24 Cores, 48 Threads for $360: Dual-X99 Jingsha Motherboard vs. AMD R9 3900X

We're reviewing the Jingsha X99 "Two-Way" motherboard today, featuring 2x 12-core Intel Xeon CPUs for 48 total threads. 2x CPUs and the board cost less than one 3900X. Benchmarks within.
GN Wireframe Mousemats will be back in stock soon! Guarantee you're on the list here: store.gamersnexus.net/product... We sold through fast last time, so we're taking back orders early so that you don't have to keep checking back for the restock date. The Wireframe Mouse Mat is a high-quality, durable mat with high print resolution and custom features, and quickly became our fastest-selling item on the store. (Also, if you've got a Gold Foil shirt on order, those will finish production in November!)
You'd likely enjoy our computer mall tour at SEG E-Market in Shenzhen: • China PC Build: Weird ...
We previously built a dual-CPU X79 system here: • Building a Dual-CPU Be...
We really enjoy working with old hardware, especially when it's been reworked into a new product. A lot of these motherboards are uniquely made by ripping old chipsets from e-waste motherboards (like ones that stopped working), then gluing all the salvaged parts together into a new product. This one is the Jing4sha1 Shuang1lu4 motherboard, or the "Two-Way" dual-X99 Jingsha board. We combined it with two Xeon CPUs, but also bought a third Xeon at 14C for $70. The total cost to get the two 12C CPUs (about $100 each) and the motherboard was around $360, making this one of the cheapest ways to get so many threads. Although scavenging for retired hardware is a lot of fun, modern CPU advancements have threatened the viability of solutions like this. As such, we'll be testing it against far cheaper solutions for gaming -- like the R3 3100 and 3300X -- and more expensive solutions for work (like the 3900X).
Like our content? Please consider becoming our Patron to support us: / gamersnexus
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Intro to the Jingsha X99
04:18 - Shopping for Parts
07:19 - Expectations & Preliminary Tests
08:35 - Blender Monkey Heads
09:10 - Shadow of the Tomb Raider
10:35 - GTA V
12:30 - Performance-Related Specs
14:39 - Board Tweaking
17:00 - Total War: Three Kingdoms Battle
18:26 - Division 2
19:09 - Assassin's Creed: Origins
19:39 - F1 2019
20:09 - Blender GN Logo Render
20:46 - Adobe Premiere (1080p/4K)
22:12 - Chromium Code Compile
22:40 - Power Testing (Blender/Cinebench)
23:48 - Other Features
27:36 - Conclusions
** Please like, comment, and subscribe for more! **
Links to Amazon and Newegg are typically monetized on our channel (affiliate links) and may return a commission of sales to us from the retailer. This is unrelated to the product manufacturer. Any advertisements or sponsorships are disclosed within the video ("this video is brought to you by") and above the fold in the description. We do not ever produce paid content or "sponsored content" (meaning that the content is our idea and is not funded externally aside from whatever ad placement is in the beginning) and we do not ever charge manufacturers for coverage.
Follow us in these locations for more gaming and hardware updates:
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Host, Additional Reporting: Steve Burke
Editorial, Testing: Patrick Lathan
Video: Keegan Gallick, Andrew Coleman

[@GamersNexus]

You'd likely enjoy our computer mall tour at SEG E-Market in Shenzhen: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pIm6c2x9hdCgabc We previously built a dual-CPU X79 system here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/h3bFkKqugLt9mKc GN Wireframe Mousemats will be back in stock soon! Guarantee you're on the list here: store.gamersnexus.net/products/gn-wireframe-mouse-mat We sold through fast last time, so we're taking back orders early so that you don't have to keep checking back for the restock date. The Wireframe Mouse Mat is a high-quality, durable mat with high print resolution and custom features, and quickly became our fastest-selling item on the store. (Also, if you've got a Gold Foil shirt on order, those will finish production in November!)

[@animearmpits3060]

hi

[@TechManTY.]

"they looked kind of like a scam, so we bought them" 🤣

[@caseys8124]

Yessss! Been waiting for the mouse mat back order so I can finally support GN with more than just patreon.

[@jb34304]

22:39 Sure they use more power per second. But you need to keep something in mind: If this pair of Xeon's they knock minutes off a render time, that is minutes where power a pair of hungry CPU's are _not consuming any electricity._ Things aren't exactly as bad as they appear on the surface.

[@josephstalin8684]

011 mini when?

[@nathanzylla4961]

"It looked like a scam........so we bought it"

[@fnige]

it was also 69 bucks so nice

[@bentosan]

Nice

[@GwnMichael]

@@fnige nice

[@TheSiprianus]

@@fnige nice

[@jdalmaj]

5:45

[@4.0.4]

Gaming console: let's call it "Pro" Workstation board: let's call it "Gaming" Because logic.

[@proxis9980]

its buzzword completion from pr guys who have absolutly no clue about the hardware.

[@ThePhoenix198]

@@proxis9980 'Marketing' rather than 'PR' - there's a difference. Granted, not much difference in the levels of honesty or integrity, but still a difference 😉

[@WhenDoesTheVideoActuallyStart]

Marketing: causes shitstorms with their lies PR: address shitstorms with new lies

[@bobprivate8575]

It doesn't even fit well for a workstation. It's completely ignoring half of the memory channels and 90% of the CPU PCIe lanes. The main things you go Xeon for, aren't here. Despite the built-in GPU, the missing memory channels and PCIe lanes- and no x4 PCIe slots- make it really limited for server usage.

[@4.0.4]

@@bobprivate8575 because it's not for server use. There's a reason these are cheap, people running computers 24/7 throw these out for newer ones! As far as workstation goes, there are SFF Xeons and Threadrippers so that should tell you something about PCIe lanes not being always the focus. Some people just want a lot of cores. And for some scenarios, maybe you could jank up a ghetto workstation from old Xeons that almost makes sense.

[@Alauz]

Impressed by Steve's Mandarin. Once travel is possible again would like to see GN head down back to Shenzhen for another field trip!

[@GamersNexus]

While the team has greatly enjoyed a break from travel (our first year of such low travel since 2011!), we're all eager to get out to Taiwan, Japan, and China again, and we'd really like to visit some new spots, like South Korea. As soon as it makes sense to travel, we'll make our way back out there! In the meantime, I'm working on my Mandarin more than ever, so hopefully it proves useful in improving translation accuracy next trip! I've mostly been studying material names since those are commonly mistranslated, e.g. copper vs. bronze.

