1
00:00:00,359 --> 00:00:05,419
I got a GPU but what did it cost

2
00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:13,799
it's a story that's all too common which is why instead of buying a fancy new

3
00:00:10,860 --> 00:00:18,900
Intel 12th Gen processor you're watching this video where we're gonna figure out

4
00:00:15,780 --> 00:00:20,880
the absolute best way to save a buck on

5
00:00:18,900 --> 00:00:25,800
your CPU you see there's a lot of secondhand chips out there that might

6
00:00:22,560 --> 00:00:28,320
look like a great deal like this twenty

7
00:00:25,800 --> 00:00:33,360
dollar overclockable Xeon but as we've seen there can be hidden costs that are

8
00:00:30,300 --> 00:00:35,160
driving the prices so low I think the

9
00:00:33,360 --> 00:00:41,040
answer is going to surprise you but what won't surprise you is our sponsor

10
00:00:36,719 --> 00:00:42,780
Corsair their new h150i Elite LCD is a

11
00:00:41,040 --> 00:00:47,100
Premium All-In-One CPU Cooler that combines powerful low noise cooling with

12
00:00:44,879 --> 00:00:50,760
vibrant RGB lighting and a personalized LCD display that you can put custom

13
00:00:49,020 --> 00:00:56,000
graphics on to Accent your system's Aesthetics and to track real-time

14
00:00:52,680 --> 00:00:56,000
performance at a glance

15
00:01:02,960 --> 00:01:10,740
to best reveal our CPU bottlenecks we're going to be using a current gen GPU for

16
00:01:07,680 --> 00:01:13,020
our benchmarks the RTX 3060 TI and we

17
00:01:10,740 --> 00:01:18,060
used the Corsair xenion monitor for all of our testing since a it's gorgeous and

18
00:01:15,780 --> 00:01:22,860
B While most of our benchmarks are going to be at 1080p to really separate the

19
00:01:20,280 --> 00:01:26,820
wheat from the chaff we think 1440p gaming is really the modern sweet spot

20
00:01:24,840 --> 00:01:32,220
and at the end we're going to want a game on this setup to see if our best

21
00:01:28,799 --> 00:01:35,759
value combo can keep up with 1440p high

22
00:01:32,220 --> 00:01:39,659
refresh rate gaming at just 23.45 the

23
00:01:35,759 --> 00:01:41,640
Xeon w3670 gives you a lot of CPU per

24
00:01:39,659 --> 00:01:46,799
dollar and looked like the obvious choice at least on paper I mean sure it

25
00:01:44,460 --> 00:01:51,780
was back in 2010 but in its prime this thing was a 600 top of the line Beast

26
00:01:49,500 --> 00:01:56,700
with six cores and a turbo frequency of 3.5 gigahertz at least until you

27
00:01:54,540 --> 00:02:00,360
overclock it that's right intelligent quite locked down Xeon overclocking yet

28
00:01:58,920 --> 00:02:05,219
and we were able to take this little guy up to four gigahertz on all cores

29
00:02:02,820 --> 00:02:10,140
yielding a cinebench R23 score of over 5000 points that's respectable even by

30
00:02:08,220 --> 00:02:15,599
modern standards and we got performance and everything else that ranged from

31
00:02:12,020 --> 00:02:18,720
terrible to worse

32
00:02:15,599 --> 00:02:21,239
in games it spoiler alert managed less

33
00:02:18,720 --> 00:02:25,440
than half the FPS of the other CPUs we tested and making matters worse getting

34
00:02:23,459 --> 00:02:30,720
it to play nice with Windows 10 was a bit of a pain in the butt hello legacy

35
00:02:28,620 --> 00:02:35,040
mode running Windows 7 is an easy enough work around but know that Microsoft no

36
00:02:33,540 --> 00:02:39,239
longer supports the OS and you're going to lose out on some small games you've

37
00:02:37,260 --> 00:02:43,980
probably never heard of like Forza Horizon 5 and Halo infinite

