Offered a server PC - good for gaming?

bradbear117

bradbear117

New member
I have been offered a seemingly good deal on a server PC:

specs:

Supermicro x8
Intel xeon quad core
16gb ram
Has pci exapansion slot
665w psu

No HDD's though.
I have a 680 gpu that I'd like to put in there if possible.

Reckon it will make a good machine to game and edit on? I have done research and from what I can guess opinions are quite divided.
 
bradbear117 said:
I have been offered a seemingly good deal on a server PC:

specs:

Supermicro x8
Intel xeon quad core
16gb ram
Has pci exapansion slot
665w psu

No HDD's though.
I have a 680 gpu that I'd like to put in there if possible.

Reckon it will make a good machine to game and edit on? I have done research and from what I can guess opinions are quite divided.
Click to expand...

What is a seemingly good deal he is offering you?
 
CPU is not as important as a decent GPU, but that said if you got a 64bit OS and 64bit games then yes go for it.
 
Gforced said:
CPU is not as important as a decent GPU, but that said if you got a 64bit OS and 64bit games then yes go for it.
Click to expand...

That depends on so much. A very broad statement that. For example CSGO is much more CPU dependent than GPU. So that I do not really think that statement is true at all. They need to work together and not bottle neck each other yes.
 
Gforced said:
CPU is not as important as a decent GPU, but that said if you got a 64bit OS and 64bit games then yes go for it.
Click to expand...

Whoa, hold your horses. CPU is every bit as important as GPU. Technically your bus speeds is really what affects true performance. You can have a killer CPU and monster GPU, but if your bus to your GPU is too slow or just congested it won't mean much.

I'll use a simple calculation :

Say your one bus pushes 8 bytes @ 100MHz the throughput would be 800 MB/s
Another bus might push 8 bytes @ 133MHz for a throughput of 1064 MB/s

Guess what happens? Faster bus waits and effectively pushes 800MB/s because it has to wait for the slower bus.

Again, this is just an example.
 
PsychoFish said:
Whoa, hold your horses. CPU is every bit as important as GPU. Technically your bus speeds is really what affects true performance. You can have a killer CPU and monster GPU, but if your bus to your GPU is too slow or just congested it won't mean much.

I'll use a simple calculation :

Say your one bus pushes 8 bytes @ 100MHz the throughput would be 800 MB/s
Another bus might push 8 bytes @ 133MHz for a throughput of 1064 MB/s

Guess what happens? Faster bus waits and effectively pushes 800MB/s because it has to wait for the slower bus.

Again, this is just an example.
Click to expand...

Well what i meant is a monster CPU is not going to count for much if you don't have decent card.
The limiting factor is normally GPU in most cases, although as I say this I realize that not everyone may have a modern i5 / i7 CPU
 
Gforced said:
Well what i meant is a monster CPU is not going to count for much if you don't have decent card.
The limiting factor is normally GPU in most cases, although as I say this I realize that not everyone may have a modern i5 / i7 CPU
Click to expand...

The Intel HD cards can help you out of a pinch if needed.

Have a squizz...


More importantly, check CS:GO averaging in the 60FPS range on a decent playable resolution.
 
PsychoFish said:
The Intel HD cards can help you out of a pinch if needed.

Have a squizz...


More importantly, check CS:GO averaging in the 60FPS range on a decent playable resolution.
Click to expand...

I had a friend who played Skyrim on an intel card, but just cause you can does not mean you should.
 
Gforced said:
I had a friend who played Skyrim on an intel card, but just cause you can does not mean you should.
Click to expand...

Oh, fully agree trust me, but the point of the video was to show that a relatively shitty i3 and integrated Intel GPU can render a playable solution for some titles. You're not going to be gaming at 1080p with maxed out settings, but you're going to be able to hit the 30-60fps range. Which is against the "you need a powerful CPU" and "you need a powerful GPU" arguments above.

Additionally I would never outright recommend an i3 or and i7 for gaming unless there is a compelling argument because most i5's perform adequately for gaming. Also a dedicated graphics card will almost always outperform the onboard, but not everyone can afford to run GTX 980 Ti's or Titan X's and likewise I cannot suggest a GTX 720 for someone wanting to run Skyrim at stupid high resolutions and maxed out graphics options.
 
PsychoFish said:
Oh, fully agree trust me, but the point of the video was to show that a relatively shitty i3 and integrated Intel GPU can render a playable solution for some titles. You're not going to be gaming at 1080p with maxed out settings, but you're going to be able to hit the 30-60fps range. Which is against the "you need a powerful CPU" and "you need a powerful GPU" arguments above.

Additionally I would never outright recommend an i3 or and i7 for gaming unless there is a compelling argument because most i5's perform adequately for gaming. Also a dedicated graphics card will almost always outperform the onboard, but not everyone can afford to run GTX 980 Ti's or Titan X's and likewise I cannot suggest a GTX 720 for someone wanting to run Skyrim at stupid high resolutions and maxed out graphics options.
Click to expand...

My rig currently is second generation i3 with a 560. Im still amazed at the games it runs. Dying Light for instance, looks just like the PS4 XB1 version minus a few ambient light rays and shading but otherwise its nigh identical and at 30fps. It struggles with the Witcher 3 even at medium settings but everything else before that has been fine. I always turn off certain post process elements in the graphic options though.
 
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