[@Alauz]

@@GamersNexus Great! Do let me know if you guys ever swing by Singapore! Would gladly show you around the PC industry here. It's tiny so you'd be done in a single day.👍

[@LadBooboo]

@@Alauz literally Sim lim for new and hwz/carousell for used hahaha

[@Alauz]

@@LadBooboo Hahaha, very much so. But Carousell now also being used as a channel for both new and old. But yes Sim Lim still best price in SG for new. Got to build a relationship or you become 菜头 (Carrot Head: Slang for getting cheated) I used to be in the custom modded computing scene with my own custom case. Got a $12,000 sample built for a product I tried to launch back in 2013. So there's actually some cool stuff here that can't be found anywhere else on the planet.

[@Alauz]

@@GamersNexus Hey just curious, would you be interested in acquiring this custom one of a kind PC Chassis? kzbin.info/www/bejne/qJrSqH-Qr8apkMk We wound down that original startup but I still have the original prototype we fabricated back then.

[@pranav1790]

I can almost smell Bryan from Tech Yes City on the way to this video.........

[@m8x425]

Did Steve give it some GN lovin before he put it together

[@jb678901]

@@m8x425 When is Steve gonna ever learn, to get the .1% figures up...use the multi-purpose cleaner!!!!!!!

[@ImWateringPSUs]

You should also smell me on my way to this video :p

[@bencanty980]

....... or Timmy Joe, sniffing out ANOTHER disaster build!!

[@Ktmzqw]

Miyconst specialises on these Chinese motherboards

[@WildkatPhoto]

Powerful Shark is a great computer name.

[@V1N_574]

Nick name Maco

[@matthewreavley]

Pow-er-ful... shark du du du du du du

[@corbandotson4295]

@onion knight that's badass

[@Nitroniko1983]

Is there even a weak shark in the sea?

[@Nitroniko1983]

Or Tigershark the fastest shark.

[@rtablesaw]

Oh my god, the day is here. A video without the word “airflow” in it.

[@DrakkarCalethiel]

Those weird chineese hardware releated vids are one of my favorites! Just so damn interesting to see what exists offroad of everything normal.

[@animearmpits3060]

hi

[@Hrathen39]

You should see what phone brands exists in other countries that aren't first world countries.

[@Elinzar]

Man there is a "Gaming" motherboard also for X99 called Huananzhi F8 for these Xeons that have 8 dimm slots for 1 cpu(no dual cpu mobo) and also have vrm cooling and 2 nvme slots

[@unclewho]

These hardwares are not weird, they have their own use cases. This gaming board is for boosters who control more than 10 game characters simultaneously. They live on this business.

[@virtualtools_3021]

@@unclewho or for scum of the earth, people than run tf2 cheater bots

[@TheOldnews]

As a native Chinese I have not even thought of it being a pun. Just assumed "powerful shark" was some edgy gamer style naming, but the pun is indeed possible as the character for shark is literally a combined character from sand(phonetic component) and fish(association/meaning component). Hats off to you sir.

[@psychosis1767]

动态网自由门 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Free Tibet 六四天安門事件 The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 天安門大屠殺 The Tiananmen Square Massacre 反右派鬥爭 The Anti-Rightist Struggle 大躍進政策 The Great Leap Forward 文化大革命 The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution 人權 Human Rights 民運 Democratization 自由 Freedom 獨立 Independence 多黨制 Multi-party system 台灣 臺灣 Taiwan Formosa 中華民國 Republic of China 西藏 土伯特 唐古特 Tibet 達賴喇嘛 Dalai Lama 法輪功 Falun Dafa 新疆維吾爾自治區 The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region 諾貝爾和平獎 Nobel Peace Prize 劉暁波 Liu Xiaobo 民主 言論 思想 反共 反革命 抗議 運動 騷亂 暴亂 騷擾 擾亂 抗暴 平反 維權 示威游行 李洪志 法輪大法 大法弟子 強制斷種 強制堕胎 民族淨化 人體實驗 肅清 胡耀邦 趙紫陽 魏京生 王丹 還政於民 和平演變 激流中國 北京之春 大紀元時報 九評論共産黨 獨裁 專制 壓制 統一 監視 鎮壓 迫害 侵略 掠奪 破壞 拷問 屠殺 活摘器官 誘拐 買賣人口 遊進 走私 毒品 賣淫 春畫 賭博 六合彩 天安門 天安门 法輪功 李洪志 Winnie the Pooh 劉曉波动态网自由门

[@NathanCroucher]

WTF is Henri going on about?

[@idtyu]

@@NathanCroucher he is brainwashed by the cult known as fa lun gong, just ignore people like that and pray for them to be back to normal in the future

[@TheOldnews]

@@NathanCroucher He seems to assume "Native Chinese" on KZbin means I'm illegally vpn visiting KZbin from mainland China (PRC). The words he posted are words that gets you banned by the PRC. Unfortunately for him I'm neither in nor do I come from mainland China. Ethnically/culturally Chinese(華人) is not the same as the nationality(中國人), but in English it is the same word. There are a lot of native Chinese outside of mainland China, in places like Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia

[@TheOldnews]

@@idtyu Immediately framing people against China as radical cultists is even more of a brainwashed action

[@dangingerich2559]

To me, this sounds like it would be a wonderful home lab VM host.

[@kenkensistoso]

Ikr.. it would be fun building vms on this

[@LordWaldema]

idk i think I would look for more "enterprisey" hardware with IMM and such, probably even cheaper when you don't really care about per-core-performance

[@DoomsdayR3sistance]

Not sure I've ever had a need for that many cores but sure would be fun to see how many containers I could run on it doing random junk.

[@kiseitai2]

And containers. This system is crazy compared to my Mac Pro 2010 with dual Xeon x5670s. It also looks like it can do gaming better too for those games that are heavily CPU bound.

[@DoomsdayR3sistance]

@@kiseitai2 Most heavily CPU based games are single threaded and why they bottleneck so much. This is why/how Intel has managed to stay relevant in gaming. For games that are multi-threaded, I imagine most aren't Numa aware, you'd need to limit them to a single CPU in some method, in either case you'd probably not get much better performance than a single CPU.

