Xeon E5-1620 vs Core i7 3820 will AMD catch up anytime soon?

threehosts

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I'm thinking about building a Socket 2011 system and have been looking at the 3820 for quite a while as it currently appears to be one of the best price/performance deals on the Intel side (on a i7-2011 system).

However, a big pet peeve of mine is that it doesn't support ECC RAM. But then I found the E5-1620 which seems to be quite equivalent to the 3820 on every aspect except that it also supports ECC and is only about $50 dearer, which is a price-premium I could live with.

So my main question is, are there any caveats to consider when choosing Xeon over i7? I would mostly do "workstation" stuff but also some degree of gaming on the system. As I understand, Xeons are not overclockable whereas i7s are, is this really that much of a penalty? I mean 3.6GHz is quite a lot already. Are there any other caveats and compatibility issues to consider?

Some other smaller questions are; will AMD catch up to this with their Steamroller line? Will I benefit from more than 4 cores? I like to run a lot of things in parallel and stuff like that, but will more than 4 cores be well utilized for such situations? The task-scheduler of the operating system may not be so good at distributing the workload over more than 4 cores even though there are many threads. I hope you understand my question. Maybe going for more than 4 cores is not so useful in a "workstation environment" and is more of a thing in server environments...
 

threehosts

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I've done some research and come to the following conclusions:

* The E5-1620 and i7-3820 are basically the same CPU except support for ECC RAM with the Xeon. The overclocking capabilities with the Xeon remains unclear. If someone can chime in and verify this then that would be great...

* There are no known compatibility issues between i7 vs Xeon (or Phenom/Athlon vs Opteron in the AMD case). People with Xeon experience have never run into problems just because the CPUs were Xeons and not Core 2/i5/i7...

* Will AMD catch up? Who knows, most people are sceptical though. So it seems that we won't expect AMD to beat Intel at least within the next year or two... However, I remember when AMD were resting on their laurels while their line of Athlons beated "Pentium 4" CPUs with a big margin. It kind of seems that Intel are in a situation today that is similar to where AMD were 7 years ago and that eventually AMD will overtake the competition just like Intel did with the Core CPUs. But then again, who knows what's going on behind closed doors?

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The following is still a bit unresolved:

How many cores should one have. Going for more than 4 cores will involve quite a steep price premium as to this date. There is a sweet spot and diminishing returns as for the core count where the sweet spot used to be at 4 cores (as of the year 2010). So it wouldn't make sense to have more than 4 cores unless you run specially written heavy-duty applications or use Virtual Machines which I actually do.

However, this is 2013 so this sweet spot may have changed since 2010.An update on this would be appreciated.
 
threehosts,

The three CPU's that to me have the best cost / performance ratio are > AMD FX 8350 (8"-core), Xeon E5-1620 (4 core), and Xeon E5-1650 (6 Core). Only on Monday, I received the first new system I've bought since 2004, and HP z420 workstation with an E5-1620.

In my view, PC hardware has grown more task specialized and it is increasingly difficult -almost a contradiction in terms- to optimize a system for both workstation and gaming. Because of the investment and effort, if the system is image making, assemble:: a Xeon > ECC > Quadro/ Firepro > RAID or for games :: an i5 or i7 "K" Overclocked > 1600+ > GTX /HD Radeon > SSD. then, for content creation, whether you're rendering, 3D CAD modeling, or running simulations specializes the hardware, and so on.

There is of course a generic middle ground system that can do everything, but being content with the performance is an equation only you can decide. If you are making renderings from 3D CAD models, that can use all the cores / threads available, so a dual CPU eight-core Xeon is the best idea, but for games, with few exceptions, those two $1,950 E5-2687W CPU's are wasted and as they are locked at 3.1/ 3.8GHz and will have a Quadro K5000 after it will not run Crysis 3 as well as an overclocked i7-3930K with a GTX 780.

Sorry to ramble in the abstract, but it's he complexity of these kinds of decisions.

On a more practical level, if you are using 2D , 3D CAD, and/or Adobe CS the E5-1620 would be my choice. if you're doing a lot of rendering, you could benefit from dual CPU six cores, but unless rendering is more than 10% of your use, for cost consideration, the four-cores /eight threads at 3.6 / 3.9GHz will be fine. It's striking how many applications are single-threaded- even Autodesk Inventor running mechanical / thermal / gas flow simulation- so for everything except rendering, the higher clock speed is more useful than core count. Anyway, I've discovered with rendering to make that the last work of the morning or evening and walk away and let renderings run during meals.

So, E5-1620 or if you're doing a lot of rendering, make that an E5-1650 (about $600), a good motherboard with X79 or better, Intel C602 chipse, and follow it with 16GB ECC 1600 and a Quadro K2000 or K4000. If you are doing only 2D work, you can get amazingly good results from older generation Quadros in the days of 2D. A Quadro FX 3800 or 4800 will run AutoCad 2D or Adobe CS as well as necessary and an FX 5800- which is a rare 512-bit card with 4GB RAM- was made for video editing.

