LGA 1156 with i5 750/760, and U can do anything U want 😀
Check MB for CrossFireX support tho (I think all P55 based MB's should enable it).

I would build an X58 rig! 😀

Buy a cheap 4-core 32nm Xeon E5640 (can be found for $13 "buy it now" on Ebay) and an Asus P6T series motherboard ($60-$100) and 3x1GB DDR3 memory (~$10) then clock the shit out of the poor Xeon.

Perhaps you can build a LGA 1156 system a few dollars cheaper but if you later want to use the system for Windows 7 LGA 1366 can be upgraded to a 6-core Xeon for ($50+) and at least 24GB memory. 😀

Note that it's a good idea to ask the seller to flash the latest BIOS as you otherwise might need an old 45nm CPU to flash a BIOS with support for the later 32nm ones. Or you can buy an extra 45nm CPU, they are cheap.

Skyscraper wrote:

I would build an X58 rig! :) […]
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I would build an X58 rig! 😀

Buy a cheap 4-core 32nm Xeon E5640 (can be found for $13 "buy it now" on Ebay) and an Asus P6T series motherboard ($60-$100) and 3x1GB DDR3 memory (~$10) then clock the shit out of the poor Xeon.

Perhaps you can build a LGA 1156 system a few dollars cheaper but if you later want to use the system for Windows 7 LGA 1366 can be upgraded to a 6-core Xeon for ($50+) and at least 24GB memory. 😀

Note that it's a good idea to ask the seller to flash the latest BIOS as you otherwise might need an old 45nm CPU to flash a BIOS with support for the later 32nm ones. Or you can buy an extra 45nm CPU, they are cheap.

How would such a system compare to my Athlon 860k rig? I know the LGA1366 platform is a fair bit older, but I've always wanted to build a rig around it.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

How would such a system compare to my Athlon 860k rig? I know the LGA1366 platform is a fair bit older, but I've always wanted to build a rig around it.

A Socket-1366 system with a CPU clocked at 4GHz or more should run circles around an Athlon 860k. 😀

Old standards such as SATA 2.0, USB 2.0 and PCI-E 2.0 are the only drawbacks but if that matters much SATA 3.0 and USB 3.0 are present on many LGA 1366 motherboards even if it's through bolted on VIA chips. The power consumtion with 45nm chips is high but later 32nm ones use less power.

Skyscraper wrote:

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

How would such a system compare to my Athlon 860k rig? I know the LGA1366 platform is a fair bit older, but I've always wanted to build a rig around it.

A Socket-1366 system with a CPU clocked at 4GHz or more should run circles around an Athlon 860k. 😀

Old standards such as SATA 2.0, USB 2.0 and PCI-E 2.0 are the only drawbacks but if that matters much SATA 3.0 and USB 3.0 are present on many LGA 1366 motherboards even if it's through bolted on VIA chips. The power consumtion with 45nm chips is high but later 32nm ones use less power.

What about PCIe 2.0? Would that bottleneck my video card significantly?

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

Skyscraper wrote:

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

How would such a system compare to my Athlon 860k rig? I know the LGA1366 platform is a fair bit older, but I've always wanted to build a rig around it.

A Socket-1366 system with a CPU clocked at 4GHz or more should run circles around an Athlon 860k. 😀

Old standards such as SATA 2.0, USB 2.0 and PCI-E 2.0 are the only drawbacks but if that matters much SATA 3.0 and USB 3.0 are present on many LGA 1366 motherboards even if it's through bolted on VIA chips. The power consumtion with 45nm chips is high but later 32nm ones use less power.

What about PCIe 2.0? Would that bottleneck my video card significantly?