[@yaoxu8490]

双路 is not part of its product name, it means dual socket. Basically all dual socket motherboard has this word on their package.

[@qqqqhuz]

唉我在 哦常常日哦哎 字日吃

[@rareraven]

@@qqqqhuz Dude, stop talking about his mother. Not cool man.

[@qqqqhuz]

@@rareraven ???? nothing about any mother.

[@nathangamble125]

@@qqqqhuz It's a joke about not being able to understand Chinese.

[@qqqqhuz]

@@nathangamble125 Joke aint funny if you have to explain it, in order to laugh

[@Kortexual]

Wasn't this like the best way to get a budget system with lots of cores? At least before Ryzen existed.

[@animearmpits3060]

hi

[@swirrllfolfsky9803]

@@animearmpits3060 wtf is it with you just spamming hi on every comment here? Pretty sure you're a bot

[@farawaythrower]

It still is the best way

[@w19ely85]

No, because before Ryzen existed high core Haswell xeons were an absolute ridiculous price and really only an option for commercial applications

[@V1N_574]

@@swirrllfolfsky9803 ignore and report dude best way to deal with them

[@No-vv7rp]

While these cpus obviously aren't amazing in gaming, they do have some applications elsewhere. If you instead look at E5 2600 v2 CPUs rather than v3/v4, you can use DDR3 ram rather than DDR4. This sounds like a downgrade, but high capacity server DDR3 dims are ~1/3 the price on eBay per gb vs. DDR4, so if you need to build a server with 256gb of ram or more and ram bandwidth doesn't really matter, it's an interesting use case. Additionally, while the individual cores on these CPUs aren't too powerful, having a ton of them makes working with tons of VMs a lot easier. Finally, since these CPUs have 40 PCIe lanes each, you can get a board like an Asus Z9PE-D16 that has 6 PCIe x16 3.0 slots if you want to make a GPU compute server on a budget.

[@ChrisD__]

The RAM thing is really making it hard for me to decide between X99, X79, and staying on Sandy Bridge... I do a lot of digital sculpting and modeling in Blender, and I make games. So the 3 biggest things I need my next upgrade to do are super high poly sculpting, having all my tools open at once, and actually, be able to compile the game engine (Godot in this case) relatively quickly - currently takes ~40 minutes or so on the i3-2100 and 5400RPM every few times I pull from master. But of course, if I go with X99, I won't be able to afford as much RAM, as good of an SSD, or a new WiFi card. If I go with X79, I can probably afford a good SSD, and more RAM than I might ever use, and maybe a WiFi card. If I go with an E3-1240 v1, I can afford everything else for sure, but I'll have to stick with this weird Optiplex motherboard that has the SATA ports blocked by the GPU I got as a gift and non-standard front panel connector.

[@MrMediator24]

@@ChrisD__ or with X79 you can buy from Ali "new" mobo like in some GN videos. They got all normal connections, some have 3 or 4 PCIe x16 connectors and M.2 slot

[@UNVIRUSLETALE]

The 2678v3 does support ddr4, it was a custom hp/hpe sku to support both DDR3 and ddr4

[@lmchua8644]

These cpus can support DDR3, specifically E5-2629 E5-2649 E5-2669 E5-2673 E5-2676 E5-2678 E5-2696V3, you just need a motherboard that specifically supports DDR3. I personally have the E5 2649v3 that runs all core at 3ghz with 32gb ddr3 ecc, it is definitely not as good as my 1700x but it is insanely good for the price and a perfect dumping ground for some of my useless ddr3 ram.

[@juansolo1617]

Always ran into issues with more than 16GB per bank of DDR3. DDR4 no sweat.

[@wangruochuan]

there we go again, my boi low key flexing his chinese

[@LauriHuu]

and we love it :D

[@dimitriid]

That AST2400 is an IPMI chip: it is used in servers for monitors as it has some very beefy capabilities: it can monitor hardware states and even flash the bios, remotely, even with the system off and even with the system with no CPU installed, over the internet. This feature alone could make it desirable for FreeNAS and Homelab enthusiasts as a similar board for AM4 to run say, a 3900x would run you 400 to 500 USD. You get some similar tech like high number of sata drives, access to ECC which is normally not present on AM4 boards and even newer connectivity for storage like U.2 or Oculink connectors and SAS ones too but the rock bottom price of these make it attractive specially for dumpter drivers: you could salvage a mostly busted server and just get this board and CPUs which would be as costly as the entire discarded server each but you get a potentially working 2U chasis, fans, several hard drives that might still be good enough for just a home lab to play around with, interface cards, raid controllers, etc. So it has its uses. Not many but it is possible to make something out of this, Wendell for example could probably rebuild your NAS with it on the cheap if you ever needed to.

[@CyberBlaed]

Wendel did with them a year ago i think. Just lookup gamers nexus unraid. The board they use has the ipmi on it too. Lovely feature, i’ll say :)

[@nickfries4317]

It's not an "IPMI chip", it's a BMC which can support the IPMI protocol...or redfish.... or other protocols

[@jean-michelnguyen9079]

this motherboard is very unstable i bought 14 boards and only 7 work. 2 cards could never boot and 5 crash when the windows 10 installation window appears

[@kia1044]

Always get happy seeing these Chinese hardware vids, I love learning about these unique boards and different pieces of tech and how it stacks up to today’s stuff. Thanks Steve and team!

[@animearmpits3060]

hi

[@trashandchaos]

China's been doing some of the most exciting stuff in hardware in recent years. The recent uptick in relatively affordable actually decent handheld game consoles from there has been really fun to check out.

[@Vavutsikarios]

Its bords, not boards

[@Vavutsikarios]

13:19 bord

[@nathangamble125]

If you're interested in seeing more, check out the Tech YES City and Miyconst (the guy who made the tutorial for the X99 turbo boost unlock) KZbin channels.

[@ChristopherOrmond]

If AMD didn't come back into the market that set up would look so appealing I would be rendering on that.

[@Wahinies]

Yep Zen totally shit on every generation of Intels HEDT. I was close to either a 5820k or dual E5-2670v2 from those decommissioned Facebook servers but my 3600 outdoes both with far less power usage. Very happy that I waited on my 4670k.

