A little over a week ago,
I built two different systems here on the channel,
and I was running an experiment
to go a little bit more in depth as to the Xeon,
which we use the X3450,
which is pretty much 10 years old now,
and I wanted to compare it against the Ryzen 5 1400,
which currently on AliExpress can be had for around $60,
and the Xeon can be had for a little over $10.
And now, this is a lot more to this comparison
than just performance with an RX 580,
at least for someone like me who does regularly flip PCs
and enjoys the whole user price performance passion,
a lot more than someone building new PCs, I guess would.
And so with this, we have both the systems
and I'll put the links for these PCs up here
and also in the description.
We will put together a Xeon system
with an X 3450 and an RX 580
for a hundred and eighty six dollars, US
and that included a monitor, keyboard and mouse
and that was a really good deal.
Some of the best deals I got,
put it in together with the system
and we just had an epic setup.
And it was a perfect comparison
compared to the Ryzen situation where I use the same case,
very similar power supply, same graphics card,
pretty much the same deals that I used
in the one hundred and eighty six dollars, US set up
and we came out with 301 USD,
where the only differences where we use
the Ryzen 5 1400 CPU, an A320 motherboard
and also DDR4 memory.
So that did raise the cost of the build,
at least in percentage terms quite substantially
to that of the Xeon.
And since I wanted to flip both these PCs,
I decided to then do an experiment where
I'd flip them with my profit on top a set amount
for both PCs and then see how long it took
to sell both rigs so I could formulate a better opinion,
at least too I guess, why I do like these older Xeons
and why they shouldn't be ruled out,
especially if you're into building
gaming systems on a budget.
But first of all, let's just get the results out of the way,
then we'll talk about all the extra nitty-gritties,
which in this case, they're probably not nitty-gritties
since for me, they make up a big chunk
of the reason why I still like the older Xeons.
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So quick recap of that performance,
we did use the exact same RX 580 in both these systems
and although I did have a few RX 580s on hand,
I did flip them with different RX 580s.
But basically we got the Ryzen 5 1400 to 3.9 gigahertz
all-core clock, which is well above
that of the stock 3.2 gigahertz
and then also on the Xeon side of things,
we got that to four gigahertz
which is well above that of the two point eight-ish
all-core boost that it has out of the box.
So both these systems overclocked quite well
and we saw with the results,
at least the 1080p on ultra settings
across four different games,
it was pretty much a neck and neck battle with the RX 580.
Where in Battlefield five, they pretty much scored the same,
GTA five went to the Ryzen 5 1400,
Dota two surprisingly went to the X 3450,
that was after we disable the Spectre and Meltdown patches
and then FireStrike went to the Ryzen 5 1400
and F1 2019 had a slight victory for the Xeon.
So pretty much with both these CPUs is,
they do a fine job of handling an RX 580 at 1080p
and with the RX 580 and the RX 470, 570
and those secondhand cards coming up on the market,
they're extremely good value for money.
In 2019, they pretty much my go-to graphics card
if you wanna get amazing value for money
when you're building a used PC.
But with that performance aside,
there is a lot more than meets the eye.
First of all the Xeon X3450,
it's still got some life left in it, even in 2019.
And especially at its price point
and given what I built both these systems for,
it's coming in at a price well below
that of the Ryzen 5 1400 systems.
So it's big advantage is its price performance,
at least coupled with an RX 580.
However, the Ryzen 5 1400 does have its advantages,
where that has the instruction sets like AVX2
and it will support the latest titles coming out
where you won't come into any hiccups.
But more importantly, you actually get an upgrade path
on the Ryzen system where, for instance,
in a couple of years time, you could update to a Zen26 core
and you'd still be absolutely fine.
As opposed to the old Xeon system, you got DDR3
and you pretty much maxing out that LGA 1156 Socket,
so you're pretty much at the end of the road
with the Xeon system.
You also get newer features on the AMD motherboard side
like USB3 and M.2 usually included on the motherboard
And of course, using DDR4 memory,
you can use that in future builds
or at least until DDR5 memory hits the market.
However with that said,
here's where things start to take a drastic turn in favor,
at least for me personally to the older Xeons
and that's when I put these up for sale.
I had priced them accordingly
with the profit margins the same on both builds,
meaning I put the Ryzen system up for 700 Aussie dollars
with the whole setup and then I put the Xeon system
up for 530 Aussie dollars,
so the 170 Aussie dollar difference
was going to be a non-issue if I sold
both those builds at their asking prices.
And here's where things really surprised me because
the Xeon system sold within three days
and the person who bought it wanted more upgrades
and that they asked for 32 gigabytes of RAM.
They also asked for a one terabyte SSD
so that brought the total bill costs up
an extra hundred and twenty dollars when I take away,
'cause I got to keep the 120 gigabyte SSD
and also the two hard drives.
And I then sold that build for 750 Aussie dollars total,
which made the profit margin to that of 355 Aussie dollars,
or basically 240 USD.