You mention hardware to support multi-tasking and that is a function of the amount of RAM, not the CPU core count > unless you're including rendering. I also use a number of applications at once and my rule is > 2GB for OS, 2GB for every application, and 2GB spare. As I often run 5 or 6 programs > 2D CAD, 3D CAD / modeling, rendering, graphic design, wordprocessing, Win Explorer, Internet at once, plus files that can be quite large, I think of 16GB as minimum. Having a C602 board allows huge amounts of RAM- some support 512GB depending on speed and can be upgraded to E5-2600 150W eight-core CPU's. Keep in mind that ECC RAM is constantly making error-correction / parity checks and Quadros also have error correction and have drivers that finish each frame before moving, so these components will not make high frame rates in games.

Another factor today is USB 3.0 and as I am often transferring large- 10-25GB at a time to an external drive for backup, system images and the like, and USB 3 will be very welcome > a useful feature of the current Xeon E5 series. I have an elderly USB WD 160GB and these transfers currently run at about 25MB /s - endless. I have an old 8GB flash drive and because I never properly formatted it , those transfers are more in the 3-4MB/s range. A future with USB 3/0 looks much less depressing.

Of course, if content creation is farther down the list of priorities, the i7-3820 is also a good performer and has a very good cost performance ratio.

Here's a system list I made a few weeks ago >

BambiBoom PixelDozer Cadaedimathagrapharific ExtremeSignature VI ®£©™®$™_ 6.30.13

This system is intended as a workstation solution with high performance / high precision, very high stability / reliability at reasonable cost, and suitable for 2D and 3D CAD, graphic design, rendering, mathematics, simulation, animation, and video editing.

1. Xeon E5-1650 6-core 3.2 /3.8GHz, 12MB cache, LGA 2011 $630 (Passmark CPU score= 11462, rank = No. 12) > $590.

_1A. Intel Xeon Quad-Core Processor E5-1620 3.6GHz 5.0GT/s 10MB LGA 2011 CPU, OEM > $294 (Superbiz) (Passmark CPU score= 9199, rank = No. 38)

2. Noctua NH-U12S 120x120x25 ( NF-F12 PWM) SSO2-Bearing ( Self-stabilizing oil-pressure bearing ) CPU Cooler $70

3. ASUS P9X79 WS LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 SSI CEB > $380.

4. 16GB (2X 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 ECC Unbuffered Server Memory >about $150. (Check ASUS motherboard compatibility list)

5. NVIDIA Quadro K2000 VCQK2000-PB 2GB GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 Workstation Video Card $420.

6. Western Digital WD Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive (RAID 1) > $90 (OS and Applications)

7. (2) Western Digital WD Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive (RAID 1) >$180 $90ea. (Files, Backup, System Image)

8. SeaSonic X Series X650 Gold ((SS-650KM Active PFC F3)) 650W ATX12V V2.3/EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply $120.

9. LIAN LI PC-A75 Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower Computer Case $182

10. ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM $17.

11. Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (Full Version) - OEM $140

TOTAL = $2,043 with E5-1620 and $2,340 with E5-1650

Various economies to the above > CPU cooler, single HD or single storage drive, case, bargain OS. In the US it's possible to buy a good used Quadro 4000 for $350-400 and which would improve the 3D performance over the K2000.

Ways to spend more > Quadro K4000 instead of K2000, 32GB RAM

Are you by chance in the UK? If so, this system would be perhaps in the £1600-1800 range.

Again, this is an assumption of a very workstation-orientated system and would not necessarily be brilliant at high frame-rate / high settings gaming.


Cheers,

BambiBoom

[ Dell Precision T5400 (2008)> 2X Xeon X5460 quad core @3.16GHz > 16 GB ECC 667> Quadro FX 4800 (1.5GB) > WD RE4 / Segt Brcda 500GB > Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit > HP 2711x 27" 1920 x 1080 > AutoCad, Revit, Solidworks, Sketchup Pro, Corel Technical Designer, Adobe CS MC, WordP Office, MS Office > architecture, industrial design, graphic design, rendering, writing ] [ Passmark rating is 1859 with CPU = 8528, 2D=517 , 3D=1097 ]

[HP z420 (new)> E5-1620 @ 3.6 /3.9GHz > Intel C602> 16GB ECC 1600 > Firepro V4900 (to become Quadro 4000 or 5000) > Seagate 500GB > Windows 7 Professional 64 bit > no applications yet loaded ] [I expect with Quadro 4000 a Passmark rating about 2900 with CPU = 9200, 2D=650 , 3D=1900 ]