[@KokoroKatsura]

i'm on 4930k, i wait for intel ddr5, will never buy amd poorcessor

[@greebj]

If AMD didn't come back into the market this set up would still be priced at the point it would not look so appealing

[@DerrickRG]

@@KokoroKatsura Good for you.

[@sokmunky4104]

@@KokoroKatsura All AMD did was basically make their version of an i7 processor and was able to put it on 7nm. When Intel release Mercury Lake the competition will be over. They will release chipsets that support DDR5 and PCIE5 by the end of 2021.

[@WildkatPhoto]

Love the contrast between the hyper precision in testing coolers, cases and air flow and “let’s build a frankenXeon”

[@ChadDidNothingWrong]

Thanks for reviewing this intersting and obscure board...ive been waiting for videos like this.

[@jeyendeoso]

This motherboard might be a motherbord but Steve reviewing it, we never get bored

[@JoshuaNicoll]

Because the memory controllers are on each CPU, its 2x quad channel IMCs, so really it's not 8 channels but 2 4 channels, much like with the older threadrippers it's like 2 NUMA nodes, you won't see 2x the bandwidth if only 1 CPU is loaded as to access the other CPU's memory is slower but can be done through the QPI link.

[@artyomexplains]

I was waiting for this video, finally GN has made a x99 video with unlocked v3's!

[@Ghan04]

ASpeed chips are usually used for out of band management via IPMI or similar protocols. Does that board have any web-based management page where you can view the console remotely?

[@virtualtools_3021]

no its just for CCP overlords to check in on you occasionally /s

[@fleurdewin7958]

It might have IPMI. I see dual ethernet ports.

[@gregschaust4298]

Something that should be added is that you need to look at the advanced settings and see if there is a setting for NUMA (non uniform memory access). As this setting prevents data sharing across memory banks on multiple processors. I think it would make a huge difference in your results for game tests as well as other benchmarks. Dual socket systems are not easy to configure. They require much research and understanding of the platform. I speak from experience because I run dual 8280 platinum ES processors in my main workstation.

[@Kholaslittlespot1]

I'm fairly sure I've heard Steve mention numa before. No harm in reminding him though!

[@skinnyskater16]

My unraid server is a dual x58 system I slapped together for 120 bucks, I guess this is the upgrade lol

[@pietrocavicchioli6128]

Which xeons are you running in that machine? And is it any good, because I was thinking about buying an hp proliant dl380p g8, that has a dual x58 mobo too

[@strain-tv]

@@pietrocavicchioli6128 hp z600 is dual cpu and dell t5500 both are towers with sound lga 1366 boards

[@pietrocavicchioli6128]

@@strain-tv well yeah, I actually did a miss spell there, I meant hp proliant dl380 g6, not g8. (and no, I'm not considering buying dell t5500 or z600 because even though I know that they exist, in my country the are way more pricy than old servers)

[@tehdave192]

thanks for adding reasonable measurements for the merch this time!

[@DavidAlfredoGuisado]

The power consumption/efficiency of the Ryzen 3700X is just amazing !!

[@wingracer1614]

I'm typing this on one now. Quite impressed with it. I think I'll get a 5xxx cpu when they come out and move this one to my office PC which is a 2700x.

[@DKTAz00]

Can't get caught making unlicensed motherboards, if you're making motherbords **taps temple**

[@Tneconni]

This is the kind of MoBo I'd expect to see from Linus. I absolutely love seeing something as weird as these boards going through a test suite as thorough as GN's. Thanks for the video :)

[@fuzzymcuppets6167]

Steve, these review videos of you testing weird hardware that you found online are my favorite!

[@foxxyboxxy9348]

I cant tell how much I love these kind of videos. Keep it up!

[@JacksonParodi]

flex that Chinese pronunciation, man

[@bigbrainbob-8242]

Ye he actually says it basically correctly

[@junko4166]

I know I definitely would lol. Chinese looks like it's a massive pain to learn.

[@MadJackChurchill1312]

@@junko4166 It is, yeah. Grammar is pretty easy, though!

[@88oscuro]

@@junko4166 issue is learning enough kanjis to express yourself in text.

[@Mugris]

@@88oscuro is Chinese grammar easier than English? I was afraid it would be the hardest part. I’m a native Portuguese speaker, grammar in Portuguese is a hell on earth

[@XxXuzurpatorXxX]

The 1% lows might be caused by two memory domains on this board ( Its is NUMA after all ) so each context switch necessitates a memory copy - essentially. It might help, if the board supports it, to populate both CPU sockets, but utilize only CPU1 memory slots.

[@oscarmantis2534]

Gonna bump the feed as I am a new subscriber. Appreciate the coverage of "obscure" motherboards.

[@abaddon3k]

On thing I would love to see you guys touch on when reviewing hardware like this is the homelab virtualization use case. I would love to play around with a platform like this for home VMs, and its a lot cheaper than even a first gen TR with a lot more cores to offer (and would go a lot farther than the r5 2600 I use for that right now).

[@GOPACKERSJT]

I'm literally building a Xeon e5-1650v2 build for a buddy right now. I just got parts today. We went with one of the eBay "x79" chinese boards. It works fine, but they didn't solder the m.2 slots, even those the solder pads are there lol. But for $80, it runs the 32GB of ram that cost $45 at 1866mhz. It's kinda nuts.....

[@AngelBlood97]

im sure there is also a pcie adapter where you can slide those m.2 badboys in

[@benaliamine1140]

For x79 i would advice trying the huananzhi deluxe 2.49 its the most complete board you can get

[@jb678901]

@@benaliamine1140 I built a PC for the eldest kid using this motherboard, paired with an E5-4627V2 that all core turbos to 3.5Ghz (8 cores/8 threads). NVME boot drive. 32GB REEC DDR3 1600 RAM. For the money, an excellent combo. Runs cool and has been reliable for about 1 year to date. I did place active 80mm air cooling on the VRM for safe measure, though this CPU is easy on the VRM, in general.