And in this time I was also sitting on the Ryzen build
and that eventually got an offer,
a genuine offer 'cause I had some
much lower offers in that time of 640 Aussie dollars.
And so I decided to sell it because
that was the only offer that came through that was genuine.
And so we made 235 Aussie dollars profit
on the Ryzen 5 1400 system
aka a hundred and fifty eight US dollars,
but we had to take away 13 US dollars
for the price of a Windows 10 Pro key on that system
since L Xeon system already had one activated
on the motherboard beforehand,
so we didn't have to add that to the build costs.
So it's at this point in time a realization came to me
and that is, the Xeons are still awesome
and if you're a Xeon hater,
I don't know why you're hating on them.
I mean, I like both the Ryzen 5 1400
and I like the Xeon X3450, I think they're great CPUs,
especially when they're readily available on AliExpress.
And you can then get the motherboard,
you don't have to worry too much
'cause the CPUs are relatively inexpensive.
And in this case, I sold the Xeon system faster
and I made more money on it.
And I guess with a lot of people,
upgrading really isn't a factor when it comes to buying a PC
at least a whole complete PC off a marketplace.
I guess a lot of people even myself included,
I like to build systems and then roughly
in two or three years or even four years,
if they're good enough, I like to then resell them
and just start all over again.
So you can then piece together a build with I guess,
the best synergy at the time.
And so when we look at the Xeon system,
it doesn't really have the option to upgrade
but it's a one-time system and it's sold really well.
When we look at the Ryzen 5 1400 system,
yes, that's got upgrade ability
but here's where another real point of worry
comes in for me personally.
And that is, we got the case and power supply
for a really good deal
but when you're starting to spend more money
and in the future, when you're upgrading to better GPUs,
better CPUs, you probably gonna need a better power supply
than the one we used.
And you most likely going to wanna get
a better case with better aesthetics.
And not only that, when I'm selling things
on the secondhand market,
the more I charge for them generally,
the better looking they have to be.
I've said this in the past,
you should always correlate your build price
to the aesthetics as well, that's a big factor.
I'm pretty sure someone out there
wouldn't wanna pay good money for an RTX 2080 Ti system,
for example, that's in a case from 2005.
But on the opposite hand, if the price is cheap enough,
I know someone surely wouldn't mind
buying a cheaper PC with good aesthetics.
So you can see that for me personally,
when it comes to flipping these things,
I like to keep the build costs as low as possible
when I'm using cheaper cases
and also mediocre power supplies
because that upgrade path
really isn't a thing for me personally
and I don't see a thing for someone who wants to save money.
The next two things are the motherboard
and the graphics card.
You may wish to upgrade the graphics card in the future
and then you may wish to upgrade the motherboard
if DDR5 comes out.
So you can see by the time you're done upgrading the case,
power supply, motherboard, GPU,
you pretty much got a whole new system on your hands.
And so that's why I'm not a real big fan
of upgrading personally, even though I know some people are.
In fact, I feel like with upgrading,
you should put together a system.
And if you've got really good deals at the time,
you should get all those deals
and just have like a stop gap CPU
until you can afford a better CPU in a couple of months.
That's usually how I like to do upgrades
and how I recommend them is a short timeframe,
as opposed to a longer timeframe.
And lastly, when it comes to making sense
out of all the arguments I've raised here today,
with the Xeon build versus the Ryzen build,
the answer is, they're both fine.
And that's the whole thing about PC gaming,
do whatever you wanna do
and really don't rag on all the people
if they've got an opinion and it's working for them.
As you guys can see with the Xeons,
I love the older Xeons because
they quite simply work well for me.
And they work well for a lot of other guys,
at least the guys out there in the audience.
I know you guys, lot of you guys love these older Xeons
and even in 2019 they still represent
phenomenal value for money.
The Ryzen 5 1400 system, it of course has its perks
but for me flipping PCs, I've then personally,
I feel like I've got to spend more money
on a blameworthy case in order for it
to justify that higher price tag.
So if you guys wanna see more experiments,
where perhaps I do add even more
on to the next Ryzen system
and then I add it on to the final costs
and see if it sells better,
then I'd love to do that experiment too for you guys.
Just let us know in the comments
if you wanna see that happen.
Also, let us know in the comments section below
what you think about today's comparison.
We did go a little bit more in-depth than the usual
just performance figures because for me personally,
there is a lot more to it.
And at the end of the day,
I don't think any one opinion is right or wrong
and especially my opinion in this video, is just an opinion.
And I hope this alternative line of thinking,
especially if you're an anti-Xeon guy before this video,
sort of changes your thinking a little bit
as to why I still like me all the Xeons.
And with that aside, I hope you enjoyed today's video.
If you did, then be sure to hit that like button for us.
And I'll catch you guys in another tech video very soon.
Peace out for now.
Bye
(upbeat music)