Cheap AliExpress Motherboard and 12-Core CPU Bundle

[@BudgetBuildsOfficial]

Actually ended up with a very similar setup for £27 off eBay. These things are a bargain when “new” and even better than you find someone wanting to get rid second hand.

[@XTRMXPRTKILR]

When new video???

[@Hadisabetghadam]

Oh Thank God You Still alive

[@silent.one_8087]

glad to see you still on internet even if you stop making video

[@markstrickland438]

I bought two HP Z440 workstations like that, @BudgetBuildsOfficial, for $100 combined (both have 2683v4, 1 32GB RAM and the other 64GB - which I upgraded to 128GB). The v4 CPUs are so cheap now I wouldn't bother with the v3. These dirt cheap v4 systems make great home lab systems, and great JellyFin/Plex server if you have an appropriate GPU. I have a small solar system built out of scrap stuff that I use to power them, though only one stays running 24/7.

[@psychoalert1823]

@@XTRMXPRTKILR This is literally a new video

[@01ai01]

I hope the zigabyte and zsi versions come out soon.

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Lol 😂

[@MakeYourVision]

Can't wait for the ZVGA X99

[@amaurybruchez6734]

@@MakeYourVision ZSROCK

[@tynewlin]

Yeah, and Zzotac 😂

[@Bukakanga]

@@tynewlin and Zaphire az well

[@chincemagnet]

I grabbed a Machinist kit with a 2670v3 an “x99” mother board and 16 GB DDR4 I think it’s 2133, it’s JDEC basically. But it’s a great kit for cheap. Grabbed an RTX 2080 off eBay for $200, slapped together a PC for under $500 and it’s actually really good.

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Nice :)

[@a.bamatraf6054]

really good heater 👍

[@voyagerdeepspaceexploratio5023]

If its quad channel the speed doesn't really matter. I used 2400 on my X99 setup in 2016. It was still faster than any 4000+ DDR4 dual channel setup and I only paid 40 € for 16 GB of RAM back then. The downside is only the power draw.

[@chincemagnet]

@@voyagerdeepspaceexploratio5023 it’s dual channel atm, I’ll grab another set eventually. The power draw on these Xeons is capped at their TDP. So if you hit max TDP, they throttle like crazy. One way I discovered to get around that, which is seldom an issue in gaming, is to disable cores. It keeps the remaining cores at max boost clock.

[@chincemagnet]

@@a.bamatraf6054 true 😆

[@Mitsuoxx]

It's a good budget combo. A relative paid for it like 150 bucks in 2020, pretty bad at that cost but if it's cheap, it's a good option.

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Yeah perfect for anyone wanting something cheap and cheerful

[@b0ne91]

In 2020 for a combo like this, $150 would've been quite the reasonable buy. Zen 4 only came out in November 2020. And that's not even the budget CPUs.

[@Mitsuoxx]

@@b0ne91 The thing was he paid extra for nothing. At that time, Aliexpress had better price for budget combo (like 70-80 bucks). He was angry with me like "WhY yOu DiN't tElL mE i pAid eXtrA???" when I told him to buy an 2nd hand i3 9100f combo with that budget and never consulted me about xeon combos. 150 bucks is expensive for any xeon combo of Aliexpress, at least from my pov.

[@krxtian6201]

hey man it's been so long since i've seen one of your videos. i'm literally on the bus and your channel randomly popped in my head. i used to watch your channel to look for good value budget parts and now i just finished a $1500 build. glad to see you're still doing well

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Thanks :)

[@Graphics_Card]

Yeah I actually used to watch these 4 years ago when the whole world went down and started reviving around computers, and that’s when I got into computers, and started watching these a lot. I’m 18 now and watching these again to prepare for my career in computer science.

[@Dee-tc7lo]

These things really shine with the memory in quad channel, with DDR4 2400 you can have nearly 80 Gigabytes per second of memory bandwidth and if it's ECC you have that parity for less potential errors. I used to exclusively run Xeons up until around 2020, my last one was a e5-1650 v2. 6 cores 12 threads and it's multiplier was unlocked, it was a beast. I miss the quad channel ECC memory but I do love my Ryzen these days.

[@yasu_red]

The quad channel thing is why it bothers me to no end when bundles like these come with 2 sticks. (Or when the motherboards _only_ have 2 slots)

[@midrezgaming]

I just picked up an AsRock x99 Fatality board with 4x4gb ddr4 2666Mhz, the E5-1620 V3, and a rx580 4gb for $110. Board supports 8 sticks, unsure of max capacity however.