[@benaliamine1140]

@@jb678901 same fir me I've been using those x58\x79 platforms for the last two years . I think these mobos are the best thing since sliced bread lol Note: building a ryzen system in my country will cost me double the price as we are hit by 50 percent tax on all computer parts so and 200 $ combo sounds better for me than a 500$ local build

[@jb678901]

@@benaliamine1140 Yes, I have been a XEON fan these last 2+ years. 4 built in total (1 for ea. teenager + 2 for the home office) and none exceeded ~US$700 incl. GPU, case, PSU. All CPU's were purchased off of eBay. Most GPU's were local-used purchases. Chinese boards from HZ official store on AliEx. For the most part, import duties into CH were minimal. 1) ASUS P9X79Pro ($20 mint, local deal) + E51680V2 ($155) + 32GB HyperX Fury DDR3 1600 + RX 590 (new, $170). PSU:TX650M (new) 2) HZ X99TF ($99) + E5-2678V3 ($85) + 32GB Mushkin Redline DDR3 1866 ($120, eBay bid) + GTX 980 FTW ($200). PSU: CX650M (new). 3) HZ X79 Deluxe + E5-4627V2 ($105) + 32GB Samsung REEC DDR3 1600 + GTX 980 Stryx ($180). PSU: CX650M (new). 4) AsRock Xtreme 4 ($200) + E5-1650V2 ($60, local) + 32GB HyperX Fury DDR3 1600 + RX 570 ($120). PSU: Rosewill 650W Bronze 80plus (new).

[@revammped]

This is my favorite type of video from GN, random Chinese motherbords Steve wanted.

[@malloot9224]

Idle power use would have been very good to list as well, my system is on pretty much 24/7 and I calculated that it's actually cheaper for me to buy a modern system just in the idle power use. Thanks for the cool video!

[@sagnikpradhan3594]

Really loved the video!

[@LecoSilvaPoesia]

Never fails to amaze me your Mandarin pronunciation 😬 很好！

[@572089]

I really wonder how performance scaling would change on Linux. Xenon systems i find are used with linux/unix as much if not more than windows (or win server). It would be very interesting to see how much performance would change in workstation application on say, ubuntu.

[@Scizyr]

Yeah mug-bloods like Gamers Nexus aren't going to know how to use a board like this. The video was almost entirely useless aside from the BIOS hack which they failed (lol).

[@viperchrisz4]

I agree man, scrounging for old and random stuff can be really fun, exactly why my shelf is currently filled with old GPU's from over the past 15 years of PCI-e :)

[@SolveElectronics]

so its not for gaming.. but how would it compare to the other CPU's in terms of database performance? or some other server related workloads? running multiple VMs at the same time etc? id be curious

[@g3monster89]

Gaming performance can be improved by limiting the threads available to the game to only those on the primary cpu as this will reduce latency when the game seeks data over the bus from the caches on the second cpu...Won't help with seeking data from cpu2 memory but in my experience it can dramatically reduce the stuttering.

[@blackmennewstyle]

Buying from Aliexpress currently is really a tough decision, even simple shipping across Asia is highly disrupted and far away more slow than usual. Great piece of content as always though

[@entitledOne]

For me everything that had free shipping, now has an additional $60-$80 shipping. Just not worth it.

[@xingbairong]

@@entitledOne I guess it depends on where you live and of course what you are buying. Personally I haven't seen any price hikes in shipping, in fact on some items that I've been interested the shipping prices have gone down. That said everything I've ever ordered has always been delivered in the time frames I expected(not what AliExpress suggested), all BUT the 4 damn x58/x79/x99 combos I bought. Those never showed up. Ordered from 3 different stores and I never managed to get my hands on any of these. I've given up at this point for these(got 1 last order waiting to see if it be delivered). It seems like I'm cursed when it comes to these old xeons and locally the boards for these go at 3900x prices... it seems like people think they are worth their weight in gold for some reason haha.

[@wingracer1614]

I'm waiting on a small package from Singapore. Shipping wasn't much but it took well over a month to get to the US. According to tracking, it is finally in NY and should be to me this week sometime but man it has taken forever. Last time I ordered this was pre-covid and it took 12 days to get it.

[@entitledOne]

@@xingbairong for me right now the only option for shipping is with DHL. It will arrive fast, but it's just too expensive. The regular mail shipping got removed when the global lock down started.

[@ombraforza5780]

Have you tried disabling spectre and meltdown protection? From tech yes city's testing, it looks like you can get a small but noticeable performance boost.

[@first-thoughtgiver-of-will2456]

I really enjoyed this thanks Steve.

[@jb678901]

Did Steve disable Spectre and Meltdown (with InSpectre) for these benchmarks?

[@SamFBM]

good point. maybe them lows would go up

[@jb678901]

Plenty of excellent KZbin tutorials, benchmarking, and reviews by Miyconst on these X79 and X99 motherboards from China. My second PC...the one I am using now...has a XEON E5-2678V3 (12 core/24 thread) that I purchased for US$85 on eBay. The motherboard, a HuananZhi X99TF which I purchased off of AliExpress from $99. Using the turbo unlock tutorial and zipped tools from Miyconst, I removed a certain microcode in the BIOS to get all cores running at 3.3.Ghz. The modded BIOS was done in under 20 minutes with this guide, first time around. Temps under stress...never go above 60C with a dual RGB 120mm SNOWMAN tower cooler (6 x 6mm pipes) for $32. Cinebench R15 = 1824 / R20= 3912. This combo will accommodate either DDR3 or DDR4, as the CPU is compatible AND the motherboard has dedicated RAM slots (4 for DDR3 and 4 for DDR4)*. I am using 4x8GB of Mushkin REDLINE (1866Mhz) desktop DDR3; in QUAD channel. There are only ~7 Haswells that accommodate DDR3, I believe only 5 for the LGA-2011(3) socket. Fun to build and the quality of the X99TF from HuananZhi was surprisingly good. The PCIE slots are stainless steel shrouded and the VRM heatsink is actively cooled. The board substrate itself is hefty layered and this MB integrates RGB in its IO shroud. Has two NVME m.2 slots too, with one currently as my bootable OS drive. Also, a wifi/bt m.2 slot, which currently has an AX200 wifi 6 / BT 5.1 card inside it ($17). AliEx sells combos of this system (X99TF + E5-2678V3 + 32GB REEC DDR3 1600) for only US$250. *HZ X99T8 has 8 x DDR3 slots / HZ X99F8 has 8 x DDR4 slots.

[@jb678901]

I actually got a second X99TF because it never arrived in 4 months (during virus time) and I petitioned AliExpress for a full refund. I got the money back within 4 days of petitioning AliEx. I reordered from HZ's official store. Then...a couple months later...the first board arrived. Now I have two for US$99 / total.

