I just slapped a Xeon chip in this OptiPlex and I have been using it for over 2 months.
Is it worth it?
The fastest CPUs you can get for Socket 1155 is the Core i7-3770K, non-K, and S. This does
mean that these CPUs are highly desirable and sell for anywhere between $70-100.
That is dangerously close to the much faster 4 core 8 thread Ryzen chip, the R3-3100.
But the Core i7 is not the only way to get 4 extra threads and maybe a clockspeed bump.
Xeon E3-1200s are compatible with most Socket 1155 boards including Dell OptiPlexes even
if they’re not using C series chipsets.
I didn’t even have to do anything else to the system other than enabling hyperthreading
in the BIOS.
I tested two Xeon chips.
First is the Xeon E3-1245, a 4 core 8 thread, 32nm Sandy Bridge chip with integrated HD
P3000 graphics.
Next is the E3-1240 v2, a 22nm Ivy Bridge chip.
The E3-1240v2 is also the most similar to the i7-3770 being only 100 MHz slower and
lacking an iGPU.
For baseline we have the Core i5-3470 that comes with a lot of prebuilts from this time
period.
This i5 is a plain quad core 22nm Ivy Bridge chip with integrated HD 2500 graphics.
Another key difference is that Sandy Bridge is limited to PCI-e 2.0, while the Ivy Bridge
chips use PCI-e 3.0.
For the test platform, we have the OptiPlex 7010 MT itself with its proprietary Dell Q77-based
motherboard [0KRC95) on the A21 BIOS with Spectre and Meltdown patches disabled.
For graphics we have the ex-mining Sapphire Pulse RX 570 4GB running at 1300 MHz on the
Adrenalin 20.2.2 driver.
Finally, RAM is 12GB of DDR3 at 1333 MHz CL9 from SkHynix running at dual channel.
The CPU is cooled using the 95W Dell stock cooler which is still chonkier that the Intel
stock cooler.
Single threaded didn’t improve much as their clockspeed differences are at most 200 MHz
and Ivy Bridge is a mere die shrink of Sandy Bridge.
It’s in multi-threaded where these i7 equivalent Xeons shine, with the older Sandy Bridge E3-1245
beating the Ivy Bridge i5-3470 by 27%.
The Ivy Bridge E3-1240v2 did even better at 40% improvement.
That extra 200 MHz on the E3-1240v2 when scaled across all 4 cores and 8 threads definitely
helped.
Other heavily multithreaded tasks also reflect a similar improvement like the 7-ZIP’s file
compression and decompression, as well as 3D rendering in Blender Cycles.
Though in Cycles my RX 570 just crushed the CPUs.
Video encoding and decoding is a mix of somewhere between core speed and the number of threads.
DaVinci Resolve uses the GPU for decode but you have the option what to use for encode.
Using the Native CPU encoder, The Xeons do improve export times albeit not as dramatically
as the Cinebench scores.
For kicks I included the RX 570 again doing the encode and it crushed the CPUs, but do
keep in mind that in lower bitrates, the CPU will produce a better quality output.
QuickSync video processing between Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge is far apart.
QuickSync in the i5-3470 in the Handbrake QuickSync only test is [pause] 55% faster.
Software support is also something to keep in mind.
Premiere Pro 2019 did not work with the E3-1245’s older Sandy Bridge QuickSync but it works
flawlessly in the i5-3470’s newer Ivy Bridge QuickSync.
I don’t play a lot of games.
For my game testing all I have is GTA V, Minecraft, and Firestrike.
Not exactly comprehensive and none of the newer heavily multithreaded titles.
GTA V did have a bit of an overall FPS improvement using the E3-1240v2, mostly likely from being
200 MHz faster.
Even 1% and 0.1% minimums didn’t show any improvements compared to the plain quad core
i5.
Minecraft Java Edition being a single threaded price of shit benefited from the 200 MHz faster
E3-1240v2.
But what’s odd is that the older E3-1245 got much weaker minimums in the Plains and
Forest, while at the Shopping District it got lower averages.
Not sure why.
In Firestrike, the Xeons got higher GPU scores and substantially higher Physics score, but
the combined scores aren’t much to talk about.
Testing thermals is near impossible to get reliable data.
The CPU fan can either run fully automatic which is inconsistent, or at full blast where
any differences will be negligible.
With the fans fully automatic, RPMs as close as possible, and ambient temperatures as close
as possible, I can say that the older E3-1245 seem to run hotter.
To maintain the same load temperature as the newer E3-1240v2 the CPU cooler has to run
400 RPM faster.
Ignore the idle temps as that’s the most unreliable.
God damn that was a lot of tests and that is still nowhere near what the bigger YouTube
channels do on a regular basis.
Makes you appreciate the amount of work required to do this.
Conclusion
Now it wasn’t easy to hunt down these Xeons like this at a fair price.
A fair price is something like $50 since a brand new Ryzen 3 3100 is $100 and is almost
twice as fast.
Also remember that these Xeons will only get you 4 extra threads and only a bit of extra
clockspeed so you shouldn’t overpay for these old chips.
If you can’t find these at a fair price, don’t bother.
But let’s say eBay sellers and buyers finally have enough sense in them and the prices drop
to what these chips are REALLY worth compared to new chips, or if you find these chips show
up at a fair price, is it worth it?
During times when I tax the CPU hard, those extra threads definitely help prevent the
CPU from choking.
Video editing responsiveness has also improved noticeably.
Now I can’t say the same when gaming.
The games I tested are older games that favor per core performance over extra threads unlike
some newer games which are heavily multithreaded.
So it’s still best to check the games you want to play if they benefit from the extra
threads.
If you are still rocking a dual core i3, get an i5 or equivalent Xeon.
It’s a no brainer at this point as these chips are like $20 or so.
Going from i5 to i7 only adds extra threads and is only worth it at the right price and
if the clockspeed is equal or faster than the i5 it’s replacing.
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The next video is me packing all of this up to move across the country--towards west.
Thank you for watching.