Worth to build a X99 DDR3 rig?
Posted by skylinestar1986@reddit | buildapc | View on Reddit | 7 comments
Seeing how expensive DDR5 & DDR4 are, is it worth to build a new rig in 2026 based on Intel Xeon X99 (buy from AliExpress/Taobao) with DDR3? CPU will be 2673v3. I have spare DDR3 sticks. The pc is not for modern AAA gaming. Just playing indie games.
schaka@reddit
Miyconst just released a video on this.
E5 2666 v3, E5 2678 v3 and 4x8 DDR3 reg (not regular, get cheap ECC) 1600 or 1866 on an X99-XD3 is the way to go. Got a TPM 2.0 module slot on those boards and BIOS can be flashed to unlock turbo boost.
Performance will be between Ryzen 5 3600 and 5600X depending on the game.
DZCreeper@reddit
Sure, although a CPU like the 1650 v3 or 2667 v3 would be superior. Worth sacrificing some cores for higher boost clock.
Drenlin@reddit
Those are DDR4 only though. The magic of those Chinese "X99" boards is that you can get a 10+ core Haswell/Broadwell chip that runs cheap DDR3 RDIMMs.
theRealtechnofuzz@reddit
they perform in between ryzen 3000 and ryzen 5000, they are decent setups. I have a 2696v3 (18-core/36th 3.8ghz boost). It's pretty decent and blows alot of older 4-cores out of the water on newer cpu-intense games. Just keep in mind the limitations, I would not put something over an rtx 3070/rx 9060xt power in one. Make sure you get a motherboard with tpm2.0 and quad channel support. (x99-xd3)
jhaluska@reddit
You can build whatever you want, you just have to be honest with what it can do.
A DDR3 rig is still fine for many applications.
Aspenthedogbrittney@reddit
Absolutely. Check out randomgaminginhd and iceberg tech on YouTube they’ve done those types of builds have have benchmarks on games
sHoRtBuSseR@reddit
Also budget builds official. Bro uses 25 year old cards for stuff that would blow your mind. We're talking 10 dollar gaming pcs that somehow actually work