Core2Quad Q6600 Vs Xeon Quad E5335

arnongueta

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Jan 24, 2008
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hello,

i need to buy hardware for Live encoding of video to H264
i'm trying to decide what CPU to buy and what platform
a computer with Core2Quad Q6600 that cost about 1000$ or a server with Xeon Quad E5335 that cost about 2000$
regadles of the price will i get more power by using the Xeon over the Core2 ?
i try to find any comparisions made with these CPU's but cant find any ?
does the Ghz of the CPU has major effect when encoding ? that meen does a Xeon Dual core 3Ghz will encode better than a Xeon Quad core 2Ghz ?

thank you for answers,

Arnon
 

yomamafor1

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Jun 17, 2007
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Let me answer the easy question first: you'll see significant improvement by using quad core than dual core, even if its slower in clockspeed. Video encoding is probably one of the programs that benefit significantly from more cores.

The hard question: Xeon vs. C2Q. Basically from what you're going to be doing, you will likely see no measurable performance gain by using Xeon over C2Q. The reasons why Xeon system is more expensive than C2Q are 1. Xeon CPU, 2. FB-DIMM RAM

1. Xeon CPU is just a higher binned C2Q/C2D, which would have superior stability and lower MTBF than C2Q. This is ideal for data center and server, who would lose big even if the servers spend 30 seconds booting back online.

2. FB-DIMM is required to run with Xeon CPUs. There are Xeons that don't require this, but majority of them do. The advantage of FB-DIMM is also stability, and the ability to handle high RAM traffic with coherence. However, if stability is not your number 1 concern (unless you would lose say 1000 USD for every 10 seconds the server is down), then buying a C2Q machine is more logical.
 

ktheripper

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Jan 23, 2008
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Wasn't there a test on Toms or somewhere that said in the Core 2 realm intel kind of dropped the ball with the Xeon and all you were buying was the name because performance wise the difference between the Xeon and the regular Core 2's were minimal at best????

FYI, that is not a statement but a question. Arnon I suggest you search this forum or google and find somebody that has actually done the test. If you don't find it, I agree with yom.., I would save the 1k and go with some 10k disks or such with the extra money.