I think you are seriously underrating the overall value of Workstation cards. They make a significant difference to some 3D tasks and include some features that are essential in professional work (all listed on specs but including availability of colours in the broad dynamic range, real time fx manipulation, overlay plane support).
It depends what work you are doing but, speaking as someone also working professionally (and full time) with Maya in a part of the industry where time is money and deadlines are pushed to the limit, workstation cards offer significant benefits over hobby cards.
I am not suggesting people buy one for a home setup as for basic modelling / animation use you will see little difference, but the assertion that specialist kit is not required as the programmes you are using will not make use of it is incorrect if you are using Maya. Perhaps the work you are doing does not require such specialist hardware (or doesn't take advantage of it), but the programme itself certainly benefits from it. There are some 3d apps where a specialist card makes little difference. Maya isn't one of them.
This is not to remotely assert one cannot run Maya on a regular 3d card but the idea that Maya as a programme can't take advantage of a specialist card is simply not true. If you want a card for multiple use then a so called gaming card is naturally the right choice, but its not the right choice because workstation cards are wrong for Maya. From your posts I think a general graphics card would suit you better in multiple apps but that certainly is not based on an inability of your software to use a pro setup.
Maya is not my PRIMARY 3D modeling program, in fact i use maya the least of any. NewTek Lightwave 3D is my main 3D program.
There really is no need to shout. You did not make that clear in your posts. Lightwave is indeed probably best suited to a hobby card and anyone knowing your main area of work would have said so.
If, however, you list many programmes and 'millions of polygons' as a work example, you cannot expect to receive very specific advice. Your assertion that all the programmes you use would make no use of the card was in any case incorrect (and as you say you are in the industry other people might have used that to make buying decisions themselves which might have been unfortunate).
The choice is probably financial (most things are), but given both options I would go for the pro setup for the work benefit. Sadly if you want a hybrid machine you have to compromise on one side of things or the other. Given work is what brings in the cash that's the side I'd compromise less myself.
There really is no need to shout. You did not make that clear in your posts. Lightwave is indeed probably best suited to a hobby card and anyone knowing your main area of work would have said so.
I uh... didn't shout...? I was just making a comment... relax
Gaming is more a function of GPU than CPU, especially if you play at normal (i.e. not 640x480) resolutions. You'll lose maybe a couple fps at 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 if you use the 2.33 Woodcrests vs. the X6800 overclocked to 3.46 GHz.
Does any one actually has benchmarks comparing SINGLE Woodcrest series chips against Conroes? I'm just wondering how a Woodcrest 2.33Ghz compares to a Conroe 2.33Ghz, etc?
I'm thinking of doing a similar upgrade to LogicSequence's, but I'm planning on buying a single Xeon first and then may be upgrading later on. But I can probably only afford a 2Ghz Xeon now, while I can get the 2.6Ghz Core 2 when it comes out.
Any thoughts? Thanks.
P.S. If any one knows of a hardware site doing comparisons between Woodcrest and Conroe it'd be great.
Does any one actually has benchmarks comparing SINGLE Woodcrest series chips against Conroes? I'm just wondering how a Woodcrest 2.33Ghz compares to a Conroe 2.33Ghz, etc?
I'm thinking of doing a similar upgrade to LogicSequence's, but I'm planning on buying a single Xeon first and then may be upgrading later on. But I can probably only afford a 2Ghz Xeon now, while I can get the 2.6Ghz Core 2 when it comes out.
Any thoughts? Thanks.
P.S. If any one knows of a hardware site doing comparisons between Woodcrest and Conroe it'd be great.
You’re still undecided hey, I’m not surprised, it’s a big decision and there a lot of factors to take into consideration.
I just looked on eBay USA and it looks as if there’s not much interest in your FireGL card. I searched completed listings and it came back with two of these:
ATI FireGL V7100 256mb PCI-E Video Card - OEM "NEW"
They were on offer at $239 with no takers.