[@MrGorpm]

You beat me to it! I had an MSI X99 Sli with i7 5820k running quad channel a few years ago, so I was curious as to why only two sticks were used.

[@outrun4047]

@@midrezgaming 256gb with your cpu :)

[@midrezgaming]

@@outrun4047 i messed up, it's v3 so 768gb max for chip, still 256 for the board. 🤣

[@TheBackyardChemist]

BUYER BEWARE I have checked the Aliexpress store page for this board and they say it is only wired up for dual channel. Populating all 4 slots will not get you the bandwidth you expect.

[@leonbishop7404]

yep these boards are too small to put all the necessary lanes for 4 channel to work

[@TheBackyardChemist]

@@leonbishop7404 Size is not the issue, one can route 4 channels even on an ITX board, but that needs more PCB layers and more careful design. Some of the more expensive aliexpress "X99" boards of this size actually do wire up all 4 channels properly.

[@Nobbi_Habogs]

not true, i have the machinist X99 RP9-H, it supports quad channel.

[@gadgetman_nz4092]

I put together a couple of X99/E5-2640 V3/GTX10603GB/32GB PC's in mid 2020 during lockdowns. My daughter was doing a design/animation course at the time and was starting to struggle with the old Dell laptop she had. Blew the tutors away when they found out what she had achieved with what she had been using. All the parts arrived just as things got too taxing for the laptop. Put it all together and she has been very happy. Made the study much easier and she could game with it as well. I came across a deal on some DDR3 server RAM so put together ax X79/E5-2650 V3 machine with 64GB RAM which has also been really good. Highly recommend these as budget friendly machines with some serious grunt for the money. I am a bit of a Xeon fanboy.

[@happyvideos7791]

Hey what motherboard did you get in back 2020?I have the xeon cpus n an ecc ram

[@comiumapedra5397]

​@@happyvideos7791get a machinist P4 or machinist pr9

[@SHUTENSEPC]

You can "unlock" the V3 CPUs on this socket to get them to work at 1 core frequency on all cores. It comes with heat, but almost all mobos can handle ~100W CPU. (Instructions in comments)

[@yoppindia]

how do you do that?

[@kevinvanneste2500]

Bios tweak en Windows registry edit only possible for max turbo on all cores with V3 chips

[@balukrol]

This motherboard CANNOT handle these without SEVERE modding. Had one of these fry itself after 3 days of running a turbo-unlocked 2670v3.

[@jimtekkit]

Good luck doing that on a board with a VRM that would've been considered weak even a decade ago.

[@christianmino3753]

yeah like idk what this maniac is talking about, you can visually see VRMs on this board that obviously can't handle going crazy like that.@@jimtekkit

[@jamess.1543]

I'm glad you mentioned the RAM. Was worried mine only worked with ECC at first

[@certs743]

Cool find. Still rocking a Dell T3600 with an old E5-2665 with 64GBs of quad channel DDR3 RAM. And the machine still stomps all over the 6th and 8th gen i5 systems I have kicking around here even if I make those out with 32GBs of DDR 4. Sometimes brute force just does the trick regardless of IPC.

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Yeah those old systems are awesome

[@pikraken]

I was thinking about getting something like this really recently, so it's really cool you made a video about it! Seems like quite a good deal & I'd like to check it out even more now.

[@dalehammers4425]

Make sure to get quad channel ram, and use a better gpu than a 980. The quad channel ram will overcome the lower clock speeds, and it can absolutely handle a better gpu.

[@pikraken]

@@dalehammers4425 alrighty thanks for the advice

[@MadaraUchiha-wd2qe]

I enjoy these budget builds please do more videos if possible on these type of builds 🔥 keep up the great work brotha

[@j_james_01]

Love your videos bro been a fan for 4 years now ❤️

[@zextakamania2086]

I recently got a Machinist kit with 2640v3, unlocked the turbo and paired with my 2nd hand Vega 56. Awesome machine for gaming, especially on Linux because Vega performs better with VKD3D and there is ROCm for AI. Emulators run surprisingly well too. It even has ReBAR. Was like 300ish bucks for the whole build.

