Pwolf wrote:I'm looking at dual Xeon 5580's for my next build when I can afford it. Not a huge gamer so I'm building it for 3D design applications and video editing. You went with water cooling, is that a must or did you do that so you could OC it?
Pwolf
Hey Pwolf,
yeah two Nehalem Xeons are def a good idea. if i had known earlier that they released dual lga1366 this quickly i would've held off on my current build.
i went with WC so i could OC it, i had stock CPUs at 2.66Ghz. and I had heard those Xeons did a great job at OCing and being stable. (i apparently got a bad cut for my 2nd Xeon, but oh well) Plus the next jump up from my Xeons was like a $400 increase per cpu. and i wasn't ready to shell out and additional $800 just for dual 3.0Ghz. mind as well overclock with some nice WC. plus with WC, i get to get a block for my Video card in the future and put that on water as well.
OCing is always a good idea to get more "ooomfph" from ur CPU and make it more 'worth it'. Since buying dual cpus really is not a 'cheap' solution.
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be wary however, the dual xeon boards are still relatively new. the north bridge architecture may not be perfected. not all have pci-e slots, some do, but some may not. depending on what video card you get to assist in rendering 3d you might be limited on your options.