No, not even with the fastest video cards. Note that X58 has two full bandwidth PCI-E X16 2.0 slots so it wont even be a problem in SLI / Crossfire.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/pci-expr … -review,17.html

So in other words, if I picked up a 1366 board and a Xeon, that could be a cheap upgrade path for my main rig. As it is I'm sort of stuck on a dead-end platform, and while the 860k is good enough for most tasks, it doesn't quite have the amount of raw CPU grunt I'd like for running things like PCem. Moving to a newer Intel platform would likely be prohibitively expensive for me though.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

So in other words, if I picked up a 1366 board and a Xeon, that could be a cheap upgrade path for my main rig. As it is I'm sort of stuck on a dead-end platform, and while the 860k is good enough for most tasks, it doesn't quite have the amount of raw CPU grunt I'd like for running things like PCem. Moving to a newer Intel platform would likely be prohibitively expensive for me though.

Yes if you can find a cheap X58 motherboard that can take a Xeon* the CPUs are cheap and plantiful, even the 6 core ones. The issue is finding a cheap X58 motherboard as people have realized how cheap the S1366 Xeons are. In Sweden the going rate for a X58 motherboard is $60 - $70 but I have heard that they are even more expensive in some other countries.

Always Google the (inofficial) CPU support for the board you find but in general most boards accept all S1366 CPUs with the lastest BIOS updates.

http://www.game-debate.com/hardware/index.php … ocessor%20X5650

Skyscraper wrote:

Yes if you can find a cheap X58 motherboard that can take a Xeon* the CPUs are cheap and plantiful, even the 6 core ones. The is […]
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mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

So in other words, if I picked up a 1366 board and a Xeon, that could be a cheap upgrade path for my main rig. As it is I'm sort of stuck on a dead-end platform, and while the 860k is good enough for most tasks, it doesn't quite have the amount of raw CPU grunt I'd like for running things like PCem. Moving to a newer Intel platform would likely be prohibitively expensive for me though.

Yes if you can find a cheap X58 motherboard that can take a Xeon* the CPUs are cheap and plantiful, even the 6 core ones. The issue is finding a cheap X58 motherboard as people have realized how cheap the S1366 Xeons are. In Sweden the going rate for a X58 motherboard is $60 - $70 but I have heard that they are even more expensive in some other countries.

Always Google the (inofficial) CPU support fort board you find but in general most boards accept all S1366 CPUs with the lastest BIOS updates.

http://www.game-debate.com/hardware/index.php … ocessor%20X5650

Some of the ASUS P6T boards I looked at on eBay were pretty expensive, but I think getting one of those and a Xeon would still be cheaper than ponying up for a newer board with an i5. Now, since you mentioned that some newer S1366 boards had USB3 and SATA3, which models should I be looking for? Do any support Xeons or is it a "one thing or another" sort of a deal?

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

Skyscraper wrote:

Yes if you can find a cheap X58 motherboard that can take a Xeon* the CPUs are cheap and plantiful, even the 6 core ones. The is […]
Show full quote

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

So in other words, if I picked up a 1366 board and a Xeon, that could be a cheap upgrade path for my main rig. As it is I'm sort of stuck on a dead-end platform, and while the 860k is good enough for most tasks, it doesn't quite have the amount of raw CPU grunt I'd like for running things like PCem. Moving to a newer Intel platform would likely be prohibitively expensive for me though.

Yes if you can find a cheap X58 motherboard that can take a Xeon* the CPUs are cheap and plantiful, even the 6 core ones. The issue is finding a cheap X58 motherboard as people have realized how cheap the S1366 Xeons are. In Sweden the going rate for a X58 motherboard is $60 - $70 but I have heard that they are even more expensive in some other countries.

Always Google the (inofficial) CPU support fort board you find but in general most boards accept all S1366 CPUs with the lastest BIOS updates.

http://www.game-debate.com/hardware/index.php … ocessor%20X5650

Some of the ASUS P6T boards I looked at on eBay were pretty expensive, but I think getting one of those and a Xeon would still be cheaper than ponying up for a newer board with an i5. Now, since you mentioned that some newer S1366 boards had USB3 and SATA3, which models should I be looking for? Do any support Xeons or is it a "one thing or another" sort of a deal?