[@jakobe_bryantgaming5580]

I run a huananzhi qd4 with a 2697v3 with the turbo unlock (3.6 GHz all cores under load) with quad channel 2133 memory for my server. Handles amazingly. I even put a 6700 10 GB with it and it got over 120 fps in warzone at 1440p with fsr. Incredible value for a $15 cpu

[@jcugnoni]

I have built / upgraded a few old workstations using Aliexpress used Xeons v2/v3/v4 and different boards from Huananzhi or Zsus. So far absolutelly no issues; all have been rock solid and run 24/7 for simulation and heavy data processing. I only reboot them a few times per year and I have had no crash at all. It is actually much more stable than my used Ryzen gen 1 & 2 / non ECC DDR4 PCs.. For info I am running two dual Xeon v2 (2690v2 and 2697v2) with 128Gb DDR3 ECC and 3 single socket Xeon V3/4 with 64 gb DDR4 reg ECC.

[@truents1]

Does it run current games well?

[@Beisepimp]

I've also bought some of these, but from an other manufacturer and a little different CPU. I paired one with a GTX 1070 and with 4 channel RAM (32GB) and the GPU was the bottleneck. Great for the price, but windows 11 is not official supported on these E5 Xeons, so keep that in mind. 🙂

[@vali69]

Who cares, you can bypass that. Otherwise this looks like it's great on linux, pair it with an amd gpu like a rx580 or 5700 from alix too and you've got an awesome combo for 250 euros.

[@Beisepimp]

@@vali69 Yeah, i'm only still have one problem with Valorant & Vanguard, if you have Win11 with an unsupported CPU , the game will not start. :'D

[@vali69]

@@Beisepimp as someone who supports not having malware on your computer I do not support having kernel level malware in the form of anti cheat on your system. Now if only valorant was actually fun to play, in that matter the only fun multiplayer fps game I've played recently is battlebit and I think that runs on linux, haven't had any time to try it out tho, I barely even play as is on my windows install.

[@BREEZYM6015]

I have an i7 8700k and a GTX 1060 6GB. What would be a good GPU to upgrade to?

[@BREEZYM6015]

​@@vali69Bypass what?

[@rodrigogirao8344]

Those Xeon kits are great when you want to game on a sane budget. A few months ago I got a 2680v4 + 32GB ECC + mobo for ~$110 (and the mobo is fancier than that one, it has two M.2 slots). Adding an RTX 2070 and all the other parts that I got locally, I built a solid gaming rig for less than $400.

[@JordosTechShack]

I did a build for my brother with an E5-1660v4. the 1650/1660/1680 all have a base above 3Ghz and boost to around 4ghz. The 3060 I took into the shop on trade in because it was artificing for the original owner in certain games. But after I repasted and repaded it, it was fine. The bundled CPUS are more for home lab and budget servers. If you want gaming performance you need the 16 series with 6-8 cores and much higher clock speeds than the 2000 series chips meant to run in multi CPU servers. The 1660v4 on AliExpress is $20 and despite the lower core count will run much better in games.

[@khalyl7282]

did u try it on this motherboard?

[@JordosTechShack]

@@khalyl7282 yes, the build video is on my channel.

[@khalyl7282]

@@JordosTechShack i thought the vrms can't handle a 140W Cpu

[@tylerfreal6472]

what would you get today for the 40-80 dollar range ?

[@JordosTechShack]

@@tylerfreal6472 I would go Ryzen if you can afford it. I have video up on a Machinist $45 B450 motherboard I got for my daughters all white birthday build coming up. I picked up her CPU for $30 on FB Marketplace. If you sill want x99 I have a video just went up on the MR9 series. I did a server build for the Shop with the MR9-Pro in an old-school green case, reused from a PC I built 20 years ago. I also have a server build up with the MR9A-H. A gamer inspired all RGB server I built for a client. Great boards, just avoid the MAX model, random chipsets and cheaper feel.

[@heclanet]

I bought a similar board with 32Gb of RAM and put a vega 56, ssd and an 850w power supply. Very good PC, I use it for. When my friends come home

[@KYSMO]

Wow, this is actually a not-horrible deal. I was mostly sketched out by the Ali-MoBos but 12 cores for 50ish bucks is fair.

