Xeon E3-1230v2 for gaming

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Lucifercy

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May 20, 2013
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Hi,
I've been itching to do an upgrade from my ancient LGA775 :eek:, I've seen some benchmark for 4770k & 3770k and for their price those procs performance aren't that far away from sandy bridge. So the Xeon with its price & HT is a good option, is it?
But can it carry 2 GTX 660 and can it run with the non ECC memory ? since I wanna put it in a Z77 motherboard.

thx in advance
 
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Well, it's an option. I wouldn't say it's the best option though (Unless you can get a good price w/ with motherboard). Whether you need ECC I believe relies on the chipset and motherboard. Since it's LGA 1155, you have TONS of motherboards that support that socket (z77 chipset), however, you'll need to check each motherboard you look at for its list of compatible CPU's. I imagine it'll work, but you want to be 100% sure before ordering.

In terms of it's value:
Pro's:
- It's cheaper then an i7-3770K or 4770K. It's performance would be comparable to a 3770 clocked at the same frequency.
- It supports ECC, which makes it more flexible for future use.
- *Possible* better future gaming performance if next-gen console tech pushes game development to optimize for 6-8 cores.

Con's:
- Locked multiplier, means very limited overclocking ability.
- If gaming, little to no benefit over an i5-3570k/4570k, except in a small number of games.
- Limited motherboard support - This is just a guess. I imagine that you'd need to be pretty picky with your motherboard.

In terms of the GPU, it would work with just about any GPU setup you wanted. GTX 660 SLI would be fine.

I personally use a Xeon w3520 (Equivalent to the i7-920) in my gaming rig, and it works beautifully with my HD 7950 with any game I've tried yet, so I can personally vouch that Xeon's CAN work as part of a gaming PC.

Really, the most limiting factor of the E3-1230v2 is the low clock rate (3.3 GHz). In (most) games, it'll be slower then a 'K' edition i5 or i7 CPU from IB or Haswell.
 
^^ Thx for the info, btw the mobo I'm planning to buy is the msi z77 gd-65 & it support that xeon.
as for lower stock clock, I'm just aiming around 60fps since I always use vsync when gaming and the lower tdp compare to those of haswell&ivy is the soft spot for me ;)
 
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so I bought the E3-1230V2 on saturday, and the performance out of the box is splendid (for its price). previously my E5700 was struggling to keep the 60fps in Tomb Raider and would spike to a mere 10fps in certain area. But now with this Xeon the minimum fps is struggling to leave 60 :D
So for me this is a great processor for todays gaming, you get HT with a price of an i5 :cool:
 
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