Which Xeon processors? ES?

Re:Which Xeon processors? ES? (raminux)

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 21:02:43 GMT

Thanks for the replies. I actually neglected to pay attention to the fact that W3680 is single QPI.

The three resource demanding softwares I use are Adobe Photoshop, Premiere Pro and After Effects. I will wait for the CS6 which should come some time this year so that the things can change in the new version (better multi processing support, better utilization of GPU, etc.). Right now with CS5.5, Cuda technology is quite useful for PP and PS while number of cores and clock speed are important to AE in particular and to the other ones (although to a lesser degree). However, the general consensus seems to be that the I/O is most likely the bottleneck here. I am planning to use an SSD for system drive and another smaller one as a cash and scratch disk and a hdd raid setup for data storage (4 drives in RAID 0).

The most important factor is approaching a real time editing with rendering on the fly as much as possible. This is something that currently with Final Cut Pro is frustrating (even though it is a great software otherwise). I am not that concerned about the final stage rendering time though. With 48GB of RAM, the I/O limitation may not show up in real time editing (of which I can only guess, right now) such as RAM preview, etc.. CPU speed though important, is probably not the bottle neck so I am not overly concerned to have the fastest CPU out there which is costly without apparently helping much. By the way, I never play games (to take into consideration) so I will only have one GPU on this system.

Re:Which Xeon processors? ES? (TheWolf)

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:50:18 GMT

Here is a compare that might help you make up your mind.
If I had it to do over again I'd go with a pair of E5649's.
just for the extra multiplier over the E5645 I have now.

Re:Which Xeon processors? ES? (lehpron)

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 14:28:52 GMT

Adding clarification to MattkiasKittl's comment, SR-2 only takes dual-QPI CPUs which is why both the i7's and Xeon 3000's will not work.
ES are illegal to buy or sell because Intel lends them to companies for testing, they don't sell them to anyone. As such EVGA will not offer official support as it would constitue as support of stealing. You're on your own to try, but should there be a problem and EVGA tech support traces it to your ES CPU choice, they can scapegoat that and void your mainboard warranty. As long as you buy retail, and it is on EVGA's support list, they can duplicate any senario to help you because support lists means what EVGA already tested.
As for which CPU to choose, what do you plan on doing? SR-2 allows overclocking so you can go somewhat cheap, though you will be limited to about a 50% increase due to the external clock generator on the board. Don't buy something too slow just because it is cheap. Really get the fastest you can afford unless you don't need the speed since SR-2 allows dual processors.

Re:Which Xeon processors? ES? (MatthiasKittl)

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:47:14 GMT

Ok, so first of all the W3680 is a single socket CPU, I hope that you are aware of this.

And I don't think that there is a difference between ES CPUs and the final CPUs, as long as the Stepping is the same.

Regards

Which Xeon processors? ES? (raminux)

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:24:02 GMT

Considering my budget, I have narrowed my choices to the followings:

- Intel Xeon X5660 2.80GHz     95w 6 cores ~ $1000 (new OEM on Ebay)
- Intel Xeon X5650 2.66GHz    95w   6 cores ~ $850 ( new OEM on Ebay)
- Intel Xeon E5649 2.53GHz 80W   6-Core ~ $780
- Intel Xeon E5645 2.40GHz 80W   6-Core ~ $560
- Intel Xeon W3680 3.33GHz    130W 6-Core ~ $600

X5650 and X5660 are more expensive but ES versions (engineering samples) can be found on Ebay for lower prices. I wonder how much risk is in buying ES? Your experience/opinion?

E5649 and E5645 are quite less expensive. What do I loose with them comparing to X line of Xeons? Do they over-clock better? II know they have lower QPI. Does it make a significant difference in their performance?

W3680 has a higher default clock speed at the price of higher TDP. It gives the impression of an already over-clocked Xeon. I imagine because of the high TDP, it has less over-clock capacity, right? Does it have a benefit?

Your inputs are appreciated.