How did we get here?
Some may remember me testing the Xeon ‘replacement’ for the CPU in my Optiplex, that wasn’t a replacement. Long story short, the Graphics card was the issue and I need to do something else. I opted to throw it in another case with a different motherboard and better GPU. That was better, but I thought there was still more I could get out of it. But how much?
To find out, I borrowed the RX 6600XT from my gaming rig in the living room. It won’t stay in there, obviously, but I know it’s capable and I have some tests with similar CPUs. Its the most powerful GPU I can get to easily, so I put it in, expecting the pink case to now be an easy bake oven. I was wrong. Oh, so wrong.
Performance was better than expected and temps were perfect. The CPU and GPU both stayed in the mid to high sixties on the high end; something I never saw coming. The pink case has horrible airflow and hates anything more powerful than a Casio watch. For some reason, though, this combination loved it. I’m sure it will be better in a different case, but for testing, I’ll take it.
The important thing, though was finding where the CPU bottleneck would come, and test comparisons to the other processors. I say test comparisons, because in real world scenarios, paired with a mid-budget GPU playing games in 1080P, there is no difference. Admittedly, with the better GPU I also added more RAM, but the games never used it, so it wasn’t a factor. This thing is solid, and it will probably be the ‘go to’ PC for playing games in the bedroom, if I bother to set it up.
Xeon? for real
Getting one of these and testing against some of the newer four core. eight thread CPUs, was a great choice. It’s a much better than trying to hunt down and pay twice as much for an i7 4770, and it makes me want to see how the larger socket E5 Xeon’s do. That’s another experiment, though. This one goes down as a success, and I couldn’t be happier with the results. Talk about a surprise. Great performance, cheap price and low temps. There isn’t much more you can ask for.
One of these paired with an RX580 is a perfect budget Gamer and 1080P is no problem with anything you want to throw at it. Now it’s time to get my 6600xt out and maybe try a GTX1660. Hmm.