38
00:02:41,940 --> 00:02:48,300
ouch oh and we also ran into this cool little bug where sleep doesn't work and

39
00:02:46,200 --> 00:02:52,739
the system needs a full reboot every time your mileage may vary so you're

40
00:02:50,940 --> 00:02:57,239
dealing with significant quality of life issues on a CPU that gets a quarter of

41
00:02:54,959 --> 00:03:01,500
its speed from a ratchet static voltage overclock on a 10 year old motherboard

42
00:02:59,280 --> 00:03:05,640
not something that I can straight faced recommend and it gets worse but first

43
00:03:04,200 --> 00:03:11,220
let's take a look at our second Contender the Intel Core i5 2500k is a

44
00:03:09,300 --> 00:03:15,540
four core Beauty from 2011 that you can pick up for about 50 bucks these days

45
00:03:13,140 --> 00:03:21,000
getting it to work with Windows 10 was much easier than the Xeon but while the

46
00:03:18,360 --> 00:03:26,340
I5 is noticeably quicker than the Xeon that doesn't prevent you from feeling

47
00:03:22,739 --> 00:03:28,680
its age normal tasks feel a bit sluggish

48
00:03:26,340 --> 00:03:32,580
compared to a modern platform though In fairness we were able to remedy that a

49
00:03:30,420 --> 00:03:36,720
fair bit with a moderate overclock this is our second CPU now that topped out at

50
00:03:34,800 --> 00:03:41,879
4 gigahertz all core netting us a 10 Improvement in single threaded workloads

51
00:03:38,760 --> 00:03:44,400
and 20 in multi-threaded workloads where

52
00:03:41,879 --> 00:03:50,340
frankly it needs all the help it can get with a cinebench R23 score of 29.92 our

53
00:03:47,879 --> 00:03:55,260
second gen core was by far the slowest CPU we tested in multi-threaded loads

54
00:03:52,500 --> 00:03:59,519
due in part to the 2500k's lack of simultaneous multi-threading for gaming

55
00:03:57,659 --> 00:04:03,180
it was more of a mixed bag though in Shadow of the Tomb Raider and CS Go

56
00:04:01,319 --> 00:04:09,180
performance was excellent and it even ended up beating some much newer CPUs

57
00:04:05,640 --> 00:04:11,700
but in Forza Horizon 4 and F1 2021 the

58
00:04:09,180 --> 00:04:16,320
results were brutal if you plan on playing mainly older games the 2500k

59
00:04:14,099 --> 00:04:21,239
might be fine then but every time you boot up a new game you are rolling the

60
00:04:19,199 --> 00:04:27,120
dice and the inconsistent performance isn't even the biggest problem buying

61
00:04:24,120 --> 00:04:29,699
all the old supporting components is for

62
00:04:27,120 --> 00:04:33,720
both the 2500k and the Xeon you can expect to pay around sixty dollars for a

63
00:04:31,860 --> 00:04:39,720
motherboard including shipping plus another 45 dollars for DDR3 RAM both of

64
00:04:37,500 --> 00:04:44,220
which are well past their best before date and get this while we were

65
00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:50,220
configuring the overclock for our 2500k our first motherboard straight up died

66
00:04:47,600 --> 00:04:52,979
completely destroying any chance of that setup being price competitive with newer

67
00:04:51,960 --> 00:04:57,840
Hardware thing is though even if that hadn't

68
00:04:55,139 --> 00:05:03,720
happened these 10 year old motherboards and 16 gigs of DDR3 RAM are coming in at

69
00:05:01,560 --> 00:05:08,880
only about five dollars less expensive than a modern b450 board and ddr4 RAM

70
00:05:07,139 --> 00:05:13,380
both of which could be carried forward to a future upgrade to a modern

71
00:05:10,680 --> 00:05:19,020
processor so why are these old components so expensive allow me to

