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i7-4960x vs a Xeon processor, Titan vs K6000

Tags:
  • Xeon
  • Computers
  • Intel i7
  • Processors
  • Business Computing
Last response: in Business Computing
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December 6, 2013 11:25:01 PM

So I must help my father build a computer for his small business, yet he wants to purchase it from Dell: http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=s...

I want to make a computer similar to this one except with 32GB ram at 1866 with a k2000 graphics card. Yet I'm not sure if an i7 is better than a Xeon.

My last question is: Can a titan be repurposed to a k6000?

More about : 4960x xeon processor titan k6000

December 6, 2013 11:33:36 PM

For a server computer? If so the xeon would be better aswith the k6000 card compared to the titan for server computer purposes.
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December 6, 2013 11:37:03 PM

Depends on what you are doing with the computer whether the i7 or Xeon is better. No the Titan cannot be re-purposed as far as I know. I know you can with a 690, but thats with soldiering.
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December 7, 2013 10:18:50 AM

Amar Tsogtoo said:
For a server computer? If so the xeon would be better aswith the k6000 card compared to the titan for server computer purposes.


He is into engineering so he has CAD software along with other simulations for designing. The computer must be able to do these calculations which take his $2k dell laptop an hour to do. I believe it has a i7, but he is looking for something that can cut this time in more than half. I also want support up to 64GB of RAM and perhaps several cores for hyper-threading. It relies heavily on the CPU more than the GPU, but I believe he can use GPU computing.
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December 7, 2013 1:29:25 PM

Sometimes putting tons of money into one thing isn't where the money actually needs to be spent so please be careful!

Given CAD design work, I would suggest looking at the Xeon based workstation with an actual workstation-class graphics card. The main reason for this is support and compatibility. A workstation graphics card like the K6000 is specifically built for this kind of design work. There are drivers optimized for it. But because it's so specialized it also is going to cost a whole lot more than a desktop graphics card. So, first things first, you need to find out if the software he is using specifically requires or can benefit from a driver package for the K6000 over a desktop graphics card.

I've built numerous design workstations (graphics design mind you) for my father's sign business. At first we really leaned towards the Quadro graphics cards, but based on the software they are using and the cost difference, we could actually get a much faster graphics card that was desktop series but still have the same performance in the software. Don't get me wrong, the Quadro line of cards is awesome and for high color fidelity, precise design, or rendering work I still definitely recommend them. What I'm saying is that the software they were using, given the cost of the graphics cards, would NOT benefit from the workstation-class graphics card over just having a simple desktop graphics card. So why spend the money?

Now here's the other thing. Your father's CAD software may very well be needing some powerful GPU to be able to do rendering. But don't neglect other areas of the computer system that may be bottlenecks. Often times the hard drive is left out of the consideration, and people don't realize how much of an increase their software can perform by utilizing a solid state drive (or multiple, given their workloads) over a standard 7,200 RPM SATA hard drive. Again, though, I don't know specifically the workload type that your father is using, or specific software requirements, but if you are looking at spending hundreds of dollars on a huge amount of RAM and a top-of-the-line Xeon processor, then don't also forget your primary storage at your hard drive and leave that with a large possible bottleneck.
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