5 ms·

the keys here are these xeon cpus are "used" and their power consumption is also monstrous, compared to new-gen cpus (along with mb or other components) also i

the keys here are these xeon cpus are "used" and their power consumption is also monstrous, compared to new-gen cpus (along with mb or other components) also i'm always suspicious about the life span of these used cpus as cpu gets busted much more often than any other components (next to hd, my experience). at the end i guess the total cost for such xeon monster pc might be much higher (including replacement, power consumption....) compared to new systems.

MatthaeusHarris 11y ago
What are you doing to your CPUs? In my experience, CPUs are reliable enough to be nearly beyond reproach when troubleshooting a broken machine.
- B1FF_PSUVM 11y ago
  There are things such as electromigration that mean that solid-state stuff can wear out. (Electrons are being pushed around by electric fields higher than 1 MV/m, and do smash into things ...) I'm not complaining about my seven year old machines, but I'm not too sanguine about the current crop lasting as long ...
  - timthorn 11y ago
    Indeed - and smaller feature sizes increase that risk.
  - kjs3 11y ago
    Electromigration is a thing, but if you're applying your design rules correctly, it's one you worry about over decades, not months or years. I've had 30 year old ROMs/PROMs fail due to electromigration (presumedly, I didn't decap them and look), but never a CPU.
- jerryhuang100 11y ago
  I used to believe that CPU should be the last culprit. One time for my faulty q6600 system i replaced everything except the CPU and finally realized the CPU was the problem. And it's not even overclocked. Out of my experience of ~8 PC assembled (super small sample size), 2 CPUs kissed bye right after the 3-yrs warranty period, 1 CPU DOA. the good thing is that good guy Intel replaced DOA CPU very fast.
  - thedaemon 11y ago
    I guess there are lemons with everything. I'm sitting here still using my Q6600 workstation with no issues. I keep upgrading around it as it's still fast enough.
    - ido 11y ago
      I thought so too, but recently upgraded to a broadwell i7 (4 cores, 8 threads) and compile times have fallen enormously.
      - thedaemon 11y ago
        I am an animator so my requirements are different. A video card makes all the difference for me for viewport rendering speeds. I don't render out that much, but I did notice that my wife's iMac (which is a few years newer than my q6600) renders out at about 2x the speed.
  - jmnicolas 11y ago
    I assemble PCs for my friends, family and I since 20 years, we have something like 10 servers and 30 desktops (some are more than 8 years old) at work and I never had a CPU die on me. You are really unlucky imho.
krylon 11y ago
I have hardly, if ever, seen a CPU die, but I agree on the point of power. I have a ~2007 MacPro (2 Quad-core Xeon CPUs, 16 GB RAM) I was lucky enough to buy off a friend for cheap. Performance-wise, if the workload can be spread across all the cores, it is ... not too slow. ;-) But I can tell if that thing is on or not by the room temperature, because that thing gets hot when it is busy. It gets hot, in fact, when it is idle, too, so I mostly keep it asleep and only wake it up for short sprints of activity, like encoding a video or something. Well, actually, the MacPro doesn't get hot itself, because it has lots and lots of fans, but the rest of the room does. So it is nice to own such a powerful machine, very, very nice, but, yes, more recent machines tend to get more efficient, evergy-wise.
- zerd 11y ago
  Never seen a cpu die? It looks awesome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_(integrated_circuit)#/media/File:Intel_Xeon_E7440_open_die_at_heat_spreader.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_(integrated_circuit)#/medi...
  - krylon 11y ago
    I a know what a die is and what it looks like. ;-) Athlon XP CPUs used to have a naked die, and one could kill them when mounting a heatspreader - a friend of mine did, once. Just in case I was being unclear: I meant the verb "die", as in "to give up the ghost". More likely, though, you couldn't resist the pun... ;-)

MatthaeusHarris 11y ago

What are you doing to your CPUs? In my experience, CPUs are reliable enough to be nearly beyond reproach when troubleshooting a broken machine.

B1FF_PSUVM 11y ago
There are things such as electromigration that mean that solid-state stuff can wear out. (Electrons are being pushed around by electric fields higher than 1 MV/m, and do smash into things ...) I'm not complaining about my seven year old machines, but I'm not too sanguine about the current crop lasting as long ...
- timthorn 11y ago
  Indeed - and smaller feature sizes increase that risk.
- kjs3 11y ago
  Electromigration is a thing, but if you're applying your design rules correctly, it's one you worry about over decades, not months or years. I've had 30 year old ROMs/PROMs fail due to electromigration (presumedly, I didn't decap them and look), but never a CPU.
jerryhuang100 11y ago
I used to believe that CPU should be the last culprit. One time for my faulty q6600 system i replaced everything except the CPU and finally realized the CPU was the problem. And it's not even overclocked. Out of my experience of ~8 PC assembled (super small sample size), 2 CPUs kissed bye right after the 3-yrs warranty period, 1 CPU DOA. the good thing is that good guy Intel replaced DOA CPU very fast.
- thedaemon 11y ago
  I guess there are lemons with everything. I'm sitting here still using my Q6600 workstation with no issues. I keep upgrading around it as it's still fast enough.
  - ido 11y ago
    I thought so too, but recently upgraded to a broadwell i7 (4 cores, 8 threads) and compile times have fallen enormously.
    - thedaemon 11y ago
      I am an animator so my requirements are different. A video card makes all the difference for me for viewport rendering speeds. I don't render out that much, but I did notice that my wife's iMac (which is a few years newer than my q6600) renders out at about 2x the speed.
- jmnicolas 11y ago
  I assemble PCs for my friends, family and I since 20 years, we have something like 10 servers and 30 desktops (some are more than 8 years old) at work and I never had a CPU die on me. You are really unlucky imho.

krylon 11y ago

I have hardly, if ever, seen a CPU die, but I agree on the point of power. I have a ~2007 MacPro (2 Quad-core Xeon CPUs, 16 GB RAM) I was lucky enough to buy off a friend for cheap. Performance-wise, if the workload can be spread across all the cores, it is ... not too slow. ;-) But I can tell if that thing is on or not by the room temperature, because that thing gets hot when it is busy. It gets hot, in fact, when it is idle, too, so I mostly keep it asleep and only wake it up for short sprints of activity, like encoding a video or something. Well, actually, the MacPro doesn't get hot itself, because it has lots and lots of fans, but the rest of the room does. So it is nice to own such a powerful machine, very, very nice, but, yes, more recent machines tend to get more efficient, evergy-wise.

zerd 11y ago
Never seen a cpu die? It looks awesome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_(integrated_circuit)#/media/File:Intel_Xeon_E7440_open_die_at_heat_spreader.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_(integrated_circuit)#/medi...
- krylon 11y ago
  I a know what a die is and what it looks like. ;-) Athlon XP CPUs used to have a naked die, and one could kill them when mounting a heatspreader - a friend of mine did, once. Just in case I was being unclear: I meant the verb "die", as in "to give up the ghost". More likely, though, you couldn't resist the pun... ;-)