[@CAMSLAYER13]

They are certainly sketchy but couod be worth the gamble

[@YannBOYERDev]

12 cores means nothing. These CPUs are slower than new 6 cores CPUs. If each core is slow, you can have a ton of cores, and it will still be slow. Like, a 8 cores Ryzen 9 7940HS is as fast a i5-13500 14 cores, because the i5 have fast cores and slow cores, but even on CPUs with all core having the same speed you need to have fast cores to become more powerful than the lower core count cpu.

[@maou5025]

@@YannBOYERDev Due to 75gbps quad channels mem bandwidth, these CPU can brute force through a lot of games that stutter in DDR4. In 1440p, you can build a build like this with quad channels ($60) and spend all on GPU.

[@dalehammers4425]

@@YannBOYERDev Quad core RAM can sometimes overcome the core speed with these things. Quite often actually. There are some very good videos out there of this very cpu crushing games with a better gpu.

[@jonjohnson2844]

This is probably more suitable for a 'homelab' type thing, although the lack of an iGPU kind of makes it unsuitable if you want to serve media from it...discreet GPU would add a ton of idle power consumption.

[@araujoluks]

new intel nucs are unbeatable for that purpose

[@ubemvuossas665]

I know this is a bit of an old video, but since you said you're going to be keeping it long time I'd recommend, for accuracy reasons, to use another method to look at the temps and power draw of the cpu, usually these chinese boards have lower quality or straight up faulty temp sensors and VRMs (the component that does the power draw for the cpu), from my own experience I built a few of these x99 xeon machines myself and one reported 5 W of power draw of the cpu (0 W at idle lmao), when it's actually pulling 100-120 W, another reported 20 C and even if I couldn't confirm myself it felt like it was at 80 just by feeling the air around it. You can also turbo unlock them (at least most v3 and v4 afaik, what it does is make the single core turbo boost clocks apply for all core turbo boost), but it's not recommended unless you buy a high quality chinese x99 board (x99 boards are mainly produced by chinese manufacturers to repurposed these server xeon chips for general use), as most are done with very low quality parts and will shut down or straight up catch on fire if not properly cooled/proper quality.

[@Skukkix23]

Hey, really wish you would review the sothered on laptop chips, like the 11900h. They could make for super interesting fps/$ options.

[@RandomGaminginHD]

I’ll take a look soon!

[@rso_attila]

They used to be dirt cheap a few years ago, around 80-120 bucks depending on cpu specs, and back then they were a great price/performance combo. Nowadays tho, they’re twice as expensive, and pretty much not worth it since they can barely compete with a 12400f while being more expensive and less efficient. Also, the boards that they solder those i9s and i7s to are the most basic bare bones motherboards they could make, VRMs get crazy hot if you don’t cool them down with heat sinks.

[@blondeskull]

I have been testing this setup for a couple of months now. My specs are ZSUS P4 X99, XEON 2670 V3, 16GB DDR4 + GTX 1060 6GB. It looked sketchy at first, but it's a great combo. On top, the 12 cores let you edit 4k faster, video rendering time is great, does not overheat. You can run VMs easily. I have a couple of benchmarks in my channel if someone is having doubts about buying.

[@ozanvolkan1]

You forgot to mention (i got two of these boards) that this board limits the frequency of the cpu because it can only supply 65 watt power.

[@mikenewbold1699]

rubbish

[@ozanvolkan1]

@TheExcellentVideoChannel I know that was the fustrationpoint when i got it home.

[@EkuEdu]

so, cards like the gtx 750 or gtx 1650 can work through the pcie?

[@ozanvolkan1]

@@EkuEdu nothing with pcie mate. İt cannot deliver sufficient power to the cpu to let it use its full power

[@EkuEdu]

@@ozanvolkan1 Damn, i dodged a bullet there. I had my doubts with the idle wattage of these cpu+mobo but now this settles it. Thank you.

[@partial_]

These server boards support both regular desktop DDR4 and server DDR4 which can be found much cheaper. Just make sure to get registered ECC not unregistered ECC.

[@brookerobertson2951]

Hello everyone and welcome.. 😊

[@abedfo88]

I got an x79 version of this board and hacked the bios so i could OC my unlocked xeon processor. Still going strong at 4.2ghz on stock volts.

[@ineligible2267]

Still running X99 with a 1080ti, definitely feeling the age of the CPU (and GPU in select instances) in modern games but it does shockingly well for how old it is

[@comiumapedra5397]

you could get a upgrade for cheap, any 1660v3/v4, 2667v3/v4 are great for gaming.

