help

[AjCjR3579]

I wanted a faster PC. I want to play that game h1z1 or whatever it is. Minimum requirements are a core i5 gt 275 series graphic card 4 gigs of ram and 20 gig hd space. i currently have a pentium dual core e8400 3.0 ghtz that I built about 8 years ago. I have 4 gigs ddr2 ram. 250 gb hdd, 500 watt psu. I purchased a Tyan S5372G2NR-LH with 2 x Xeon E5405 and 4GB of ram for $40.00 shipped. I thought I couldn't go wrong for what I wanted to do. Can I use anything from my old PC like the PSU, mid tower case, ram, and a gt240 pci express graphics card? I know the HDD is compatible. Some people said with a good graphics card it will play games just fine, that its a misconception that servers cant be used for gaming just not practical price wise to buy everything new. This stuff can be bought second hand for next to nothing. I did a comparison to an i7 processor and the xeon was neck and neck, falling .3 points under over all. The game I want to play is not too taxing. I also understand that multiple smaller processors is better than larger ones for gaming? Any help and explanations would be greatly appreciated!
AJ

 

[Heaven7]

Hi, AJ - and welcome to TPU. My advice would be as follows:

I purchased a Tyan S5372G2NR-LH with 2 x Xeon E5405 and 4GB of ram for $40.00 shipped.

This is very outdated hardware, as you may have noticed from the low price tag. Any modern i5 CPU will outperform both of those E5405s, although they provide more cores. Those are very "entry-level" DP Xeons without HT at only 2 GHz, so to comment on this:

I did a comparison to an i7 processor and the xeon was neck and neck, falling .3 points under over all.

I don't know how old that i7 that you compared it to was, but any recent i7 (or maybe even i5) will beat the cr@p out of those E5405s

Can I use anything from my old PC like the PSU, mid tower case, ram, and a gt240 pci express graphics card?

PSU might be OK, I had troubles running my two 80W TDP E5620s before even with a 750W PSU though. Your case must be big enough to fit this SSI-CEB form factor board. As long as it fits in there you'll be fine, you may have to drill some extra holes, though. As for RAM, this particular board only supports fully buffered RDIMMs, so you won't be able to use your old RAM in there. As for the GPU, this board will limit bandwidth on the PCIe x16 slot to 8 lanes. Should not be much of an issue with your graphics card, though.

its a misconception that servers cant be used for gaming

I totally agree! Why not indeed. It's just an unconventional way to do so. So what.

I also understand that multiple smaller processors is better than larger ones for gaming

No, not at all. What is important to understand is that newer hardware always will beat outdated CPUs/MBs. Any mid-range barebone for, lets say 400 bucks will be way more powerful, have the latest technology and IMO would be the better solution overall.
As you already have purchased that setup, you might as well give it a try and see if it runs your game (h1z1 - never heard of that one) . Of course you can re-use your disk drives and such. Just keep in mind that hardware is very old and you should definitely not update it (buying expensive DDR2-RAM, for example.) Another option would be to upgrade to a new mid-range i5 setup or the like - you'll notice the difference right away!
Hope I was able to help you.

 

[AjCjR3579]

Hi, AJ - and welcome to TPU. My advice would be as follows:

This is very outdated hardware, as you may have noticed from the low price tag. Any modern i5 CPU will outperform both of those E5405s, although they provide more cores. Those are very "entry-level" DP Xeons without HT at only 2 GHz, so to comment on this:

I don't know how old that i7 that you compared it to was, but any recent i7 (or maybe even i5) will beat the cr@p out of those E5405s

PSU might be OK, I had troubles running my two 80W TDP E5620s before even with a 750W PSU though. Your case must be big enough to fit this SSI-CEB form factor board. As long as it fits in there you'll be fine, you may have to drill some extra holes, though. As for RAM, this particular board only supports fully buffered RDIMMs, so you won't be able to use your old RAM in there. As for the GPU, this board will limit bandwidth on the PCIe x16 slot to 8 lanes. Should not be much of an issue with your graphics card, though.

I totally agree! Why not indeed. It's just an unconventional way to do so. So what.

No, not at all. What is important to understand is that newer hardware always will beat outdated CPUs/MBs. Any mid-range barebone for, lets say 400 bucks will be way more powerful, have the latest technology and IMO would be the better solution overall.
As you already have purchased that setup, you might as well give it a try and see if it runs your game (h1z1 - never heard of that one) . Of course you can re-use your disk drives and such. Just keep in mind that hardware is very old and you should definitely not update it (buying expensive DDR2-RAM, for example.) Another option would be to upgrade to a new mid-range i5 setup or the like - you'll notice the difference right away!
There is one other option... if you should be interested. I've got components that I no longer need (after having updated my system) now rotting in my basement and I don't really care to sell them, as I don't know anyone who could use that stuff:
- 2 Xeon E5620 CPUs, 4C/8T @ 2.4 GHz, LGA1366 "Westmere-EP", used for 1 year.
- 32 GB KVR DDR-1333 RDIMMs (4x8 GB), also used for 1 year.
Seeing as you could use that stuff, I would like to sell these to you, if you're interested for a very LOW price All you would need to get is a DP 1366-socket board, they are hard to get these days, you can check out some of those boards HERE at SuperMicro. If you should be interested, just ring the bell. Hope I was able to help you.

Hey thanks for the detailed response. As you can tell my experience is limited. I like to think of myself more like a cook. If the recipe is supplied I can put it all together and make it work. I would surely be interested in your old hardware. like you said I already bought the board and cpus but if I can get more out of it I would love to. I have been out of work due to an injury so cash has been tight. I would normally go to microcenter BYOPC and just have them throw something together that would give me the best bang for my buck. I paid around 600.00 8 years ago when I bought my current system which I was still content with but noticed minimum requirements were creeping up with some games. I am not a big PC gammer. Not yet anyway. I still purchase consoles and only really play when a new COD or GTA is released. It just happens this game is only on PC. Its sorta like the walking dead. you have to scavenge the world and survive zombies and other players online, which is the bigger threat. So is this setup at least faster than my E8400 with 4 gigs of ram and how much better if I purchased your ram and CPU's If you have a PSU i would be interested in one of those as well. Thanks again for taking your time to respond. I appreciate your help! LOL I didnt know there was a difference in new and older i cores. how much would you like for the ram and cpus shipped to 19355

 

[ChevyOwner]

I think you're going to need a system similar to what you would need to play PlanetSide2, but it would be better to wait to build something until the game is out of early access.

 

[AjCjR3579]

I think you're going to need a system similar to what you would need to play PlanetSide2, but it would be better to wait to build something until the game is out of early access.

Its not too taxing of a game is it?

 

[AjCjR3579]

I think you're going to need a system similar to what you would need to play PlanetSide2, but it would be better to wait to build something until the game is out of early access.

Minimum Requirements
CPU: Intel i3 Dual-Core with Hyper-Threading (required)
CPU Speed: info
RAM:4 GB
OS:Windows 7 64-bit
Video Card:nVidia GeForce GTX 275 series or higher
Sound Card:Yes
Free Disk Space:20 GB


Recommended Requirements
CPU:Intel i5 Quad Core or higher / AMD Phenom II X6 or higher
CPU Speed:Info
RAM:8 GB
OS:Windows 7 64-bit
Video Card:nVidia GeForce GTX 560 series or higher / AMD Radeon HD 6870 or higher
Sound Card:Yes
Free Disk Space:20 GB

 

[ChevyOwner]

Its not too taxing of a game is it?

Yes Planetside2 is very demanding. From my experience more CPU then GPU as the game claims it is CPU limited on my PC.