I was surprised that nobody mentioned that a Conroe E6700 might well reach 4 GHz. Which means the comparison is two 4 GHz cores versus four 2.33 GHz cores; which equals 8 v 9.33. This equates to applications that can only efficiently use 1 or 2 cores running significantly faster on Conroe (4 v 2.33). Whereas, applications that are efficiently optimized for 4 cores will run moderately faster on Woodcrest ( 9.33 v 8 )
You’re still undecided hey, I’m not surprised, it’s a big decision and there a lot of factors to take into consideration.
I just looked on eBay USA and it looks as if there’s not much interest in your FireGL card. I searched completed listings and it came back with two of these:
ATI FireGL V7100 256mb PCI-E Video Card - OEM "NEW"
They were on offer at $239 with no takers.
I was surprised that nobody mentioned that a Conroe E6700 might well reach 4 GHz. Which means the comparison is two 4 GHz cores versus four 2.33 GHz cores; which equals 8 v 9.33. This equates to applications that can only efficiently use 1 or 2 cores running significantly faster on Conroe (4 v 2.33). Whereas, applications that are efficiently optimized for 4 cores will run moderately faster on Woodcrest ( 9.33 v 8 )
Good luck with the build.
right, well know i know what kind of money i have to work with, so that factors in now too.
If i want to overclock the E6700 to 4 GHz (!!!!!) am i going to have to blast liquid nitrogen into my case? or freeze it in a solid 500 pound block of nonconductive solution?! lets be real, 4Ghz is going to be unstable, esp for an E6700, in tom's article they were unstable clocking an X6800 at 3.73 GHz
By the way, that OEM fireGL listing is 329 not 239.
You’re right of course; 3.6 GHz is probably a more realistic expectation. 4 GHz will be possible with the right motherboard and a good CPU but you can’t count on it; take a look at Anandtech for another perspective on O/Cing Conroe. They hit 4 GHz with an E6600.
Even at 4 GHz a Conroe is not putting out much more heat than a Pentium D 3.6 at stock speed, so you don’t need exotic cooling to achieve that; Anandtech were using a Tuniq Tower.
As for the X6800 versus the rest, that’s an easy call for me, but your priorities may be different to mine.
so what kind of cooling would you use on this superoverclockified system?
As previously mentioned, Anandtech used a Tuniq Tower and others have hit 4GHz on air as well. But if you don’t think this is possible or you don’t want to risk it, even more reason not to buy an X6800. Get an E6600/E6700 or Woodcrest; X6800 doesn’t seem to be up your street.
so what kind of cooling would you use on this superoverclockified system?
As previously mentioned, Anandtech used a Tuniq Tower and others have hit 4GHz on air as well. But if you don’t think this is possible or you don’t want to risk it, even more reason not to buy an X6800. Get an E6600/E6700 or Woodcrest; X6800 doesn’t seem to be up your street.
Don't get me wrong, i'm fine with overclocking, my system right now is overclocked from an 800MHz FSB to 1066. But the P4 560J's multiplier can be set either to 14 or 18, that's how i got 3.73GHz @ 1066MHz (air cooling). If i go E6700, i don't beleive i can manipulate the multiplier, so i'd have to do things the old fashioned way, meaning if i want to hit 1333 FSB, the processor will have to run at 3.333GHz, i dunno if an E6700 can take that with air cooling. not to mention the mobo. at least with the X6800 you could run it at 1333 and lower the multiplier. Remember, i'm a professional 3D artist, prodicing work from this machine, i can't afford to have it unstable and crashing all the time. Thats a concern.
As someone mentioned: the mobo's for Woodcrest are not cheap and as far as i know, they do not yet support SLI/Xfire so. Had they, i would have recommended the dual Woodcrest with two graphics cards, but that will be outside your budget i guess
Well i still, as many others, believe that you'd be better off with the woodcrest, even if you lose some fps in the games, but you'll get most of your work done in considerably less time, so it's worth it.