[@Capybaracomputers]

I love these I literally bought over a dozen off Amazon to restock for 2024 ❤

[@garygee]

I was looking at these last week when my x99x board died and i wanted to put my i7 5820k, decided full upgrade instead! May still buy one to make a home theatre pc or something

[@psttech4290]

those cpu temps are probably accurate. cpu is barely being hit at mis 20% utilisation

[@Nanotechnician]

Actually pretty good, I was surrounding acquiring one of these for a multiple virtual machine system (just for tinkering)

[@chris_mk5supra]

STOP MAKING ME WANNA TRY THESE BOARD OMFG

[@DeltaYT99]

At first I didn't hear the part about Asus and you showed Zusu and said it again and thought I swapped to a parallel Earth for a sec

[@erikkarsies4851]

This makes so much more sense than all those overpriced SBC's and MiniPC's where of the reviews are flooding youtube these days.

[@STONE69_]

Way better than a mini PC, Mini's don't last long.

[@wiizrbreh]

Love your video's. Always enjoy the juxtaposition of other channel's modern high end reviews compared to your reporting on "dated" hardware

[@nukeplayer2847]

that passive cooling on power phases is going to be melting hot

[@bryanyokofich5021]

I have one of those boards running a 10 core Xeon. It’s paired to an R7 260x and it serves as my living room pc for emulation and other multimedia purposes. It’s great!!

[@dotplan]

Got it with 16GB ECC. Works very well, M2 slot works fine. I am using it with Archlinux but Win10 also works fine.

[@Ferrari255GTO]

Beamng is a great title to test CPUs with many cores, if you have it could you test it with 10 traffic cars and see how it holds up? Since the game uses one core per car it might perform well

[@greenprotag]

The V3 & V4 CPUs really benefit from a true quad channel configuration, I am not sure this board has all 4 channels set up properly it may only be dual. Also something to consider, the V3 CPUs have an exploit called "Turbo unlock" where you can run the rated single core boost across all cores. So from a RAW performance standpoint, I would recommend a board that has all 4 channels AND a V3 CPU, then run a premodded BIOS or use tools to mod your bios and run the Turbo Unlock and possibly the resizable bar exploit and go off to the races.

[@greenprotag]

Also, maybe target 8-10-12core CPUs with HIGHER boost clocks.

[@dustycircuit8758]

I still enjoy these "can this older hardware still run modern games" videos. I own a ryzen 9 5900x and rtx 3060 PC thats twice as fast as this combo, but still cool to see what the older hardware can still do.

[@Kelekona_808]

The PS2 ports are cool. Looks like it would make a great home server build once you upgrade away from low end gaming.

[@dazza1970]

I got the exact bundle but mine arrived DOA and it took 8 weeks to get a refund although they did give me a free postage ;abel.. After looking into the X99 i have since found its worth paying a little bit more abd gwtting a Machinist branded board that are much better.. For £105 i got the Machinist X99 pro board with an EE5-2680 v4 14 core plus a cooler and 16 gigs of ram.. its er.. ok.. online says its around the 2600k levels and plays most of what i throw at it.. i guess its more about the thrill of having a rig with a processor that cost $1750 new.. for only £15 haha.. Went all in and got one of the rx 580 2048sp cards for £44 and overall im pretty happy.. even if my sons ancient Ryzen 1600af kills it.. Nice vids.. Keep em coming. 👌

[@ProfShikari]

I see these as being good as little test benches to make sure components work :)

[@dr_they3192]

Glad to see the outer worlds in your benchmark. I've been meaning to replay it myself and finish it. Glad I'm not the only one. Anyway, could you do me a favor and continue using it for your benchmarks for a while.

[@RobertHall-ef8yf]

I find these boards super interesting. They're more so enthusiast components because you could get a better performing modern setup for not much more but if you know what you're buying they are really cool. I just "upgraded" to an e5-2696 v3 for $50. 18-core 36-threads with a custom bios I get 3.1ghz all core with a conservative undervolt. you can buy a ton of ram for cheap. Like 128gb of ddr4 for $80. It's 2133 mhz but it's quad channel and you can make the timings super tight. I run a bunch of vms and a plex/minecraft server but I also use it to game occasionally with a 3060 on new titles high settings 60fps at least. Unless someone is transcoding a really big 4k file or something the vms don't effect the gaming performance almost at all. I play retro games and switch games with emulators no problem.