72
00:05:15,660 --> 00:05:21,120
introduce the bathtub curve this is a

73
00:05:19,020 --> 00:05:25,620
simple visual that shows the odds of a device failing over its lifetime off of

74
00:05:23,759 --> 00:05:29,400
the production line You'll usually get a bunch of failures right away usually due

75
00:05:27,419 --> 00:05:33,780
to manufacturing defects these are going to be either caught in QC or burn-in or

76
00:05:32,220 --> 00:05:37,919
they're going to fail quickly out in the field hopefully covered by warranty

77
00:05:35,759 --> 00:05:42,419
after that the chances of the device failing at least a well-designed one get

78
00:05:40,199 --> 00:05:46,860
pretty low for a long period of time then towards the end of their expected

79
00:05:44,880 --> 00:05:51,960
life the components start to wear down and failures begin to increase again for

80
00:05:49,680 --> 00:05:56,220
motherboards anecdotally at least this seems to happen around the six year mark

81
00:05:53,940 --> 00:06:01,800
So as more and more motherboards begin to fail you eventually wind up in a dumb

82
00:05:58,919 --> 00:06:05,520
situation like x99 motherboards from 2014 that'll go for as much as 300

83
00:06:04,380 --> 00:06:10,620
dollars which raises the question why are people

84
00:06:07,979 --> 00:06:16,919
willing to pay so much for these things well here's the thing CPUs tend to have

85
00:06:14,100 --> 00:06:22,380
much much lower failure rates compared to motherboards so you end up with this

86
00:06:19,259 --> 00:06:24,900
surplus of working CPUs compared to a

87
00:06:22,380 --> 00:06:30,000
dwindling number of compatible working motherboards that exist to put them in

88
00:06:27,300 --> 00:06:35,580
the Surplus drives down the cost of the older CPUs but it's deceptive because

89
00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:38,819
maybe your CPU is only 20 bucks but you're going to spend a fortune actually

90
00:06:37,139 --> 00:06:42,539
getting the thing running the bottom line then is that it is hard

91
00:06:40,919 --> 00:06:46,620
to justify investing in Old Hardware when you're confronted with both these

92
00:06:44,400 --> 00:06:49,860
problems and the complete lack of any upgrade path the only old Hardware you

93
00:06:48,539 --> 00:06:53,819
should really be investing in is the old Hardware we've printed on t-shirts from

94
00:06:51,600 --> 00:06:59,340
lttstore.com nothing illustrates this point better than our next processor the

95
00:06:55,860 --> 00:07:00,840
legendary Intel Core i7 4770k I was

96
00:06:59,340 --> 00:07:06,120
honestly shocked when I realized that this CPU is now 8 years old because it

97
00:07:04,020 --> 00:07:10,020
sure doesn't feel like it in Windows I mean if you wanted Windows to feel any

98
00:07:07,800 --> 00:07:15,419
snap here you would need a brand spanking new machine with a fast NVMe

99
00:07:12,120 --> 00:07:18,240
SSD and in gaming Mr Haswell here was

100
00:07:15,419 --> 00:07:21,840
the fastest CPU we tested across the board so if you're currently rocking one

101
00:07:20,099 --> 00:07:26,460
of these in your system you can safely upgrade to an RTX 3060 TI and sleep

102
00:07:24,780 --> 00:07:30,300
soundly knowing that there is no reason to upgrade until your motherboard gives

103
00:07:28,020 --> 00:07:36,539
up the ghost what you shouldn't do though is go out and buy a 4770k for a

104
00:07:34,199 --> 00:07:42,539
whole new computer because all in the 4770k was the most expensive of CPU we

105
00:07:39,900 --> 00:07:47,160
tested the good news though is that although we were able to overclock it to

106
00:07:44,520 --> 00:07:52,500
4.4 gigahertz all core our gaming performance barely increased that tells

107
00:07:49,800 --> 00:07:57,900
us that the 4770k is performance enough to keep up with our 3060 TI right out of

108
00:07:55,440 --> 00:08:01,740
the box and I say this is a good thing because it means that you don't have to

