So I recently upgraded from a i3 540 to a Xeon X3450 which i paid a total of 23 Canadian dollars and I have successfully overclocked it to 4.2GHZ. What do you guys think?
Upgrading an older system to a XEON, is generally good if you can overclock it without increasing the speed of the PCI-express components, which are often locked to the front-side-bus speeds. In X58 systems, it wasn't linked but in my i7 4xxx setup here it's linked so you have to use multiplier if you mess with it otherwise you must change the PCI-E speeds so it runs within spec, otherwise you could cause all sorts of problems. I am sure you have stability tested it though. If it's stable, great, the XEONs are almost always better yields then the desktop-class processors and run cooler. I had a 4ghz XEON back almost 10 years ago, there was nothing you couldn't run, mod up, run again, and make the most crazy mess of a scene and it would still be smooth.