[@atyiov4429]

THX SO MUCH! for this video bcs I will gonna buy this exact processor in different combo for about 80$ 😁

[@0912v]

Good stuff. A refreshing break from hardware reviewers who recommend $2000 video cards.

[@balaam_7087]

Zsus is pure ali express magnificence. I hesitate to guess what they call their knockoff ‘Zenith’ brand televisions. Anith? Sounds like a proctologist with a lisp. Thank you! See you next week!

[@classicallpvault]

Sounds like Mike Tyson talking about some freak injury.

[@darthwiizius]

There's no bad parts, just bad prices. For building a low cost all rounder PC these type of things are very useful, especially for people who need to stick to a budget (the majority of the Global public in reality).

[@KureyonSoloCarry]

I lost my other youtube account and I totally forgot about RandomGamingHD till I saw it on my recommendation, glad I found your channel again very useful for budget builds!

[@SaltyMaud]

Something like this, preferably with quad channel memory could make a interesting low cost server. V4 xeon cores are still no slouch, that's broadwell we're talking about, and they're pretty efficient too. Could run a lot of light to moderate workloads on them and probably keep it cool with just a big chonking tower cooler barely spinning fans.

[@neverletthemtameyou]

I've built several i7 3770 systems based on Chinese mobos. And they have worked surprisingly well. One issue I've had, however, is fan speed control. All of the fans went to full speed all the time. And even using magic software that was supposed to detect all fans on the computer did not detect the fans. Did you run into anyting like that on this mobo? Were you able to control fan speed? Cheers and thanks for another great video.

[@vadergb]

Wow loads of performance for the money, I thought the 2.5ghz turbo would limit it but the extra cores and threads seemed to power it through all the tests.

[@walterlegere1403]

That's really not bad results from such an inexpensive set up but you touched on something that everyone should consider before going this direction even for a budget gaming build and I'd like to add a few point as well. First, upgradability in any "built" system is, in my opinion, essential because components age and most like this don't age well so you'll be forced to replace them instead of just upgrading because there really isn't much of a path to do so. Second, the used component prices on things like mainboards, CPU's, RAM and even descent GPU's is coming down so if you shop around you can come up with some really good deals on components that are just a few years old and much more capable and you'll be left with a system that is totally upgradable in the process. Third, stay away from "pre-built" systems like older business type PC's from the major brands because they are mostly all proprietary and have an even smaller upgrade path then the system in this video. Lastly, keep in mind that building a system requires much more than a mainboard, CPU, RAM and GPU. You'll also need keyboard, mouse, monitor, cords and cables, power supply and a case to put all that in plus the operating system. So what may seem like "cheap" on the surface gets much more expensive acquiring all the peripheral hardware needed to make it all work. Just my thoughts.

[@archgirl]

Seems like a perfect little bundle for a cheap home server setup. Slap Debian on that bad boy and it could be a good little storage and media server. Or maybe even a Steam Cache.

[@Carbiniz3r]

i bought a dual socket one of these and ran a similar setup for a OBS/Plex server and it ran beautifully.

[@enekxYT]

Im using this board with e5-2690 V3 on turbo unlock Its working fine but it need good airflow for vrm Turbo unlock for this board is from machinist x99-Z

[@michubern1444]

could you put a heatsink on it

[@enekxYT]

@@michubern1444 this board have heatsing on vrm but its small and not good Im using 2 wents on front 1 on top and 1 on back This with 1070 ti doing much work

[@exturkconner]

x99 is a quad channel platform you should really populate all of those slots. It helps to make up for the inability to use higher speed ram.

[@TekedixXx]

As someone who's still rocking a 980ti from just after the 10 series was released, I can confidently say that I can play most games I'm interested in at 1080p just fine for most titles.

[@steamwhitehawk]

The Vcore VRMs on this mobo run obscenely hot. For longetivity, it's probably better to stick with a lower TDP Xeon, or to put a small fan over the VRM heatsink to give it some airflow.

[@sharkey9]

Top-Blow CPU cooler and low TDP Xeon is a must on these entry-level X99 boards.

[@chillhour6155]

Love the ram socker placement

[@donpowers5412]

these were my bang for buck meta back in 2019, it is a fun project to unlock the turbo boost on the V3's by delving into the micro code

[@evan3558]

I also bought one of these back in October! unfortunately both the motherboard and RAM came broken 😔. Just know when buying one of these to test immediately so you can return it if it's broken because these aliexpress boards are very iffy quality. I ended up going with a ryzen 5 1600 instead.