109
00:07:59,940 --> 00:08:08,819
be super concerned about getting a k-series SKU a regular i-74770 or I5

110
00:08:06,120 --> 00:08:11,880
4550 is going to be more than fine and if you're lucky you might be able to

111
00:08:10,020 --> 00:08:15,479
find one of those for cheap in an old pre-build these are the kinds of deals

112
00:08:13,919 --> 00:08:18,960
that you don't find by going on eBay though so keep your eye on your local

113
00:08:17,099 --> 00:08:23,400
Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace for an Old Dell or think station desktop

114
00:08:21,240 --> 00:08:29,160
that's just a GPU away from gaming greatness at 110 dollars for a 4770k

115
00:08:26,940 --> 00:08:36,060
standalone though I think it's a bad buy this is also why the 4770k is the last

116
00:08:32,640 --> 00:08:41,159
Intel CPU on our list because you can

117
00:08:36,060 --> 00:08:44,219
buy a 6700k or an i5 8400 but it's very

118
00:08:41,159 --> 00:08:46,440
hard to justify a semi-modern Intel CPU

119
00:08:44,219 --> 00:08:52,380
because they cost the same if not more than a ryzen 3300x or an i5 10 400 which

120
00:08:50,399 --> 00:08:55,260
you can buy brand new today both of which are going to have similar

121
00:08:53,519 --> 00:08:59,339
performance without the hassle of screwing around with a used motherboard

122
00:08:56,820 --> 00:09:03,240
that has no meaningful upgrade path if you're feeling lucky you could get an

123
00:09:00,779 --> 00:09:07,500
8700k and a motherboard with bent pins but in general the price of an Intel

124
00:09:05,880 --> 00:09:13,019
motherboard especially one that can overclock makes it really hard for their

125
00:09:10,260 --> 00:09:17,459
old platforms to compete with AMD which means the smarter play is to pick up an

126
00:09:14,880 --> 00:09:23,040
affordable b450 board that can run any AMD CPU from ryzen 1000 all the way up

127
00:09:20,760 --> 00:09:28,920
to ryzen 5000 assuming you've got the right BIOS on it on that note let's talk

128
00:09:25,260 --> 00:09:31,260
about the AMD ryzen 5 1500x you can get

129
00:09:28,920 --> 00:09:34,620
one of these for around 85 dollars and although historically that isn't a

130
00:09:32,880 --> 00:09:39,720
game-changing deal like back when the 2600 AF was a thing performance across

131
00:09:37,080 --> 00:09:43,740
the board is acceptable which really drives home how much much of a lead

132
00:09:41,279 --> 00:09:51,000
Intel squandered in the last few years 1500x ends up losing to the 4770k across

133
00:09:47,940 --> 00:09:53,519
the board despite being five years newer

134
00:09:51,000 --> 00:09:58,440
but it benefits from an extremely low total cost of Entry a hundred and ninety

135
00:09:56,100 --> 00:10:02,339
dollars gets you the core bits and since you're getting a b450 board when you

136
00:10:00,480 --> 00:10:06,420
have a bit more cash you can upgrade to something that will absolutely slay and

137
00:10:05,279 --> 00:10:11,640
this is the main reason that I'd recommend the 1500x over the core i5

138
00:10:08,820 --> 00:10:17,279
6400 their price and performance are comparable but Intel has 50 fewer cores

139
00:10:14,640 --> 00:10:21,540
and no meaningful upgrade path oh one thing to note though is that if

140
00:10:19,620 --> 00:10:26,459
you are buying a new b450 board off the shelf see if you can find one that does

141
00:10:23,700 --> 00:10:30,420
not have the ryzen 5000 desktop ready badge on the front due to limited

142
00:10:28,620 --> 00:10:36,779
storage on the BIOS chip you can't actually have support for both 1000 and

143
00:10:33,360 --> 00:10:38,820
5000 series CPUs at the same time so you

144
00:10:36,779 --> 00:10:42,420
might need to use a CPU free flashback feature or go to your local computer

