Dual Xeon Eight-Core E5 CPUs vs i7 7700

[ocaptchamycaptcha]

I am building my first computer and have decided on everything except the CPU. I am entering graduate school for deep learning and data science, so that is most of what the build will be used for but I still want it to be able to play games without sacrificing performance. Originally I had decided on the i7-7700k 4.2Ghz, but I recently saw the Intel Xeon Eight-Core E5-2660 2.2GHz on sale. If I bought two of these and a two socket LGA2011 motherboard, it would be the same price as the original motherboard and the i7. So with the price being equal which is the better option for what I want to achieve? Is the single thread speed of the xeon going to slow me down drastically on tasks like games? Also is the trade offs of DDR3 RAM, no USB 3.0, and no support for M.2 worth it to have 16 cores and a motherboard that I could use with upgraded multi-core processors in the future? I would appreciate any advice on these points or on anything I haven't considered!

 

[James Mason]

For games it would be total garbage.

But for Deep Learning and Data Science it's really good. likely leagues and away better than the i7.

But the i7 can "do" anything.

 

[theonerm2]

You realize it's illegal to buy or sell those ES processors right? I mean it's not likely that Intel would do anything to the buyer but the seller could get in some real trouble. You don't legally own the processor even if you buy it. The Core i7 7700K though would be yours. The dual Xeons would play games good but they would be far and away slower than the Core i7 7700K. I suggest the Core i7 6800K for you as it is the best balance between gaming and your other tasks. It will be faster than the 7700K for Deep Learning and Data Science and it will be almost just as fast as the 7700K for gaming.

 

[The Original Ralph]

can't speak to gaming, but i'm running a single 8 core cpu, i7-5960x, OC'd to 4.0 (a lot of folks have OC'd to 4.5 indicating they're stable at tht speed, but i can't confirm or vouch for that).

I render a lot of videos with one program that is a core hog, Handbrake - on my i7-4790 it used all 4 cores at 99-100% usage. A video file that took 41-47 minutes to render on the i7-4790 takes 13-17 minutes on the 5960x, and it still runs those 8 cores at 92-97% usage or load.

my suggestion would be to do a little research to see if you can find any benchtesting where they used the actual programs you'll be running to crunch data, or talk to the software company itself. If the programs are core hogs, the go with the dual xeons.

Other video rendering programs are not core hogs, and i see the same rendering time whether i run them on the 4790 or the 5960 cpu

if your data crunching programs are not core hogs, then i'd go with the 7700 cpu


the above suggestions assume crunching the data in as timely a fashion as possible is the priority
fwiw

 

[James Mason]

You realize it's illegal to buy or sell those ES processors right? I mean it's not likely that Intel would do anything to the buyer but the seller could get in some real trouble. You don't legally own the processor even if you buy it. The Core i7 7700K though would be yours. The dual Xeons would play games good but they would be far and away slower than the Core i7 7700K. I suggest the Core i7 6800K for you as it is the best balance between gaming and your other tasks. It will be faster than the 7700K for Deep Learning and Data Science and it will be almost just as fast as the 7700K for gaming.

Efive cpu, not ES

 

[modeonoff]

You realize it's illegal to buy or sell those ES processors right? I mean it's not likely that Intel would do anything to the buyer but the seller could get in some real trouble. You don't legally own the processor even if you buy it. The Core i7 7700K though would be yours. The dual Xeons would play games good but they would be far and away slower than the Core i7 7700K. I suggest the Core i7 6800K for you as it is the best balance between gaming and your other tasks. It will be faster than the 7700K for Deep Learning and Data Science and it will be almost just as fast as the 7700K for gaming.

Hello, why the i7 6800K is faster than the 7700K for Deep Learning and Data Science?

 

[Karadjgne]

7700k is 4core/8threads. The 6800k is 6core/12threads. If your software is heavy multiple core usage and can use most if not all 12 threads it'll get a seriously higher amount of work done than 8 faster threads in the same time period. You'd need the 7700k to be overclocked to at least 4.8GHz just to match speed output for the 12 threads, and thats not including any other variables such as the Lcache differences, bandwidth, quad channel ram capabilities vrs dual etc. Pound for pound a 7700k can't touch a 6800k in multiple thread production apps unless the app is limited to 8threads or less