[@Miyconst]

With my latest Mi899 tool you can apply the Turbo Boost Unlock hack in just a few mouse click, it's no longer needed to spend these 20 minutes :)

[@jb678901]

@@Miyconst Even better!!!! Yes, that tool is amazing. Of course, I haven't needed it because the tutorial served it purpose so well the first time. Honestly, tools like this should be purchased. It is that good. Keep up the excellent work. SUBSCRIBED.

[@Miyconst]

@@jb678901 🍻

[@IvIetalaholic]

Got my GN component shirt yesterday. pretty quick shipping. Thanks guys I love the shirt.

[@yourdad1351]

good to also note these xeons and dual board setups do really well for server applications that scale across cores. get a couple of these and toss debian on it and you have a half decent server machine

[@zanderbest9711]

Ayy, I see you've discovered the magic of ES/QS Xeons. This has been a poorly kept secret for a while. The main thing to keep in mind with purchasing such CPU's (aside from passing general reputable seller smell test) is checking the listed stepping of the cpu in question, and checking that with listed launch retail stepping of the same sku. The further removed the stepping of the ES/QS cpu is from the (post)release steppings is, the more likely you are to encounter issues (eg, a B0 stepping ES vs an M0 stepping release is a big delta, whereas L0 vs M0 is much closer, and is effectively a "public beta" or release candidate, to borrow a software versioning analogy). It's also worth noting that factory base/boost limits may be slightly different than release spec, and as you pointed out, these are/can be unlocked to an extent. The value prospect of ES/QS is diminished these days now that AMD (and now intel, somewhat) has finally broken out of the 4c/8t paradigm on the consumer side, but if you need cheap multicore, abundant PCIe lanes (w/ PEX/PLX chips), and or abundant memory capacity w/ Registered ECC support, they're still generally a great value. The price of ES/QS chips largely scales with base/boost clocks (eg, E5-2667 v3's will typically go for MUCH more than a E5-2650 v4). In otherwords, for gaming, they're not necessarily ideal (as you've discovered), but for a workstation or cheap whitebox server build (database, memcache, etc), they certainly have their niche. It's also worth pointing out you can sometimes put E5-16xx and E5-46xx ES/QS CPU's in C602/C612 (depending on Xbridge vs Xwell generations) boards. As I'm sure you've guessed, that'll depend on whether the respective mainboards have the blacklist/whitelist microcode for those. This is worth mentioning as the 4000 series cpu's often go for cheaper than their 2000 or 1000 counterparts as they're only *officially* supported in 4P-8P type systems (eg, R830) and thus demand is lower. However, I've successfully gotten E5-4627 v2 ES's working in C602 motherboards (Asus z9PE, Dell R620). Afterall there's a difference between "Supported" and "Functional". All that said, this is a pretty cool board. I'll stick to buying surplus UCS C240 M4S and Dell R630/R730's for now (generally cheaper overall) but it's nice to see that these boards aren't just some scam and actually have a functional purpose in the whitebox homelab space.

[@mengs9365]

thank you for the details..ES=engineering sample, QS=qualification sample?

[@merlinathrawes6191]

Can you use one of those dirt cheap mining gpu's, without output, on it harnessing the onboard video? If so you could get a 3gb 1060 mining card for say, $35.

[@GotrekGurninsson]

I use a similar board with dual e5-2699's and mine monero on the cpu's and I have 4 1070's mining ethereum on the pci slots. It was a sub 500$ system (before gpu prices went crazy). And not counting ram which I already had.

[@arjdroid]

Seems like this CPU package deal would be a good price to performance deal for a Homelab Virualisation Server which could be running multiple VM's at once, it also seems pretty good at those Blender Render benchmarks and similar production workloads! Good to see these things still having some use these days...

[@zachhoy]

I will never do anything like this, so I'm glad you guys do - it satisfies completely unknown curiosities!

[@shinjisan2015]

the X99-F8D is probably the best Chinese dual X99 motherboard currently available. Excellent for an editing and rendering rig as you can add a decent GPU and more than one RAID controller for GPU accelerator and very large RAID arrays as the same time in the same chassis. It's also a board well used by Miyconst and has great community BIOS support. Absolutely don't buy a dual CPU board if you want to game. Better to spend the money on a single socket and get a higher clock speed CPU instead.

[@m8x425]

Single socket like the x99-F8

[@Miyconst]

I fully agree with you.

[@cayo2588]

Please do a full review of single 2678v3 in gaming, its a beast budget CPU that can use very cheap ddr3 ecc RAM. In some countries the whole bundle of this CPU + ddr3 motherboard + 16gb ddr3 ecc ram can be cheaper than used Ryzen 3600 (just CPU). And other Xeon 2620v3 is best low-end CPU for people on even lower budget.

[@ragtop70]

I'd love to see you guys working with some of the even older technology... like an ALR Revolution 6X6 (aka Unisys Aquanta HS6).

[@keyvanfaraji]

Nice work and TnQ, ps. i saw cyberpunk logo in the back when steve was talking !!

[@shodan6401]

I love this video. Just so unique and interesting, although perhaps not so useful... I'd love to see a revisit to this platform with instead one of the single socket "bords" paired with something like the E5-2699v3 or the OEM E5-2696v3, with the all-turbo mod which is rumored (the OEM version) to boost to 3.8GHz. These chips are going for just $40 U.S., making the board the most expensive part. That might be interesting in compliler and render workloads for less than $150. And with just a single CPu at 3.8GHz, it might even be able to produce some acceptable frames? Though gaming would obviously not be the primary use case, but it might actually be a relevant budget option for people launching on YT or things of that nature. I'm curious, but I don't have $$ just to throw away on a curiosity... Anyway, really, really enjoy this vid. Thanks.

[@fridaycaliforniaa236]

Undervolted E5-2699v3 with HT off and some cores disabled gives some really interesting results. The disabled cores help with the limited TDP.

[@the-wert]

For very good reviews of such motherboards I really recommend Miyconst.

[@Miyconst]

Thanks for that :)

[@nO_d3N1AL]

It's great to see Steve talking more about e-waste in recent videos.

[@MrSinnerBOFH]

That was a lot of fun! More if this “Strange things on Ali Express” episodes, please!