145
00:10:40,800 --> 00:10:46,200
shop and have them install a special BIOS so you can get first gen ryzen

146
00:10:44,579 --> 00:10:49,920
support one interesting part of our tests is that it demonstrates even more

147
00:10:48,060 --> 00:10:55,380
clearly than our recent video how more gigahertz does not equal more

148
00:10:52,980 --> 00:11:03,060
performance when overclocked the ryzen 5 1500x Xeon w3670 and i7 2500k are all

149
00:11:00,779 --> 00:11:08,339
switching at four gigahertz but the results are dramatically different due

150
00:11:06,240 --> 00:11:12,899
to IPC or instructions per clock improvements the more modern ryzen is

151
00:11:10,380 --> 00:11:17,279
able to do a lot more with its 4 billion switches than the older intels something

152
00:11:15,240 --> 00:11:22,320
that is very important to keep in mind when you're shopping for older CPUs that

153
00:11:19,440 --> 00:11:26,820
on paper might look really fast our final processor for today is a

154
00:11:24,660 --> 00:11:32,220
budget build classic the AMD ryzen 5 2600 and 2600x they're both selling for

155
00:11:30,839 --> 00:11:35,820
about a hundred and twenty dollars making them very compelling performance

156
00:11:34,140 --> 00:11:41,339
and price wise they land right between the 1500x and the 4770k but without the

157
00:11:39,480 --> 00:11:45,540
expensive motherboard woes of the core i7 if you plan on doing any

158
00:11:43,320 --> 00:11:49,680
multi-threaded work the 2600 absolutely destroys anything else that we looked at

159
00:11:47,519 --> 00:11:54,540
for bang for the buck now let's kick things up a notch and see how our best

160
00:11:51,779 --> 00:12:00,240
value setup here handles 1440 gaming on our Corsair Xenon monitor my poor team

161
00:11:57,839 --> 00:12:04,260
waiting for me to load this map let's see am I going to end up with a team of

162
00:12:01,740 --> 00:12:06,720
people that know how to stay together so that

163
00:12:05,160 --> 00:12:11,100
you know we can we can live is there a pair of

164
00:12:08,399 --> 00:12:16,100
headphones nearby monitor looks great so that's cool I want this overshield

165
00:12:12,839 --> 00:12:19,320
though okay other than very occasional

166
00:12:16,100 --> 00:12:21,600
hitches that we've seen it's

167
00:12:19,320 --> 00:12:28,500
pretty good like what are we looking at 100 FPS average 99 lows that are 60 at

168
00:12:26,640 --> 00:12:34,279
65 like not bad like absolutely no excuse

169
00:12:32,399 --> 00:12:41,220
for not winning on this thing no no

170
00:12:37,740 --> 00:12:43,440
oh damn no can you still game on first

171
00:12:41,220 --> 00:12:46,079
gen ryzen the answer is yes as long as your teammates will wait for you to load

172
00:12:45,120 --> 00:12:52,740
the map so what's our final verdict I think it's pretty easy to say that if you're going

173
00:12:49,380 --> 00:12:54,360
used go for the ryzen 5 1500x or if

174
00:12:52,740 --> 00:12:59,160
you've got a few more dollars to spend any second gen ryzen at or around a

175
00:12:56,940 --> 00:13:03,180
hundred dollars it won't give you the best performance per dollar but you will

176
00:13:01,620 --> 00:13:07,260
definitely save money in the long run with ddr4 memory and a motherboard that

177
00:13:05,579 --> 00:13:12,120
you can carry forward to a more powerful setup once your nft investment pays off

178
00:13:10,740 --> 00:13:16,800
if you guys are looking for another video to watch why don't you go check

179
00:13:13,920 --> 00:13:23,120
out why CPU gigahertz doesn't matter it's a good little rundown on buy these

180
00:13:19,019 --> 00:13:23,120
performance differences for so wide