X5687 xeon have a higher clock than other duals

[badbane]

Here's the dilemma. We use Autodesk inventor here at my work. At this point in time, Autodesk inventor is limited to a single core. You can run multiple sessions on other cores, but no paralleling yet. Now we are considering purchasing a new computer for CAD Design which is where we use Inventor. The problem we have is should we run the x5687 which is at 3.6 quad core or should we go with a dual at a similar clock. I know the general rule of thumb is that duals are faster per core than a quad. I need to know how much faster if at all.
My objections to the dual core is eventually Autodesk Inventor is going to run parallel. At which point the x5687 will fare much better than a dual core.
The planned build will feature a quadro 4000. (cuda processing would be nice too but again inventor doesn't utilize cuda cores)
6-12gb ddr3 memory
I just wanted to know how fast anyone has run a single core on the x5687 processor compared to that of a the fastest dual cores out there. I would like to be able to show the speed difference between the clocks.
Please serious responses only.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

First of all, The Intel® Xeon® X5687 is designed to work in a dual processor configuration and because of this the processor and the board will both be more expensive. Also the Intel Xeon X5687 shares the same microarchitecture as the 1st generation Intel Core i7-9XX processors. The 2nd generation Intel Core processors are outperforming the 1st by 10% to 15%. You would get better performance from the Intel Core i7-2600K before you ever overclock it then you would from the Intel Xeon X5687 running in a single threaded mode at a much lower price point.

So my advice to you is to look at a good system build off the Intel Core i5-2500K or the Intel Core i7-2600K and a good P67 or Z68 board. Match it up with a good HSF (heatsink/fan) and overclock it well over 4GHz will give you a much better performance at a much lower price point.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team