Need help choosing a Xeon processor

[gclambert]

I am in the process of building a high performance workstation for 3d modeling/animation, fluid simulation, and rendering. My choice of processors are; the E5520, L5520, or E5530.

Now at first glance, you realize that the E5530 has a higher clock rate than both the L5520 or E5520. I did some research on benchmarks and i came across something interesting; i found a website that benchmarked some of the recent xeon processors and it had some interesting results.

Supposedly, the L5520 outperformed the E5530 in just about every test except for maybe 1 or so. The review can be found here,
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/components/250375/intel-xeon-5500-series

Anyway, what do you think? Should i shelve out on two L5520s? will the E5520 give me similar performance to the L5520s? and if not, than what makes the two of them different? Or should I just go with the higher clock speed of the E5530 cpu? I tried to find as much info as possible but didnt have much luck. Please help me out.


Caleb

 

[Upendra09]

the L5520 has the lowest power consumption but everything else is the same with the three procs

if i were u i would go with the E5530 for that little boost in clockspeed

but if power is an issue iwould go for the L5520

Actually the difference in Clockspeed is negligible so it is up to u between the L5520 or the E5530

 

[gclambert]

so in a nutshell, its between getting a L5520 for lower power consumption, or the E5530 for higher speed.

Well my question is, how come on many of the benchmarks shown, thta the L5520 outperforms the E5530? i dont understand that? Can anyone shed a little light on that?


Caleb

 

[Upendra09]

really i couldn't see the Benches in ur link


but it might be cuz the L has better arch in it.

 

[BadTrip]

I would say the reason why the lower clocked L5520 beats the E5530 is due to the fact that L5520 has 20 watts lower TDP, so it should turbo higher on single threaded workloads.

 

[Upendra09]

how does that work?

how does power depend on clockspeed?

 

[BadTrip]

TDP is not power consumed, but heat produced.

 

[Upendra09]

oh i see
but how does heat consumption zero in on single threadapps?

 

[BadTrip]

The lower the tdp, the higher the i7 can turbo.

 

[Upendra09]

oh ok so the best choice would be the L5220 here ok

 

[BadTrip]

well the l5220 is more expensive, so i would say its a matter of budget verses work load.

 

[gclambert]

L5520 it is! the L5520 and E5540 are close in price, so why not pay a tad bit more as long as it isnt $100 more.

 

[gclambert]

Thank you all for you help, this machine is going to be killer!

 

[gclambert]

i would go for the one that gives you more power for less. yyou need more to create and render games or even process them when it comes to simulations.

What are you saying? That i should do with the E5530? From benchmarks, the L5520 outperforms the E5530 in just about every bench.

Please elaborate.

 

[gclambert]

SORRY,I have tendency to go on 'bout useless irrelevent info. Go for the one w/ the bestclock speed, memory, and core !--- Will this help?

In order for me to make a choice, i need more in depth info. When you say " i would go for one that gives you more for less", you make it sound like i should go for the e5530 just because it is cheaper and has a high ghz ratio. Cost to me is not a matter right now, im looking for the best performance processor out of the two, and from what others have answered and benchmarks that have been shown, the L5520 is the one for me.


Thank you guys again for the help.

 

[Upendra09]

the L5220 is the best, this guy is just confusing

 

[gclambert]

Thanks man. Ill stick with that, paired with a whopping 24 gigs of ddr3 ram.

 

[Upendra09]

sweet^

 

[BadTrip]

Thanks man. Ill stick with that, paired with a whopping 24 gigs of ddr3 ram.

I think you will be quite pleased.

 

[Dariusz]

Heya

Im just making workstation for myself. If u want to go 1 CPU on mobo go for I7 and OC it. No point using single CPU with xeons. But if you go for DUal Quad COre then u better get 2x/4x+ SSD fastest HDD in raid coz believe me Real Flow/other fluid simulation softs will need lot of speed from HDD to write/read data... so that dual xeon can work at 100%, also you need lots of HDD space for complex scenes... (lsat time I did fluid animation 1 Frame was 1.2 gb heavy :/ )

and go fastets 3.3 ghz Xeon if money doesent matter In dual setup they will rox

 

[gclambert]

thanks for the suggestion. I was planning on raiding two 1 tb HDD for storage, and running a 128 gig SSD for OS and other programs.

Money is not that big of an issue, but i do not want to shelve out $1000+ for a CPU when it will be outdated within the next year. I just need a high-mid level CPU, such as the L5530. But it would be sweet to see two high speed Quad Xeons working in unison together!!

 

[BadTrip]

^+1

 

[Dariusz]

So u makind single CPU workstation? Then go I7 it will own E5530 xeon lol... Find some hardcore mobo that can run 16/24 triple chanel ram and ure set to go... btw 128 GB SSD is a bad Idea for Graphics.... U gona fill it up b4 you know. Better make raid0/1 with 4-10 Hdd and external backup....

Btw I almost finish building my rig...still w8 for the cpu's, we can benchamr one time and see how dual xeon would work comparing to i7, if you go for i7.

 

[gclambert]

My old "workstation" which was also my very first computer build was a Core 2 duo E6400 (2.13 ghz), 2 gigs of ddr2 5400 ram, with a 320 gig hdd and a Quadro fx 1400 graphics card using an Intel d975xbx gaming mobo.

so far, what I have in he making is a Super Micro X8DA6 motherboard, coupled with two Xeon L5520 (2.26 ghz) processors, 24 gigs of DDR3 1066 ram, a Corsair P128 SSD, two SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 hard drives with a Raid 1 setup, a Nvidia Quadro fx 3800 graphics card, and a PC Power & Cooling T12W 1200W power supply, all wrapped up in a Coolermaster Cosmos 1000 case.

Its going to be a beauty once she is complete. However, I am thinking of waiting till the new generation "Fermi" quadro cards which are set to release in Q1 of 2010.

 

[Dariusz]

Hey

Why are you going for Quatro CG card? I've never see any benefits from this card, meybe somewhere at uni lvl where they calculate physic etc etc but so far max/maya etc is only cpu based if im not wrong...

BTW ur mobo cost 500 dola isnt Asus Z8PE-D18 better?