Xeon vs. i7

[Kim-n-Dean]

I'm looking at some Dell Workstations for CAD and...

I'm trying to figure out if Xeon is better. In the old days it was the shit, but I'm seeing that the i7 might be better. So, why are the Xeon machines more expensive? Also, the clock speeds on the Xeons are confusing. An E5-2630, 6-core, 2.6GHz is $5,200 cheaper than the Dual E5-2670,10-core, 2.5GHz. They add cores, slow down the clock and jack the hell out of the price. All the Xeon machines show a slightly lower processor rating than the machines with i7 CPUs. And, the i7 machines are waaaay cheaper but, their recommendations for CAD systems are Xeon CPUs.

Also, are solid state drives noticeably faster? Like, big-time faster?

Anyone, anyone....

[Native]

I think the zeon has a bigger processor cache and some bus is also bigger. the i7 is pretty fast and way cheaper, I have an i7 w/ssd if you want to come and try it

[birchyboy]

I support an actuary that has both an i7 workstation (16gb RAM, 1TB drives) and a dual Xeon workstation (48GB ram, 256 SSD). He is very sensitive to anything that slows his work down, which is primarily Excel 2007/2010 spreadsheets and Statistica work. The i7 absolutely stomps the Xeon workstation, but I think has more to do with how Excel utilizes the processors for VBA than anything else. I have tested 64 bit Excel on a dual Xeon server, and when configured correctly Excel can be much faster if VBA isn't involved.

SSD's can be the shit for reading massive amounts of data. I haven't done much in the way of formal testing, but I like them.

All that said, if I were you I'd focus on users groups for the software that you are using and try to cull out what other users recommend.

[Kim-n-Dean]

I support an actuary that has both an i7 workstation (16gb RAM, 1TB drives) and a dual Xeon workstation (48GB ram, 256 SSD). He is very sensitive to anything that slows his work down, which is primarily Excel 2007/2010 spreadsheets and Statistica work. The i7 absolutely stomps the Xeon workstation, but I think has more to do with how Excel utilizes the processors for VBA than anything else. I have tested 64 bit Excel on a dual Xeon server, and when configured correctly Excel can be much faster if VBA isn't involved.

SSD's can be the shit for reading massive amounts of data. I haven't done much in the way of formal testing, but I like them.

All that said, if I were you I'd focus on users groups for the software that you are using and try to cull out what other users recommend.

Stomps it, ay! That's what I was afraid of. It probably is how the software uses the CPU. Just about every high-end CAD station is using Xeon, where office machines use i7. I'm strictly CAD (AutoCAD, 3-D Studio, Revit, Solid Works). The problems with user groups are the people that know the software never know anything about the hardware and vice-versa.

[rforsythe]

Stomps it, ay! That's what I was afraid of. It probably is how the software uses the CPU. Just about every high-end CAD station is using Xeon, where office machines use i7. I'm strictly CAD (AutoCAD, 3-D Studio, Revit, Solid Works). The problems with user groups are the people that know the software never know anything about the hardware and vice-versa.

Might be worth calling Autodesk and asking them what they recommend. They might have optimized it for one chip over another.

[Kim-n-Dean]

Might be worth calling Autodesk and asking them what they recommend. They might have optimized it for one chip over another.

They just list minimum specs for all their software, which my ten-year-old box smokes. I'll email them and ask them specifically if there is a better CPU over another for their ware's.

[Native]

They just list minimum specs for all their software, which my ten-year-old box smokes. I'll email them and ask them specifically if there is a better CPU over another for their ware's.

sure, you will get a canned response from the help desk, you are welcome to come try it with a large file on my machine (Lone Tree)

[~Barn~]

SSHDs > Dope processors

[Kim-n-Dean]

SSHDs > Dope processors

Are you saying it's better to have SSD than the latest CPU? Should we discuss this over lunch (with a view, of course)?

[dirkterrell]

It depends greatly on the specifics of what you do. For my work (floating point codes that peg the cpu for long periods of time), the Xeons have an edge. The E5-2687 and E5-2697 are smoking chips for floating point, and if you can make use of the additional cores, the 2697 is where it's at. The only way to really know what's best for you is to see benchmarks done using the software you use. And SSDs are nice if you're moving lots of data around. A RAM disk might be useful in certain situations. I use all three approaches depending on what I'm doing.

[Kim-n-Dean]

A RAM disk might be useful in certain situations. I use all three approaches depending on what I'm doing.

I've was using RAM disk in 1990. Wrote a cool little script for the AutoExec to execute on start-up. Took a while to copy everything to and fro... but it definitely sped up the machines back then. Haven't messed with it since about 1995. Aren't SSDs basically today's RAM disk?

Looks like I'll be purchasing the Precision T7610 - Not too bad @ $3,100:

Intel® Xeon® Processor E5-2630 v2 (Six Core HT, 2.6GHz Turbo, 15 MB)
32GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1866MHz
3 GB NVIDIA Quadro K4000 (2DP & 1DVI-I) (2DP-DVI & 1DVI-VGA adapter)

[dirkterrell]

Aren't SSDs basically today's RAM disk?

