1679. Let's round up to to 2000 for s super extreme overclock (not really sure that's even possible). That's 2000 for the 5960 vs. 4200 for the dual 2696's - that's at least a 100% increase (or 2x the rendering power depending on how you want to describe it).

[3LP]

agree, the 2696 will blow the 5960x out of the water, way way faster....

Stan

[kagemaru]

I recently studied a bit the matter and to me, with time and will, the better option would be to try to recover some high end regenerated xeon of past generation and build on top of that.
This of course if you are on a budget.
The best bet would be something like xeon e5-2670 that cinebench at 2000 for 500/700€. But you would need time and a bit of luck.

It's actually around 40% depending on the amount of overclock (I was being lazy in re-checking my stats ). Mine's a really light oc. Nevertheless, the point is that £500 proc versus a pair of procs totalling circa £2600 (for 40%) ??....... Come'on ! There's no contest

I'm in Italy and that proc (i7 5960x) it's almost impossible to find under 1100€ that would mean 860£.
I guess i could buy it from the uk while retaining the warranty, could you point me please to where i can find that price? I searched a bit but didn't find something similar.
I'm looking to buy me a new personal rig at home. Thanks.

[JezUK]

I'm in Italy and that proc (i7 5960x) it's almost impossible to find under 1100€ that would mean 860£.
I guess i could buy it from the uk while retaining the warranty, could you point me please to where i can find that price? I searched a bit but didn't find something similar.
I'm looking to buy me a new personal rig at home. Thanks.

Ebay - it's been a while since I looked at prices of 5960x's because I'm no longer a buyer.

I bought mine around 10 months ago at £600 so guessed they'd be cheaper today.

A search on eBay though shows they're still selling for £600 today, so my bad.

However, this one is selling currently at £522 with 10 hours left on the auction (though he sold one previously for just over £570).

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Intel-Core...0AAOSwU9xURn4Y

[kagemaru]

Ebay - it's been a while since I looked at prices of 5960x's because I'm no longer a buyer.
I bought mine around 10 months ago at £600 so guessed they'd be cheaper today.
A search on eBay though shows they're still selling for £600 today, so my bad.
However, this one is selling currently at £522 with 10 hours left on the auction (though he sold one previously for just over £570).
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Intel-Core...0AAOSwU9xURn4Y

Thank you.
I'll keep an eye on ebay.co.uk then. Do you think it is safe to buy it there? I mean, warranties, quality, etc

[JezUK]

Thank you.
I'll keep an eye on ebay.co.uk then. Do you think it is safe to buy it there? I mean, warranties, quality, etc

Yes, you have to be a bit careful, but check the Seller's history, how long they've been an eBayer for etc.

And of course, only buy a brand new, unopened box (like I did) - and you'll be fine.

FYI, I intend selling mine later this year, when (hopefully) the new 6960x comes out - so mine will be a used one. Should still get some good money for it and make the upgrade for me to be a bit more palatable. (I plan to do a bit of upgrading to my system, including upgrading to Windows 10, and putting in a bigger m.2 SSD).

[Ivan1982]

One 5960x on 4.3ghz is exactly half the performance of one machine that runs two 2680v3(12c per cpu) total of 24c/48t.
Xeon 2695v3 (14c 28t) is about 6-7% faster than 5960x that runs at 4.3ghz.

You can find on ebay OEM(pulled from servers) pretty cheaply right now, since xeons v4 leaked out, people selling their "old" v3 for peanuts.

Now some calculation.

Whole system 2680v3 would be right now much closer to "normal" than year or two ago.
This machine requires more at start but have much more bang for the buck as it is used more years effectively.
It has 7 pci-e slots so switching to GPU orientated rendering in near future isn't that painful.
Processors are cold, all sort's of failsafes and diagnostics, lots of bells and whistles, better components, 10gb network + dual gbit, million of sata ports... well it is server/workstation MB. (asus Z10PE-D16 WS) about 200+ euros more than hi-end desktop single socket...
It supports new v4 intel xeons for any cpu upgrade also amount of ram wouldn't be issue as you can cram 1.5tb in 16 slots.
Ram is not that much more expensive, about 20-30% but since it gives you ability to go beyond 64gb you know what you are paying for.

I guess system build would be around 4k more or less(ram, gpu)by today's prices.

Now you can go with 5960x cool system(i am using it for workstations for now) fast, stable, oc nicely so you get that extra... It is much cheaper at start.
You will have to sell processor and buy new one(same as in xeon case) but again it would be slower than dual 2680v3(even superclocked new 6950x) not to mention how much slower against beasts like 2699 or new 22core v4 xeons...
In order to catch dual xeon setup(or to be equal) you will need to wait few iterations of CPU upgrades and by that time they probably make you change MB or even new memory(ddr5) so you will have additional expenses. Or who knows what else. So life cycle is much shorter.
Price would be around 2k

Previous experience i had with 1366 dual socket systems.

It was dual 6 core xeons(12c/24t) at 3.0ghz(X5670) they are little slower then new generation 5960x at 4ghz and that is about 4-5 years later and 5960x is first desktop processor that menage to topple this xeons.
When you look at desktop high end processors from that era they are all long gone, not usable except maybe for keychain but xeons still kicking and they still give excellent perf/watt
So take all this into account before you decide, or you can end up paying more over the years to upgrade.

Take care