dual xeon or operton?

[orbitalpunk]

Hi people,

I am building a new modeling computer and am going crazy weither i should get a dual opteron or dual xeon system. Ive been staring at the articles here on toms hardware for 3 days now. it seems things go back and forth or the review is not compareing my choice exactly. My budget is about $350 per cpu so it looks like it'd would be between a AMD Operon 144 or a Intel Xeon 3.0G 800FSB based on the Nocona core.

My other concern is what would be best for the future of 64-bit computing and what would benefit most when maya is released in 64-bit form running on windows XP 64-bit version. Is Intel's EMT64 really 64 bit computing? it seem AMD64 is in the Opterons is. but am still confused about Intels EMT64.

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated. My priority is Rendering for Maya6.

Thanks

 

[Crashman]

EM64T is Intel's version of AMD64. They are 64-bit extensions for a natively 32-bit processor (both are). Neither offers any clear advantage, they both do about the same thing.

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[orbitalpunk]

geez, i think this new review answers my question.

http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=noconaopteron&page=1

Maya benchmark is on page 11. Looks like Opterons are it. I kinda was rooting for Intel tho. But overall, i want what renders fastest in Maya and if Opterons are the ones, that thats where im headed.

 

[Stimpy]

Generally a dual Operton will outdo a Duel Xeon, due to hypertransport.
Also the Operaton has a much faster FPU.
Some Rendering application rely on SSE2, where intel is stronger, obviously Maya is one of those.

 

[jim552]

At this moment in time I would, beyond any shadow of doubt, go with the Dual Opteron.

My motivation for this would be mostly because AMD is currently claiming that the Dual-core version of Opteron will be a plug-in replacement for the current chip. (Albiet, you may run into some licensing issues with your application(s) though.) Even if you never do upgrade to the dual core architecture it is an avenue for an upgrade that may be good to keep open.

Additionally, I believe that you would need to get an Opteron 242 or 244 and not the Opteron 144. I think that the Opteron 100 series is designed for single CPU use and the Opteron 200 series is designed for dual CPU's.

I have used Opteron 242, 244, and 246's. For my use the best bang for the buck has been the 242's. I just don't see enough of a difference in performance between the 242's and the 246's to justify the cost.

 

[Crashman]

I'm glad you found your information, good luck!

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<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[orbitalpunk]

hi stimpy, find stinky yet?

yes, maya uses SSE2 but it appears that opterons are stronger, but intel does have a better implementation of it. in the article i post, opterons beat out the intel in maya. but intels beat out opterons in 3DSmax because max uses SSE3 and opterons dont support SSE3. man i wish they did, then id like to see who'd win.

also yes jim, your right about need a 2 series and not a 1 series. i knew that as well. typo.. man, how about those 8 series. ugh.. those prices are outrageous. but man oh man, quad cpus would be .. well outrageous as well. i really wished they and even tom's hardware used equal memory latency. everyone should have used the Iwill DH800 board cause its the only one that supports nacona core and DDR(1). oh well.