[@maffil356]

I've been running a Chinese computer for a little under a year, 2680v4 14 cores 28 threads, 32gb of memory and a jingsha motherboard. The motherboard has its quirks but I think they're more related to the xeon not supporting things but they're nothing major. I paid 110 iirc and its mind blowing what I got for it.

[@burrfoottopknot]

Disabling Hyper Threading healps a fair bit with a few games, would be interesting seeing the numbers

[@DanteTheAbyssalBeing]

I'd love to see some number crunching benchmarks with this set up.

[@twiesel7344]

I have the PlexHD x79 Turbo paired with a Xeon E5-2680v2, 40GB of ECC memory and a GTX 1070 in my main rig. The build quality is awesome and it has a lot of ports. I paid a lot for it, around 100€ 2 years ago (Amazon), but it didnt disappoint me yet. The CPU is great for encoding, VMs and gaming at the same time and only draws 100W.

[@ianmcass]

Those boards are good value but the power saving functions never work on them, so if you want to suspend your PC overnight to save power, you're limited to power down or hibernate

[@RandomGaminginHD]

Ah ok thanks for the info :)

[@qwepoi222]

It seems many Chinese boards report bogus temperatures without actually having a corresponding sensor. Easy fix is to look at the CPU internal sensor. Similarly, some fans run at 100% all the time, because the speed controls also do not work. I just used a Y-cable to connect the case fan to the CPU fan connector. You should try the E5-2667v4 (8C16T, 3.2~3.6GHz) - though it's much pricier, for good reason.

[@maou5025]

E5-2687WV4 is actually a better option (160W so clock won't drop)

[@dexsters5643]

Useally i just wait for the promo 3€ off every 20€ of the price. The board was 46€ and after all price reductions it came to 35€ using the coins and promos. The X99-P4 your using is a good board however you cant do the V3 unlock on that weak VRM. And the cpus id use with that board are the E5-2643v3, E5-1630V4/E5-1650v4. V4 xeons also are very easily coolable. I put a 120mm cheap aio on the 1650V4 and max temp was 50°c with boost of 3.8-4ghz. Id suggest maybe getting the jinsha series boards. Like the X99-D8/D8i/E8i awesome boards that can handle turbo unlocked E5-2699v3

[@AndysPCs]

Hi! Here to confirm that those temperatures are actually ABOUT right. Did some double and triple checking myself because i have a machinist and this very cpu. Ideally i just feel like its because all the cores are effectively being utilized at such a dispersed load, its just not rocking its socks like it should on the “server” end. Temps are great if you have a nice cooler but who would have thought for this server cpu?

[@ervisbekteshi5695]

ZSUS is killer quality , man , I swear !

[@jamesgarrett3000]

haven't even watched the video yet. I have bought this motherboard 3 times now off aliexpress. I have used it with an e5 2690v4, e5 2699v3, and e5 2680v3, they all worked great., but the board is locked to 120W tdp, so you're not gonna get full boost clock. but this means the vrms ran fine and didn't overheat.

[@zalankhan5743]

Would you recommend it for 1650 v3. As its a 6-core chip So would it bottleneck it or would it be fine.

[@sharkey9]

@@zalankhan5743 1650 has way too high TDP for this board.

[@zalankhan5743]

@@sharkey9 ok thanks

[@aleksazunjic9672]

An all AliExpress computer for $500 or less would be interesting idea for a video.

[@tilpesq]

I've bought this exact CPU and an almost identical mobo, put 16GB of regular Kingston DDR4 RAM, and I was very pleasantly surprised with the performance. I was building a cheap and capable PC for my mom and I couldn't believe, for the price, the capabilities of this CPU, particularly multi threaded scenarios, it beat my OG 3600. And seriously, perhaps you could try a beefier GPU with it, cause I used my 3080ti with it for a few weeks, just for fun, and it didn't disappoint, really. Because it's got so many threads usually you don't get the highest averages but the frametime, 1%, is really good a lot of the time, at least in my experience. For the price is awesome IMHO.

[@dalehammers4425]

Not putting quad channel ram with this cpu is an absolute waste...

