Which Processor

[people3]

Hi All,

Hope this is the right area to post in, apologies if not.

I’m about to purchase a new system for 3dmax 2010 design and rendering, and was wondering which system people though would be quicker (mainly for rendering). It’s mainly the processor that i’m worried about – is the i7 any better than then dual xeons for 3dsMax?

System 1

Dell T5500
2 x Xeon E5503 2.0GHx
12GB Ram
1GB Nvidia FX3800
500GB ATAii (7200rpm)

Or

I7 930 2.8Ghz
6gb Ram
1GB PNY Quadro fx3800
640gb WD Caviar (7200rpm)

Any pointer would be appreciated

 

[rclarke250]

These are both based on the same core. Both have a QPI = 4.8 GT/s. The I7 has 4 cores and 8 threads and 8mb of smart cache. The Xeon has 2 cores, 4 threads,and 4mb of smart cache.
If you are going to do anything at all with multimedia, you will most likely want the I7 as it supports the SSE4.2 extensions. If you are going for max memory, the Xeons support up to 144 GB each as to the I7 with only 24GB.

Both of these systems will perform about the same, with the edge maybe going to the Dell because of the 12GB of ram. What you have to look at is how does the application handle multi-threading, and multi-cores. Are you using a 32 bit or a 64 bit version of windows? If 64 than go with the more memory. The cpu's are about equal. Or if the price is better than double the memory in the I7 box. Either way you go, is going to be fast.

 

[people3]

Hi Thanks for the reply,

I'm think the i7 on on win 7 64 bit is the way to go with the 8 cores

 

[people3]

HI,

I have been able to get the dell upgraded to

Two Intel Xeon E5620(2.4GHz,5.86GT/s,12MB,4C)-Memory runs at
1066MHz

Which is quad core and hyperthreding giveing 8 threds per CPU so 16 threads

Is This the way to go? or does the i7 still pip it at the post.

Cheers

 

[cdogg]

The e5620 is based on the newer Gulftown architecture that includes a bump up in L3 cache to 12MB and a die-shrink to 32nm. This version only has 4 active cores instead of 6, which gives you a total of 8 active threads just like the Core i7-930 (2 per core).

I haven't seen a matchup between the Core i7 and Xeon CPUs, but I'd be willing to bet in this situation that the i7 will outperform in most areas due to the higher clock speed. However, the larger L3 cache on the Xeon could pay dividends in some areas helping it make up for the slower clock. It's a toss-up really, but I'd still give a slight edge to the i7-930.

Another CPU to keep in mind if it's an option is the Core i7-860. This processor is about the same price as the 930 but only requires dual-channel DDR3 instead of triple-channel making the initial startup cost cheaper. Plus, it generally outperforms the 930 in a majority of benchmarks I've seen mainly due to its faster single-core clock speed when Turboboost kicks in.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Einstein
[tab][navy]For posting policies, click [/navy]here.

 

[rclarke250]

Single cpu to single cpu I would agree that the I7-930 would or should out perform the xeon, But the dell system is a dual xeon, which more than makes up for anything the single cpu I7-930 has, and the L3 cache bump is better put to use in the xeon also. So a single I7 with 4.8 GT's vs. a dual xeon with 11.32 GT/s...I would put my money on the Dual xeons.

 

[Sympology]

This may help.

http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/difference-between-xeon-and-i7/

So for 3D max, the i7 is looking better.

It's not all about clock speed.

One thing missing from the above article is that Xeons support ECC memory, quite important on servers, less so on Desktops (but look at the price difference).

Robert Wilensky:
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

 

[Q6600]

What "brand" system is the I7?

Rather, more importantly, what MB would it use?

Asking cause if it has an "enthusiast" MB you could overclock the system/I7 CPU quite a bit for a big performance boost. Pretty much all Dell BIOSs do not have overclocking options.

Overclocking is def a big matter of preference. Some people swear by it and some people shun it. Alot of peoples opinions are based on if the machine is for personal vs business use.

 

[xwb]

Core i7 is intel. It uses triple channel memory so it is best in multiples of 3 like 3, 6, 9, 12 Gb. You have a choice between i5 and i7. At a layman's level, use i5 for apps which take lots of processing, and use i7 for lots of little apps.