Similar in many respects, but RAM will usually be faster at the expense of volatility. Again, it depends on what you're doing whether one is better than the other.

[Kim-n-Dean]

Similar in many respects, but RAM will usually be faster at the expense of volatility. Again, it depends on what you're doing whether one is better than the other.

That was always the problem with RAM disk. One hick-up and EVERYTHING is goooone!!!!!!

[Native]

That was always the problem with RAM disk. One hick-up and EVERYTHING is goooone!!!!!!

the ssd is way better, and definitely much faster (than an HD)

[dirkterrell]

That was always the problem with RAM disk. One hick-up and EVERYTHING is goooone!!!!!!

Yeah, you have to use them the right way. Nothing that can't be easily recreated should be on a RAM disk. I use them, for example, when processing astronomical images. The processing creates intermediate files that I don't ultimately care about. I just want the final one. So, I do all that intermediate processing in a RAM disk and then write the final one to something non-volatile.

[Native]

I've was using RAM disk in 1990. Wrote a cool little script for the AutoExec to execute on start-up. Took a while to copy everything to and fro... but it definitely sped up the machines back then. Haven't messed with it since about 1995. Aren't SSDs basically today's RAM disk?

Looks like I'll be purchasing the Precision T7610 - Not too bad @ $3,100:

Intel® Xeon® Processor E5-2630 v2 (Six Core HT, 2.6GHz Turbo, 15 MB)
32GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1866MHz
3 GB NVIDIA Quadro K4000 (2DP & 1DVI-I) (2DP-DVI & 1DVI-VGA adapter)

jeez, that thing it freakin heathy, why does the ssd add $5k?

[Kim-n-Dean]

jeez, that thing it freakin heathy, why does the ssd add $5k?

The $5K more gets you dual Xeon ten-core CPUs, 64Gb RAM, 4Gb K5000 Video and two 256 Mb SSD's. You would never have to buy another computer!

[~Barn~]

<Snip...> You would never have to buy another computer!

Yeah.. Just like back when I was a kid and we purchased our first home PC - A Packard Bell desktop with a 500MB HDD - and my Uncle (An HP employee at the time) proclaims to me... "Wow! You're never going to be able to fill that thing up!"

Truth is, there's processing power that's going to be needed for technologies that we don't even know are going to exist on the consumer front in 10... 20 years from now; same thing with storage requirements. Full holographic rendering and immersion anybody? Anyway... just sayin'.

[Native]

they used to have a hardware equivalent to an ssd back in the 90's. It used ram chips and was very expensive. you could use it when there was no other solution for performance

[I`m Batman]

Pentium 2?

[Kim-n-Dean]

Pentium 2?

Nope. Although, my original computer, a first gen. Pentium 120MHz running Linux hauls some serious ass, too.

My current box is a P4, 3.4GHz, 3 Gb RAM, GeForce 6800 256 Mb Video. The key is disabling most of the three-hundred some Win services that you don't need.

[bluedogok]

I run Revit on a dual-Xeon at work (Nvidia Quadro 4000, 32GB, SSD) Core i7's at home. Max works better on Xeons because it addresses multiple cores and the Xeon has more, Revit 2014 doesn't (yet).

In Austin we moved from Dell to Boxx Technologies systems (they were about a half mile from our office at the time) and they seemed to run much better because they were made for the higher end work and cheaper than the higher end Dell computers with much less crap software loaded on them. You can get either Core i7 or Xeon with Boxx.

[Kim-n-Dean]

I run Revit on a dual-Xeon at work (Nvidia Quadro 4000, 32GB, SSD) Core i7's at home. Max works better on Xeons because it addresses multiple cores and the Xeon has more, Revit 2014 doesn't (yet).

In Austin we moved from Dell to Boxx Technologies systems (they were about a half mile from our office at the time) and they seemed to run much better because they were made for the higher end work and cheaper than the higher end Dell computers with much less crap software loaded on them. You can get either Core i7 or Xeon with Boxx.

I agree! I hate all the extra crap Dell sends installed. The first thing I do when I buy a Dell is reformat and install only the stuff I want. Then, I make an image and that's my "recovery" to how it was delivered.

Damn! I got excite about Boxx, checked them out and they have not even half the machine Dell does for $500 more. One of Boxx's machines is $19,000. You can get the same from Dell for $8,500. Oh well...

[Kim-n-Dean]

Got my new machine the other day and shit, it freakin' hauls ass!!!

Xeon E5-2630 v2 - 6 Core
32 Gigs of DDR3 ECC 1866MHz RAM
Nvidia Quadro K4000 w/ 3Gigs of RAM Video Card

...and to answer my own question, the reason Xeons are so expensive is they are server CPU's. The QA is considerably higher than on regular CPU's, they are designed to run at 100% load 24/7 and they support ECC RAM.

I can run six instances of AutoCAD, four instances of Design Review, open ten .PDF's and run Solid Works all at the same time and it doesn't even phase this box! It is amazing!