[@tilpesq]

@@dalehammers4425The mobo I bought is dual channel only, otherwise I'd certainly have gone quad channel, but for its intent is an amazing PC for the price.

[@rossmclaughlin7158]

Was tempted to pick one of these up just as curiosity

[@OlaftheGreat]

I've got a 2666 V3 paired with a 4070 and despite the bottleneck I still get a good experience in Cyberpunk

[@Boogie_the_cat]

I like those colors. Usually budget mobo's are boring. I'm more a full ATX guy myself, but i don't know why. It's all ive ever built, really.

[@SmithBeatZ1]

I'm always using AliExpress for these mobo and CPU combos for budget esports rigs. Love the price to performance.

[@eldibs]

Something to note is that these are recycled motherboards. They take working chipsets and such from dead motherboards and build new motherboards with them, and the quality control is a bit spotty. However, if you have a working one with an old Xeon, it makes a great platform to run TrueNAS or Unraid on for a home server. I'm currently waiting on a replacement motherboard to come in for this exact purpose.

[@dd-nz8ry]

Would it make sense to turn off hyperthreading for certain games? Since the CPU has such a low clock speed and presumably not many games are optimized to use all 24 threads anyway? Would it make sense to allow each of the 12 threads run on a physical core rather than using "fake" threads?

[@jwoody8815]

The 970 and 980 are still pretty capable at 1080P ish even in modern games, if you dont care about "High Refresh" you can generally acheve greater the 45fps even in some of the most demanding games. I consider anything over about a minimum 32fps as more than playable, Considering many console games struggle to acheve even 35fps.

[@arenacloser7528]

How was the CPU as low as 30C? Either that's a very cool chip or a very good cooler, very impressive nonetheless.

[@bills6093]

Might be a good opportunity to see if turning off hyperthreading on these older CPUs has any good or bad effects.

[@TheHangarHobbit]

if you want a super duper cheap Aliexpress Special they also have a 2650V2 with board, 16Gb of RAM, and even a nice RGB cooler for $66 USD with the same board. I've built 2 so far and with an RX580 2048 its a super cheap 1080P Fortnite box.

[@jw2par]

Which case did you use ?

[@riseabove3082]

I just literally looked at this cpu and board on Aliexpress hours ago before seeing this video. I calculated out a very cheap build with it. Nice to see what it would perform like now. lol Great video as always from you. I would have liked to see it in a build, curious what air cooler you used and wattage on the PSU.

[@ViezeVingertjes]

I also got one of these for a budget build, 50 bucks including a Xeon E5 CPU. RX 580 8GB runs for about 50 bucks on ali. Runs games like valorant like a breeze with 400 fps+.

[@peoul1]

That cheap Mobo procie combo is looking cool. Love to build with that if IM not have PC yet

[@undertone2472]

These Xeons will run ECC and non ECC Ram, a lot of flexibility. They just don't have the IPC to really kill it at high frame rates anymore. 120 hz or less these are fine for gaming. Or even a cheap at home lab server.

[@czLochy]

I just got the very same set 3 days ago, but unfortunately it only powered up for a split second, thankfully aliexpress let me return it. Hopefully my 2nd set will work okay like yours! :)

[@LucaFiltroMan]

Not going to lie, I'm currently looking at quite a few of these offerings mainly as a homelab machine, but seeing that even in gaming with only two channels used can still put up a fight it's indeed something. I'll eventually pull the plug and have my main server (E3-1231 v3 with 16 GB of DDR3 RAM) replaced by something like this...

[@dovahkiin2108]

I bought a 2690v4 and a board to make a server to host some stuff, it's a server CPU after all. Paired with a 1630 I got with a good price, the card is very good for video decoding and encoding. Oh and the jew'o channel does work fine!!!

[@ThisUploaded]

Since you're keeping it long term, I'd be curious if these same games you tested here get similar or better performance on something like Nobara Linux. It's a distribution maintained by the guy who makes proton GE, the community go-to for best case performance in a lot of windows games on Linux. It includes Nvidia drivers out of the box, and overall might be the current most straightforward distribution to set up a machine if you just want to game on it.

[@m8x425]

CPU temps of 28c to 30c while gaming.... Yep, I can believe that. I had the old i7-6800k in a system and at stock it would not run over 42c while running Prime95, full stress. Those old Broadwell lga2011-v3 chips run cool. They only start running hot when they're overclocked.