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Core 2 Duo E6600 vs 2x Opteron 246

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Hi Everyone! (first post on these forums :D  )

This may be a strange question, but I'm very new to dual core/CPU setups and haven't ever seen a comparison between these setups.

From what I understand the C2D E6600 is very powerful, but is it more so than 2x Opteron 246s? Esp given that I can swap out the single core Opterons and put in 2x dual core models once I have more money and (correct me if I'm wrong) the Opterons offer a larger mem bandwidth, which is quite important to 3D DCC work.

This rig will be a DCC (digital content creation) workstation. The apps I use most are;
3dsmax
Maya
Softimage XSI
ZBrush
Silo
Photoshop

Also (*phew*, almost there) I've ignored the Xeon so far, as I've heard the latest Opterons have Xeon beat. If thats not true, tell me please!

TIA

(BTW I'm looking to upgrade from a P4 3GHz Northwood/1GB DDR400/ATI x800 setup, so anything will be a step up from where I am now! :p  )

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I believe so. In fact i think even e6300 is faster, ..... in maya anyways.

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=291650&highlight=fast+computer

I have e6400 and at stock speed i get about 413 sec when rendering that maya scene and 280 sec when oc to 3.2 ghz. i took the oc to 3.5ghz and got 255sec but it wasn't 100% prime stable. But 3.2ghz is 100% stable for me.
So i think it's a lot better than dual opteron 246 that renders at 519 sec. I'm not sure about other softwares, but im guessing it's going to yield similar results. I only use maya and photoshop, so for me e6400 is the best $$/performance. And it's like $100 cheaper than e6600.
Whether you overclock or not, core 2 duo is the way to go.

Quote:
Hi Everyone! (first post on these forums :D  )

This may be a strange question, but I'm very new to dual core/CPU setups and haven't ever seen a comparison between these setups.

From what I understand the C2D E6600 is very powerful, but is it more so than 2x Opteron 246s? Esp given that I can swap out the single core Opterons and put in 2x dual core models once I have more money and (correct me if I'm wrong) the Opterons offer a larger mem bandwidth, which is quite important to 3D DCC work.

This rig will be a DCC (digital content creation) workstation. The apps I use most are;
3dsmax
Maya
Softimage XSI
ZBrush
Silo
Photoshop

Also (*phew*, almost there) I've ignored the Xeon so far, as I've heard the latest Opterons have Xeon beat. If thats not true, tell me please!

TIA

(BTW I'm looking to upgrade from a P4 3GHz Northwood/1GB DDR400/ATI x800 setup, so anything will be a step up from where I am now! :p  )



OPTERON!!!
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Quote:
Hi Everyone! (first post on these forums :D  )

This may be a strange question, but I'm very new to dual core/CPU setups and haven't ever seen a comparison between these setups.

From what I understand the C2D E6600 is very powerful, but is it more so than 2x Opteron 246s? Esp given that I can swap out the single core Opterons and put in 2x dual core models once I have more money and (correct me if I'm wrong) the Opterons offer a larger mem bandwidth, which is quite important to 3D DCC work.

This rig will be a DCC (digital content creation) workstation. The apps I use most are;
3dsmax
Maya
Softimage XSI
ZBrush
Silo
Photoshop

Also (*phew*, almost there) I've ignored the Xeon so far, as I've heard the latest Opterons have Xeon beat. If thats not true, tell me please!

TIA

(BTW I'm looking to upgrade from a P4 3GHz Northwood/1GB DDR400/ATI x800 setup, so anything will be a step up from where I am now! :p  )



OPTERON!!!

C2D ruled you!

I dont know if this helps, but i had an overclocked opty 165 dual core and it was right up there in the benchmarks withthe fx62, which was right there with the stock 6600?

So stock Opteron wold be way lower than that.

Keep in mind that with an opty 246 you're committing yourself to a socket 939/940 platform, even if you do upgrade to dual core processors in the future. If you're set on sticking to opterons over xeons (historically I'd do the same), and you can wait I'd go with a newer opteron socket-f solution, though at the moment I don't have any hard benchmark data to show you. If you're sticking with a single socket then for now Core2Duo is the way to go if you have the $$.

Thanks for the replies!

It looks like the benchmarks kalobo posted make it a very easy decision...

£250 2x Opteron 246 (rendered scene in 514secs)
£180 Core 2 Duo E6400 (rendered scene in 413secs)

Add to that the expense of registered memory, high qual power supply, etc. and the Operton setup looks like the bad investment. I read that if I get the right chipset for the Conroe, I can drop in a quad core when they are released, so now the Intel chip offers more future proofing than I first thought...

Also... Apparently, as viewport updating is a single thread process, the Opteron setup may provide very bad performance in opengl heavy scenes (ie displacement painting programs like ZBrush)

Quote:
I dont know if this helps, but i had an overclocked opty 165 dual core and it was right up there in the benchmarks withthe fx62, which was right there with the stock 6600?

So stock Opteron wold be way lower than that.


Actually, this is a good point -- Opty's are cream of the crop, pick of the litter, diamonds in the ruff :)  .... so they do OC very well-- however, the E6600 meets or beats an FX-62 in most apps, and especially in the task load and this is at stock so I still feel that the price/performance is better overall -- on top of that, E6600's are overclocking to as high as 4 GHz on good air coolign (I would not take one that high myself). So if we let OC into the game, the E6600 is still the better price/performance deal in my opinion.

Of course, I should probably review the benches to make a statement above, but I am pretty certain this will be true.

Jack

totally agree, just tryin to provide some info lol...

If i built a PC today it would prolly be a 60% chance id go intel...why its not higher? I overclock and the only mobos out right now for it suck (or are $250) And im more of a budget guy.
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