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Benchmarking of this Chinese x79 build is now complete. TL;DR: I achieved both goals. I have a moderately inexpensive 6-Core system that plays VR while performing live green-screen chroma via OBS, and handles it's own at video editing.

But first... What am I drinking?

Today, I had Der Couvensteiner from Loowit Brewing Company in Vancouver, WA. A Dunkelweizen weighing in at 5%. If you ever see it on tap, do yourself a favor.

Chinese mATX x79 Motherboard v3.5A - $117 - eBay
Intel Xeon E5-2667 6-Core 2.9GHz (3.5GHz Turbo) - $55
nVidia GTX 1070 Founder's Edition - $275 - Purchased used. Find GTX 1070s on Amazon - [ Ссылка ]
4x8GB Samsung DDR3 ECC @1,333MHz - $75 - eBay
OWC 60GB 6G SSD - $25 - Purchased used
1TB Western Digital Black - $40 - Purchased used
ThermalTake Smart 500W 80+ - $35 - [ Ссылка ]
Scythe BIG Shuriken n2B - $37 - [ Ссылка ]
Swiftech 8-Fan PWM Splitter - $13 - [ Ссылка ]
4x AsiaHorse 120MM LED PWM Fans - $39 - [ Ссылка ]
CoolerMaster MasterBox Lite 3.1 - $40 - [ Ссылка ]

Like every PC build, there were a few issues to work around on this one. All in all, the only quality issue I ran into was the USB3 header on the motherboard, but you're likely to run into that on most boards. Internal USB3 is a terrible connector.

Benchmarking revealed that this board does not in any way hamper the hardware I installed in it. All components perform as I would expect them to. The GTX 1070 was running a stable boost clock of around 1830-1900MHz (no manual overclocking, just factory boost). Power draw was as expected.

The CPU was able to stress-test via AIDA64 for over an hour, peaking at 81C. All this while maintaing a steady 3.2GHz turbo across all cores.

Gaming performance was excellent, achieving over 100FPS in some fairly demanding titles. Again, the motherboard was in no way a weak link to this build.

If there are any limitations to this board, it is due to the platform it is running (x79/C602 Chipset), not any kind of manufacturing problems. The solder joints are excellent, the build quality is fantastic all around (minus the USB3 header), and aside from looking like a motherboard straight out of 2004, I would highly recommend this to someone on a budget needing as much CPU power as their dollar can buy. Pairing this with an E5-1650 6-Core would get you an unlocked SKU as well, with the motherboard supporting up to a 39x multiplier for a 3.9GHz overclock. Or, if your workload is multithreaded, there are always the tried and true E5-2670 and E5-2690 8-Core chips.

Yes, Ryzen and Intel do have chips that will make this system look a bit dated. But with the current cost of DDR4 memory, at $259 for the same 32GB I picked up for $75, that alone almost makes this platform a viable option in the entry workstation market.

What do you guys think? Would you buy one of these boards? Would you do anything differently than I did? Let me know. I'd love to put some more configurations to the test.

Music:
On the Ground Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Twisted Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
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