I think almost all of the boards should have at least two Sata 3.0 ports using a VIA chip but when it comes to USB 3.0 it's probably only common on later S1366 boards (My SR-2 do have USB 3.0). I think you have to look up the exact spec for each board you find. Most boards should support even the dual QPI 6-core Xeons like for example the X5650 but it's always good to Google to be sure. The dual QPI Xeons are never mentioned in the official CPU support lists though so you have to find the information from forum posts and such.

Skimming through a few threads like this one is probably a good idea. 😀

https://hardforum.com/threads/1366-x58-xeon-e … s-club.1820772/

Those Xeons are Good overclockers if you get a good board to push them, the only gripe is the cost of the boards have gone up again 😒
First gen i5/i7 is great for retro use while still being good enough for current stuff, just be sure to have good cooling as you start overclocking as 3.5ghz or so as from there on power consumption really goes up and turn the turbo off as it will be doing 4ghz+ on more than just one core. Second and third gen when had for cheap look attractive for XP builds as they are strong performance wise vs older builds.

There are so many awesome second hand Intel CPUs, but because Intel has so many sockets, finding a good board is a bit of a challenge.

So don't rule out AMD! You can get a AM3+ board from the shops brand new and can use a massive range of CPUs. The gear is also XP compatible without any dramas.

The higher end AM3+ boards are also SLI compatible which is nice.

Yeah!

I've been messing around with lots of Phenom II stuff lately and I must say they are fast CPUs! The boards are cheap, too.
If you're into overclocking most of them have no problem running at 4GHz.

for USB 3.0 just get a PCIe 1x USB 3.0 card, its how I gave USB 3.0 to my previous computer with a Core 2 Quad 6600 on a P965 chipset. A 4 port USB 3.0 card is also fairly cheap and later one with a new build just gives you extra USB 3.0, I still use it with my i7 4770 build just so i have a total of 10 USB 3.0 ports 🤣.

Well also remember most AM2+ boards took AM3 cpu's and AM2+ boards are cheap, a nice former highend one based on the 790 chipset can now be had for about 80 bucks.

Standard Def Steve wrote:

Yeah!

I've been messing around with lots of Phenom II stuff lately and I must say they are fast CPUs! The boards are cheap, too.
If you're into overclocking most of them have no problem running at 4GHz.

Phenom 2 is Nice to build around and the performance they give is more consistent than anything C2D based, for those with older AM2 boards that don't have Phenom 2 support there are some low voltage Phenom 1s that run cool and overclock better than the normal models. The E series run cooler and use a lot less power but they are not common as they were mainly for oem use. They can overclock better than the regular models when using a high clocking board.

Plus there are the Athlon II range of chips now and also the FX, like the FX6300, a fantastic value chip for anything with lots of threads.

On many boards you can enable / disable cores and lower the multiplier, letting you fine-tune performance if that's something you're into.

And also great is that AMD CPUs come with all the features ticked (like VM stuff), whereas with Intel you need to watch out for that.

Try to get an E759/E760/E761 Classified/Classified3 board. Those were practically the apogee of X58 boards 😉

It's churlish to point out the latest Windows OS in the final months before 7 was Vista, not XP, isn't it? 😉

Vista was fine with SP2, albeit not light on memory.

ynari wrote:

It's churlish to point out the latest Windows OS in the final months before 7 was Vista, not XP, isn't it? 😉

Vista was fine with SP2, albeit not light on memory.

😀 Yes, Vista was mature enough by that point, but I only ever even saw it on one computer so it doesn't really register with me. Besides, XP's limitations are the main point.

My current machine is an FX-6300 overclocked to 4.5ghz stable on a GA-970A-UD3P rev2 with an R7 370. All sitting in an Antec ElevenHundred v2 with 7 fans 😀 It never goes over 24c inside the case, even when pushing Handbrake hard. I only built this machine about 6 months ago, so I'm not exactly using cutting edge parts, but they do everything I need them to do.

I completely skipped from Pentium 4 to a Core i3 iMac in 2010 which I finally replaced with this current machine, so I have almost no knowledge of AMD from the past 10 years or so.

Maybe a high-end Phenom build with these 4850s?