Should You Game On a Server CPU?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2018-05-06
·
916 words · ~4 min read
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thanks for watching techwiki click the subscribe button then enable
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part of the beauty of gaming on a pc as opposed to a console is that it's always
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possible to push the limits further whether that's with a higher resolution
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monitor exotic peripheral devices or a high-end virtual reality setup
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so it shouldn't be surprising that many computer gaming enthusiasts have
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wondered if the grass would be greener if they installed a powerful server CPU
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in their gaming rig and the idea isn't really that absurd
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Intel's xeon lineup for example gets marketed as their top tier and most
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reliable processors but the pricing of some models is
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comparable to Intel's own desktop counterparts
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so is it worth it to take the plunge so you can laugh at your peon friends who
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are still gaming on their puny core i5s and ryzen 7s
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well to answer we need to examine how
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difficult it would be to migrate to a server class processor not only do
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server cpus often use very similar if not identical micro architectures to
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consumer chips many of them even use the same socket
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allowing an upgrade to a xeon or opteron
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CPU whether it's officially or unofficially just replace the CPU itself
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on your existing motherboard boop
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and then after you fire up your machine with its new server class dna
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you probably won't even notice a difference in the basic functionality of
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your machine that is all your drives memory modules and peripherals should
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continue to work as they did but hold on a minute
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you've opened up your favorite game and things don't really seem to be any
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better your frame rates are about the same and you can't crank the settings up
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any higher than you did with your old CPU what gives
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well remember how i said that server CPU architectures are very similar to
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typical gaming processors this means that core for core clock for
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clock performance shouldn't be terribly different from what you're already used
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to and in some cases it could even end up being worse
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server cpus are designed with stability and power efficiency in mind since they
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often power systems that need to be running 24 7 in data centers that have
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monthly power bills greater than what you or i make in a year
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that is why their cores typically run at
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lower clock speeds than desktop cpus
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also one of the biggest reasons for buying server processors is to get more
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processing course than you can on the desktop but because most games and
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desktop applications can't spread their processing load over multiple cores very
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well even a server CPU with 20 cores
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won't give you a noticeable performance boost in games because it'll often have
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lower single threaded speeds making matters worse many server chips
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don't support overclocking don't include integrated graphics for
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igpu accelerated workloads and troubleshooting and
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one of their most desktop applicable features
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stability enhancing ecc memory support
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drives up the cost of your CPU requires more expensive ecc memory and won't be
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utilized by games which isn't to say that you can't game
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on a server processor if you find a really good deal on ebay or something so
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if this is the case hey pair it with a solid graphics card and have fun
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your frame rate might be slightly diminished in some games due to the
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lower CPU clocks but if you stream or you screen capture your
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gameplay the extra cores could come in handy and of course if you do more than
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just game a server CPU is a perfect
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choice for virtualization allowing you to run virtual machines in isolated
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software environments for running multiple operating systems serving media
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to your household or heck even having multiple people run separate gaming
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sessions on the same system which we detailed in our two gamers one CPU
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project which you can check out up here but getting back to most people if
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you're joe gamer looking to max out your FPS there isn't much point in sitting
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around coveting a xeon or epic CPU
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especially because there are other upgrades that you can make to your
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system that would be way more attention grabbing do you ever find yourself
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trying to control two computers at once well synergy is the solution for you
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it's a software tool that allows you to do that with just one keyboard and mouse
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you can even share multiple screens so there's no more messing around for you
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know which set of peripherals goes with your development station and which set
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goes with your mac and which set goes with your Windows pc because it's even cross
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platform with great features like clipboard sharing dragging and dropping
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between the computers custom hotkeys and
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more it's available in both basic and pro versions with the latter including
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ssl encryption to secure the data sent between the computers synergy is
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offering a 50 discount to techwiki viewers if you just check out the link
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at the video description in the video description
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it's down there so thanks for watching guys like dislike check out our other
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channels leave a comment with video suggestions for the future and subscribe