For a prof. system i wouldn't recommend OC'ing, as it might be unstable which is enough reason to not do it. And as you're buying the best available, why OC?
And are you shure that you want the ATI gpu, as it's now a part of AMD and you didn't want any AMD parts
i probably won't be getting ATi thanks to the merger... they've joined the dark side... to quote steven colbert, "they're dead to me".
Much to my DISSMAY i'm leaning toward Conroe for one reason and one reason only.. $$$$$$$$$$ A woodcrest system will run me $3250, while conroe will run me $2465.. i REALLLLLY want dual xeon's, but it seems everything is just too expensive for my budget right now... which is very disheartening to me.
Well the 7950GX2 was reviewed by THG here , but i assume that you have read it already
I've never used SLI so i'm afraid i can't help you there, but 7950GX2 seems really nice.
The conroe is cheaper/mhz but have you considered getting a single woodcrest to start with, and then add another when you have the money for it? I belive that as a prof. workstation you should go with woodcrest, but it would be really nice if someone reviewed 'conroe vs. woodcrest' so there were some numbers to go by, not just a 'feeling'.
About AMD/ATI, i'm an AMD fan, typeing this from a turion ml-40 laptop, but i'm too very disheartened by the merge. I don't like ATI... But that's another topic; lets just say that ATI support for 64-bit linux is substandard... Hopefully AMD will rectify that.
Don't get me wrong, i'm fine with overclocking, my system right now is overclocked from an 800MHz FSB to 1066. But the P4 560J's multiplier can be set either to 14 or 18, that's how i got 3.73GHz @ 1066MHz (air cooling). If i go E6700, i don't beleive i can manipulate the multiplier, so i'd have to do things the old fashioned way, meaning if i want to hit 1333 FSB, the processor will have to run at 3.333GHz, i dunno if an E6700 can take that with air cooling. not to mention the mobo. at least with the X6800 you could run it at 1333 and lower the multiplier. Remember, i'm a professional 3D artist, prodicing work from this machine, i can't afford to have it unstable and crashing all the time. Thats a concern.
A P4 560J has a TDP of 115W at 3.6 GHz. An E6700 has a TDP of 65W at 2.67 GHz and very likely up to 2.93 GHz. So at 3.5 GHz a Conroe is going to be around 120-125W. That’s very close to your P4. With a good heatsink such as a Scythe Ninja+ or Tuniq Tower and a 120mm fan, this is going to be fine.
You will have to make sure you buy a motherboard that can handle the FSB that you need for 3.5 GHz, which is 1550 or 1400 depending on whether you get a E6600 or E6700. The X6800 can overclock at stock FSB due to the multiplier being totally un-locked.
If you are seriously considering an E6xxx CPU but are wary about how high they will overclock on air, then why not wait a few weeks, as then there will be loads of data on sites such as Overclockers.com and Xtreme Systems, so you can evaluate the situation. Overclockers.com even has a database where people post their O/C results stating the heatisnk used, voltage, motherboard, RAM etc.
Obviously, if you are O/Cing a workstation you do need to fully test it’s stability before using it for work. There are many tools for doing this from Prime95 & Memtest, to no doubt more extensive suites that are beyond my needs and knowledge.
If you go with Conroe, it will annihilate your current setup with multi-threaded applications, so why not just appreciate the gains that you are getting, rather than thinking you are missing out on Woodcrest.
The server market is the weakest area for Intel right now, which is why Core 2 was released as Server chips first. I think it’s very possible that the first 45nm chips will be server ones, which means that native quad cores could be available at very sweet prices in 18 months.
Stick the money that you save through buying a Conroe system in the bank and in 18 months time you may well be able to upgrade your CPU/MB/RAM to a dual Quad system for a little extra cash on top of what you saved buying Conroe now and what you get for selling your new Conroe system’s CPU/MB/RAM.
So enjoy now and know that things are only going to get sweeter down the road P.S if you buy an X6800 you will likely take a serious depreciation in 18 months time on that compared to an E6400.
