Well Guyz. I was searching for some good grade Xeon CPU's for my office as standby servers since my production servers are all Dell, IBM and HP due to Gold Support.
However in few rare occasion some the hardware had crashed and it took lot of time for troubleshooting.
Hence I decided to build Standby server.
Well I have pushed thoughts to buy some xeon cpu’s along with compatible S(Server series) Intel mobo’s else W(Workstation Series).
Since I saw lot of people taking keen interest in Xeon CPU’s.
Especially W3520 (2.66ghz/8MB/1333) Socket Type: LGA1366
I wish to know how many people are really interested in this CPU so that I will inquire prices for the same in Bulk Quantity as I will buying few quantity myself.
People interested please post here.
As of know I can say that price is affordable if you are considering i7 920.
This CPU kills i7 920 any day by a better comparable margin.
The W3520 and i7 920 are basically same for a desktop user.
Other than ECC support which does not matter to desktop users, there is nothing extra.
It all boils down to the overclocking. I have seen some amazing W3520s and some average ones as well. Same goes for i7s.
Xeons are said to undergo stricter QC, but I have my doubts. In the end, its about batch as well.
3845A and 3848 were golden batches of W3520s. Rest were hit and miss as usual.
Its luck in the end and some research. But research is useful only if you know which batch you can buy beforehand. I nabbed mine as soon as I came to know about the batch
for people planning to run chip at stock speeds, or mild to moderate ( sub 4Ghz ) oc, it will hardly matter if you have decent enough cooling. Its at 4+ ghz where good batch starts to show its value as this is where vcore needed can mess with heat control.
I spoke the intel distri and some market intel branded server resellers.
They claim that Code: SLBEW is the best no matter the batchcode. Some people had bought i7 Workhorse for their offices however later they replaced with W3520 due to comparative satisfaction with Xeon.
I believe Intel must be putting a strong QC compared to any desktop CPU as this cpu are more in demand by OEM compared to Desktops.
