Xeon equivalent to a i7 920?

[atomiktoaster]

I'm looking at building a CUDA workstation using Nvidia Tesla cards. The CPU side of things isn't a performance bottleneck, but I want it to be stable. I was thinking of using this motherboard with an i7 920.

ASUS P6T6 WS Revolution

The board supports unbuffered ECC memory, but only with a Xeon (because of the on-CPU memory controller). If I wanted to use ECC memory for better stability, what CPU would be comparable to the i7 920? The E5506 seems to be about right, but I'm a lot more familiar with the non-server parts. Losing hours of progress on simulation due to a memory error is not a fun idea.

I'm looking for something less than $500 that's not seriously crippled. The option to overclock if requirements were to change would be nice, but not essential.

 

[Helloworld_98]

wouldn't it make more sense to get the P6T6's better? the P6T7.

 

[atomiktoaster]

There's no plans to code for more than two cards, and even with a separate board to handle the monitors (in the case of 2x Teslas with no video output) the P6T6 would have enough slots. Adding the fourth card requires an 8 slot case and a ridiculous PSU (instead of just huge). Overall, it seemed like $100 extra for a slot I wouldn't use. I had considered it originally though. Am I missing any other feature differences?

 

[chunkymonster]

The Xeon equivalent to the i7 920 is the Xeon W3520.

The Xeon costs $30 more than the 920 for the exact same clock speed and chache sizes. The cost difference is that the Xeon it is a higher binned chip.

 

[sminlal]

ChunkyMonster is right - what you want is the W3520. It's essentially identical to the Core i7 920 but with ECC memory support.

The E5506 is a slower part (2.13GHz vs. 2.66GHz for the i7 920 / W3520), has less cache (4MB vs. 8MB), and is designed for a dual-processor system (two chips in two sockets on one board for a total of 8 cores). There's absolutely no reason to buy one for a one-socket motherboard.

 

[atomiktoaster]

Thanks for the quick answer.

 

[xtc28]

What are you doing with this beast?

 

[atomiktoaster]

Stress-strain modelling for a mechanical engineering application. The code is being developed for us by a contractor. Nothing super-cool like nuclear fusion or mind control for laser-equipped attack sharks.

 

[xtc28]

Ahh I see.... Attack shark control would be a cool one. Anyway Im just trying to find more uses for the two tesla cards Ive got coming. For this project

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/267878-31-cluster-desk