[@squirky787]

Used Xeon's can be of great value if someone wants to put together a cheap office-PC and popping a cheap-ish GPU in such as a 1660.

[@animearmpits3060]

hi

[@adamnizami8770]

Or a 1070 used for an actually decent workstation for photo and video editing

[@420f37]

@John Chaser ??

[@amenadiel4060]

lol u call those cheap ??? lmao

[@habib_the_panda_odst]

Umm no, we have an old zeon at work and its a heap of shit the company wont replace it, sometimes you have to process an order 8 times and it still wont work it will just freeze and wait for 30 mins then delete the order all together. DO NOT EVER USE AN OLD SYSTEM IN A BUSINESS APPLICATION EVEN IF ITS JUST AS A PoS.

[@shadow7037932]

I was just about to go to sleep Steve... I guess I'm watching this now.

[@MrTechnofuzz]

I would definitely love to see a lower core, higher clock speed single socket setup on the x79 and x99 setups. 1660v2's, 2667v3's, anything really. The older xeon have slower clock speeds, but higher L3 cache counts. 8-c/16-th combos are cheap and have higher clock speeds. The V3's went higher in core counts in favor of lower clocks. The V2's also have a higher cpu diversity. Definitely loved the information! Level 1 tech compared a Xeon 2680 v1 to a 7900X and it fared relatively well in gaming! Looking forward to more videos on xeon builds! They are a great alternative to modern cpus, if you're on a tight budget and want more cores/threads.

[@dukdive]

Nice to see a for fun video Steve, keep em coming

[@user-rh6mk5vy3z]

I must try this by myself, just for playing solitaire.

[@deepfriedlettuce851]

I love seeing Chinese hardware reviews from GN. I wonder if Steve will ever review one of the many boutique SFF cases coming out of China

[@hepengye4239]

Steve, may I ask which pc case did you use fr testing this dual cpu mobo? I have a similar X99 mobo from Huananzhi, but having a hard time finding a case that will fit this 300x320mm E-atx monster.

[@joshuacollier7846]

Great video. I really appreciate it. I’m looking to build a “middle of the road” server to run VMs, but also run some gaming servers on. Do you have any suggestions on hardware. I wouldn’t mind it to be rack mounted but either way is fine. I don’t know if I should go the enterprise route with multiple sockets or consumer side with a crazy processor and board. If you were going to build a machine that can host some gaming but also run VMs what are some hardware recommendations? Or would you build a specific gaming server and a separate VM server? Thanks for your time.

[@ProfDrOetker]

Dual sockets blows at gaming possibly because a) it has NUMA enabled and b) the games does not try to run NUMA-aware. So the half of games' threads run at CPU0 and the other half at CPU1. Then CPU0 tries to access something CPU1 allocated. This incurs massive memory latency penalties as CPU0 has to wait for reads over NUMA bridge. I bet games with fewer threads would run faster than more threads because of this.

[@TheAnoniemo]

Or use something like process-lasso to force the games to only run on one CPU

[@user-xr3rb6pn9m]

An easy way to test it is just to take out one of the CPUs. I bet the 0.1% lows will significantly improve.

[@TheKetsa]

It blows simply because those CPU are low frequency. 2,5 Ghz.

[@nathangamble125]

@@TheKetsa It's running faster than that due to turbo boost, and it would still run a lot faster (close to Zen1/Zen+ Ryzen 7 in most games) in most modern games if you used a single-socket motherboard (especially if you also did the turbo boost unlock hack to let the boost apply to all cores). Miyconst (the guy who made the turbo boost unlock tutorial) has benchmarks on his youtube channel. The relatively low clock speeds are only a small part of the reason why these Xeons are slow.

[@jeffreybowers5646]

@@TheKetsa With turbo unlock, the 2678/2680 and properly configured runs as good or better then a 2600 or 2700x, and about 15-20% or so worse then a 3700x. Which isn't terrible when you factor in that the entire system costs roughly the same as the 3700x alone even when running the boards with DDR4.

[@SuperSuperka]

I wanted to buy 2CPU system from China, but went to 3900x. While 3900X is about the same productivity as 2x2678v3 (after Unlock Turboboost for all cores) it is almost twice more powerful in single-core, which also matters for CGI which I do everyday. Also many Chinese 2 CPU motherboard are very slow on startup. I noticed you didn't considered 2xCooling and more powerful PSU needed for Xeons in your value numbers, while my 3900x is totaly fine with box cooling. And where are yours Cinebench 20 results, both multi- and single-core? Man , these are CPU for workstation and you test the games productivity mostly.

[@SpawnBootcamp]

It did say gaming on the side of the Motherboard.

[@BeastofBourdon]

Built my system in late 2019 with a jingsha x79-p3 and a xeon e5-2689 sandy bridge 8 core. Paired it with a rx 5600 xt that gave me more problems than the cpu and motherboard ever did but eventually got it working normally. Been streaming on the system since January. I'm finally about to upgrade to a ryzen 5600 system but this build has served me really well over the last few years.

[@dushyantpuri]

Just wondering what the boot times on these are? I use a dual xeon build and my issue has been slow post. Takes 30 seconds to post and another 10 for windows to boot. Thanks for the video, super helpful

[@hollowknut9473]

Question was answered in the video...the one time I comment before watching the whole way through. *Comment Redacted* -Huh, this is about what I expected from the title. I do wonder if disabling one of the CPUs would have helped with the 1% lows and stutter. Game with one cpu and render with both. I’d just get a 3900x personally, but i wouldn’t mind adding it to my home lab to play with.-

[@wobblysauce]

Or even tried with 1 CPU.

[@hollowknut9473]

@@wobblysauce They did say it works with one cpu but you’re limited on the memory support to just the four slots. At $250 though I’m not sure that’s the best value for the performance you’d get out of a single cpu.

[@stanwbaker]

@@hollowknut9473 A gaming-focused combo, like E5 1620 V3 with 4x4 GB, can be had for $160. If the prices of RX 470 would go down to what they were a year ago it would be compelling for a cheap and cheerful build.

[@wobblysauce]

@@hollowknut9473 Oh, I was meaning like the 1% dips.

[@yakacm]

It's funny when Steve speaks Chinese, it sounds like it's just been dubbed in as it's so out of place next to English, even after rewinding the video about 10 times I was still none the wiser as to how you say Huananzhi.

