Woodcrest vs Conroe

[drifter_888]

I am thinking of building a new gaming system. What would be the advantage or disadvantage between using the new Xenon (Woodcrest) or using the Conroe's that will be due out later?

 

[Guest]

Linky

If you need a workstation with more than one socket(so you can slap 2 Dual core = 4 cores) than you need the Xeon ak WoodCrest.
If you dont need multiple CPU and if you dont run, server like code on the machine, you dont need the WoodCrest.

The only advantage I see with woodcrest is the higher FSB on higher end parts(1333). But then again for the price differencen not worth it and im almost certain you can OC it back to the speed without much problems.

For regular multitask/games/office get a Conroe, chances are if you dont know if you need a Woodcrest, you dont need one!

 

[drifter_888]

Thank you. I really didn't think there would be much of a difference between Xenon and Conroe but then they do have seperate purposes. I am considering using it as a backup server should their be an issue but more then likely it would not be needed.

Xenons seem to be a server processor. I guess my real questions is why? Is there really anything so different about the Xenon and the future Conroe? Is it more stable? More throughput? More features? Are their suttle tweakings of the two chips that make one better for one purpose over the other?

 

[RichPLS]

Are you referring to Xenon, the Princess Warrior?

 

[crow_smiling]

The chips have different sockets and use different chipsets. Woodcrest chipsets can support a dual FSB and quad channel memory, which is very useful for memory starved applications. The big questions though are will the applications that you use benefit from this and does this dual FSB architecture scale well. I haven’t seen a review that looks in great deal at these issues, but hopefully when Socket F is released someone will run an intensive comparison and look at these issues.

Woodcrest motherboards are currently very expensive and usually don’t allow over-clocking. Also, they use FB-DIMMs which are also currently very expensive.

 

[pengwin]

Are you referring to Xenon, the Princess Warrior?

i think that was Xena. Dunno.


Anyways, this guy posted a question i was gona post. Im a fan of server grade tech. Dunno why, but it just draws me in. Anyways. How do serve rmobo's overclock?

 

[drifter_888]

Interesting .... I am not interested in overclocking so that is not an issue. Stability and performance is though. Could you give me an example of what applicaitons require server boards and chipsets?

 

[Guest]

The micro code inside the WoodCrest is supposed to be optimized for Server like load, this typically means, a lot of parrallel thread and I/O intensive apps.

Conroe is suppose to be optimised more for multimedia/multi purpose code and finally Merom to draw less power.

Server boards are usually a robust implementation of a server chipset from nVidia. Is say robust because they often are geared toward stability/24-7...

Computer for woodcrest will be based on Bensley platform, chipset should be BlackFord, it has two independant FSB (aka Dual Independant Bus) and quad channel FB_DImm. Overall you get much more bandwith to go with the high I/O is was talking about, much more expensive.

What did you mean by a backup server? a server to do some backup or a server in case one of your server die?

 

[crow_smiling]

Could you give me an example of what applications require server boards and chipsets?

No, it’s not my domain. For workstation applications look at this review of older Xeons and Opterons as it shows that only certain applications can currently gain in the jump from 2 to 4+ cores.

Server boards are usually a robust implementation of a server chipset from nVidia. Is say robust because they often are geared toward stability/24-7...

This may be true for AMD but I’m not aware of Nvidia releasing a Server chipset for Woodcrest or possibly even older Xeons.

 

[Whizzard9992]

Woodcrest chipsets can support a dual FSB and quad channel memory, which is very useful for memory starved applications.

It's not really 'quad-channel', per se, because it's serial. You can't compare FB-DIMMs to DDR2 that way....

I've been asking the same questions. I do a lot of multi-tasking, and what I've found is that the FB-DIMMs are slightly slower than parallel DDR2, but provide more bandwidth (depending on the config).

What it boils down to is how you're going to be using your machine. The Conroe will definately provide excellent multimedia (and gaming) performance. If you're looking for productivity, such as encoding with SMP-Aware software, or running database queries, etc. then you should look into woodcrest. There's a chance woodcrest will provide sub-par gaming performance, but it could also smoke Conroe. No one knows for sure at this point.

The problem is that NDA's limit places like THG from benchmarking the XEON with the intent on 'benchmarketing' the chip for a market different than the target market. i.e. Conroe is for gaming, XEON is for servers. THG can't produce an article on how bad-ass the XEON is for gaming, because it would likely voilate their NDA. We're just going to have to wait and see from users how well the XEONs perform. The problem is that you're talking some serious duckets for a nice XEON system, and it's risky.

$1800: 2x XEON processors
$800: Decent XEON mobo
$800: 4-sticks of FB-DIMMs (2GB)
$400: Graphics card.
$200: 2x 300 GB HDD
________________________
$4,000 TOTAL

Also, it's unlikely you'll find a XEON mobo with 2 16-lane PCIe graphics slots, so you're married to a single graphics card.

If you're feeling adventerous, get a XEON and let us know how it does I know I don't have 4 g notes to experiment with

 

[crow_smiling]

Woodcrest chipsets can support a dual FSB and quad channel memory, which is very useful for memory starved applications.

It's not really 'quad-channel', per se, because it's serial. You can't compare FB-DIMMs to DDR2 that way....The number of channels is independent of whether they are serial or parallel, so you are wrong here. They’ve gone for a serial memory buss because of the reduced trace count of serial v parallel; quad parallel would be a mess to layout on a motherboard, especially as server boards can have 8 or even 12 RAM slots.

 

[drifter_888]

Yes. Should my primary server die. I would like something to take its place while it is being repaired or serviced without losing too much performance.

 

[drifter_888]

If I can get Xena the Warrior Princess to be at my beck and call and do anything I desire or that she is capable of .... Foget the server SHE's HIRED! ... that is .... IF she doesn't cost more then a computer

 

[Guest]

Typo on my part your totally right meant Intel obviously

 

[Guest]

At my work, we have something like 10 PC and 5-10 employees(we sale computer hence all the PC). I setuped an entry level intel server. Its used as a file and print and as a domain controller(the domain is usefull to give right to the correct person and we have a lot of rolling personel).

Bottom line is that the CPU is a 940 and thats sufficient for the use, abeit we dont really run server apps on it besides backup.

I think it boils down to price, if you're willing to pay more and not loose a inch of performance if anything happens, by all means do it. If you're willing to sacrifice performance then I think a conore will be fine ebcause it probably surpass actual Xeon(Dempsey) in many tasks!

Only question is, how much your "down time" is worth. If the loss of productivity will cost you more than the server then its a no brainer!