[@emancesooh]

4 years ago I built a 2x E5-2686v3 system. The CPU's were ~290 at the time. I did the EFI mod when it came out about a year later. I was able to get all 36 cores running at 3.1 GHz, although it would no longer turbo up to 3.5 single core... It was running on an as-rock board, I can't remember the exact model. I sold it right before threadripper 2 came out. It had a 135 TDP but must have been able to draw more than that. Also, the E5-2699v3 could be boosted up to all core turbo of I think 3.8 on all cores depending on which board you had. Love this content Steve! Would love to see the 18th core with the high turbo in an x99 board with the BIOS mod and see how it does in gaming.... Also, I found that disabling course or a CPU could make a really big difference due to the CPU to CPU latency and the way that the system seemed to use cache. Cool stuff!

[@StaelTek]

Thoughts on getting 2 22 core Xeon 2699v4 CPU's for the mobo?

[@NikhilTalksTech]

I literally abandoned my video's upload just to watch this in HD 😂😂 (i have crappy internet)

[@animearmpits3060]

hi

[@dannacht6827]

Weird way of advertising yourself

[@NikhilTalksTech]

@@dannacht6827 I had no intentions of advertising myself, just wanted to point out how much I love GN videos

[@Fistagon777]

lol....Russian OC forums....damn i thought i was the only one...

[@twist6124]

I did something fairly similar to this last winter! I wanted to be able to use my desktop as a virtualization host for a large number of VMs and containers, so I built a dual Xeon workstation; the same generation as used in the video. It's been a very long process, but it's also been a ton of fun.

[@twist6124]

I should add, it's my primary desktop. It's not just a good server, it's also good from a desktop perspective.

[@stephanhart9941]

Where's the Lian Li Galahad review? I heard you mention it about a week ago. Thank you for your hard work bringing us reviews and news with Integrity.

[@JasonGT95]

What I’ve learned: get a ryzen 5 3600 and call it a day

[@User9681e]

Depends on workload but yeah I would recommend most people to go to the more efficient and better single core performance zen 2 over old crap

[@fleurdewin7958]

Yeah. Far better power consumption and less heat output

[@desther7975]

Yep. I would only consider this if I wanted to build a very Mac Pro-like hackintosh system.

[@formdoggie5]

X58 chip that can oc to 4.9 ghz = 20.00 X58 chinese mobo with triple channel memory = 60.00 X58 memory kit = 30.00 I can make a whole gaming rig for the price of just your chip, and it wont be all that much faster for practical use because of the advantages of triple channel memory.

[@happycurty5502]

These $100 ones on alley express looked like a scam.......so we bought 1. 🤣 😂 🤣 😂

[@Matthew_Lang]

5:38 Whats to the right of Steve that starts at the top of the screen, and then makes its way down to the bench behind the glass cleaner?

[@tomrobbin92]

looks like a bit of dust or similar

[@ChaseMMD]

I'm currently running a xeon Broadwell chip with a asus x99 deluxe and it works great and takes the punishment! I have ran both v3 and V4 chips on the board and made sure to update the BIOS all the way

[@Mystikus2]

69$? What a "nice" deal

[@nathangamble125]

See if you can find an E5-2698 v3 for $420 :)

[@Carnyzzle]

"we bought this for a staggeringly cheap 69 dollars" Nice

[@bobevens659]

Great video it was really good

[@duebinalemon]

Any chance to slip in RandomX benchmarks for a quick 5 seconds for the CPU tests for ongoing tests yeah? Power consumption over idle during that test would also be valuable. Sometimes the FPU unit excels in certain tasks that are exemplified with that benchmarking tool.

[@unclewho]

双路means dual CPUs, and gaming actually is what this broad for, just not the gaming you think it is. Besides the free lancer 3d artists, the board is primarily made for the boosters. They boost such as world of warcraft characters for their customers, while they simultaneously login more than 10 accounts, and control the game characters. And there is a large community in China, they play with such motherbroads, retired rack servers,Xeons, ecc ram, and literally any electrical crap,they call themselves the scavenger, 垃圾佬. What’s behind the motherboard is interesting.

[@GamersNexus]

I mean, that's interesting, but no need to be insulting in your last line.

[@explorer9049]

@@GamersNexus hmm i don't see anything insulting or remark in his reply so maybe ye had lost in translation? 🤔

[@unclewho]

@@GamersNexus amended, sorry for last line, no intention to insult anyone.

[@PyroCatus]

Some child from China needed an A on his math test that's how the motherbord came to be.

[@rareraven]

This? B+ in China.

[@rednammoc]

@@rareraven But then you'd just have motherords...

[@xDNightmarex]

Hrm, quick question about that setup: Would a hypervisor make a difference with the low fps / stuttering slapped in the middle so to the guest OS it looks like a single cpu with X cores? Like ESXi + Windows 10? I'm thinking of combining my current old xeon (L5640) lenovo homeserver and my old and trusty 4790k gaming/coding system into one bigger E5 v2 server (so my 128gb ddr3 ecc is still usable) and game via streaming, work via rdp @ multi-monitor

[@VraccasVII]

The AST2400 is incredibly popular with server boards and I'd bet some food that it's the most used GPU of the last decade despite nobody knowing about it... the BMC features are very useful

[@PsiQ]

Sorry if i missed it, but did you also test with only 1 cpu, running all cores max turbo? I would guess the benefit from over 24 (unused) threads in case of max fps is a lot worse than the min fps drops because of two cpus.

[@jaredkomoroski]

Any chance of getting a review or video on rack mount workstation cases?

[@joshuas1524]

Found this video very useful as I have recently become interested in this. I was wondering how an x79 with dual 2667s would work. I understand it is the older ddr3 but I am curious if the higher single core clocks would help boost performance in gaming.

[@MrPugheaven]

Love this one Steve, as interesting to see just how they're starting to date now. I'm running a 1680V2 at 4.7ghz all core and it's a little beasty on my old ASUS x79 sabertooth board... 64GB ram, masxed out with Sabrent M2 cards and for me, I'll be pairing this with a Big Navi as I game at 4k... so fore me, unless this think craps out... I'll be keeping it for some time... it does everything I need. It's great though that the x79 and x99 boards fron China are still out there as like you say they're just really interesting now... how they're getting away with it is another question though lol