Where is the next CPU?

Not all GHz are created equal. Not all motherboard logic is created equal.

Some of the things that are done as a matter of course on desktop boards aren't even possible on workstation/server boards.

More than that, Greg, YOU DON'T NEED THAT STUFF AT HOME. You're not going to generate a workload that's going to touch 8 or 16 cores. You're asking if you should buy a Formula 1 car for your daily commute. The answer is that you shouldn't. You're going to waste tons of money on features you don't need.
 
Mercutio said:
Not all GHz are created equal. Not all motherboard logic is created equal.

Some of the things that are done as a matter of course on desktop boards aren't even possible on workstation/server boards.

More than that, Greg, YOU DON'T NEED THAT STUFF AT HOME. You're not going to generate a workload that's going to touch 8 or 16 cores. You're asking if you should buy a Formula 1 car for your daily commute. The answer is that you shouldn't. You're going to waste tons of money on features you don't need.
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Maybe Greg is running a domain controller with 10,000 users. Or maybe he is running a JBoss server with a million page views a month. Or maybe he is running a transactional database server will millions of transactions an hour.

Or maybe he just wants to waste money for no reason.
 
Sam:
This is Davids new chip, bought for over a grand:
Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 965 Nehalem 3.2GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor - Retail 1019.

This is the chip I'd be looking at:
ntel Xeon X3370 Yorkfield 3.0GHz LGA 775 95W Quad-Core Server Processor Model BX80569X3370 - Retail about 370 dollars.
* Series: Xeon
* FSB: 1333MHz
* L2 Cache: 12MB
Mainly because I like the huge L2 cache, the clock speed, and the FSB speed.

For 175 you can pull this one:Intel Xeon E3110 Wolfdale 3.0GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80570E3110 - Retail
* Series: Xeon
* FSB: 1333MHz
* L2 Cache: 6MB
* Manufacturing Tech: 45 nm
* 64 bit Support: Yes

And, I do use a lot of the features that server boards feature. Seems to me the Megaraid 320-1 card, with the Supermicro SCSI backplane, with 5 drives, two in Raid 0 to boot from qualifies. I can use the 133 mhz PCI X slot for booting from a SATA LSI raid card.

The neat thing is all of this stuff is usually useable on another quality motherboard, provided I pick the right one.

I really can't imagine having even this dual Xeon 2.8 ghz setup with instant access time, along with a data transfer rate 10X what it currently is. When SSD's come down in price a bit...

As for the gaming machine, I'm starting to see the wisdom of upgrading more often, using desktop parts...

Since you aren't into the machine for as much money, it's easier to swap out the components when the cost isn't so high.

I do currently have a combination of programs that will max out the 3200+ as a home machine. DVD shrink will max the processors on both machines, including the dual xeons.

Playing DVD's with the new Xplosion card in the 3200 runs pretty high CPU usage as well, with either Media Player Classic, or PowerDVD.
 
The trick is that I can run my i7EE at 3.8-4Ghz, and since there are no OC features in server class boards, that is much, much faster than any number of any Xeon chip in most power user workloads. I would argue that it is the fastest power user rig at any price.
 
Wolfdales (dual core C2D) are easy to O/C because they don't use a lot of power. I have an E8600 at 4.25 GHz on a Gigabyte board. It is a bit faster CPU than that Xeon (multiplier) and was more expensive back in 2008. That CPU is fine for my backup machine with 4GB RAM, and quite good on single-threaded apps. I has no idea why you would want an old dual-core Xeon in a single-CPU performance system. About the best you will get from an L775 CPU is a Q9650 O/C to 4+GHz, which was popular about 8-9 months ago.
 
LunarMist said:
Wolfdales (dual core C2D) are easy to O/C because they don't use a lot of power. I have an E8600 at 4.25 GHz on a Gigabyte board. It is a bit faster CPU than that Xeon (multiplier) and was more expensive back in 2008. That CPU is fine for my backup machine with 4GB RAM, and quite good on single-threaded apps. I has no idea why you would want an old dual-core Xeon in a single-CPU performance system. About the best you will get from an L775 CPU is a Q9650 O/C to 4+GHz, which was popular about 8-9 months ago.
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I'm trying to get a handle on comparing the old 604 Xeons to the newer cpus. David has made the point that the actual clock speed is more important then core numbers.

I was wondering if it's possible to find a motherboard with dual Wolfdales at 3.0 ghz, and have a viable machine. I'm also wondering about screwing up the bus speed when you over clock. I did this long ago, but, one, I wasn't very good at it, and, two, it was about 1999.

I'm sort of adverse to overclocking, so I tend to want the speed in the design already.
Also, I'm having a hard time finding a website, or test, that compares Xeons in preformance, and, how that would work against the current Intel offerings.

The Wolfdales also seem like to of them might be a fairly fast solution. Again, I'm having a hard time thinking I'm making a big speed jump going from Dual 2.8 ghz Xeons to dual 3.0 Xeons...
 
Santilli said:
I'm trying to get a handle on comparing the old 604 Xeons to the newer cpus. David has made the point that the actual clock speed is more important then core numbers.

I was wondering if it's possible to find a motherboard with dual Wolfdales at 3.0 ghz, and have a viable machine. I'm also wondering about screwing up the bus speed when you over clock. I did this long ago, but, one, I wasn't very good at it, and, two, it was about 1999.

I'm sort of adverse to overclocking, so I tend to want the speed in the design already.
Also, I'm having a hard time finding a website, or test, that compares Xeons in preformance, and, how that would work against the current Intel offerings.

The Wolfdales also seem like to of them might be a fairly fast solution. Again, I'm having a hard time thinking I'm making a big speed jump going from Dual 2.8 ghz Xeons to dual 3.0 Xeons...
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IIRC your current Xeons are of the Pentium 4 gen. Core 2 is about twice as fast per clock cycle, per core. That said I wouldn't go with duals for your needs, a single quad core Phenom II cpu and mobo with PCI-E 2.0 will be a much faster base to add SSDs to. Adaptec make non crappy controllers now.
 
Pradeep said:
IIRC your current Xeons are of the Pentium 4 gen. Core 2 is about twice as fast per clock cycle, per core. That said I wouldn't go with duals for your needs, a single quad core Phenom II cpu and mobo with PCI-E 2.0 will be a much faster base to add SSDs to. Adaptec make non crappy controllers now.
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I noticed David's ramdisk numbers are about 3X mine. I was also wondering if anyone had done any actual comparisions with the new chips, and motherboards, and games, programs, etc.?

Hard Disks and bus speeds have been the limit for speed on computer setups for quite awhile.

If my ramdisk works at 1200 mb/sec, and two SSDs will give around 250 mb/sec, or more, I wonder if the money is better spent on using a SSD and or raid controller?
 
A single SSD will give you around 200mb/sec. My secondary system has a RAID-0 of SSDs in it, but that is because the ones I had weren't large enough.
 
Bozo said:
I think I would wait for the next generation of SSDs. Hopefully they will have the slow down over time issue resolved. And, Windows 7 has proper drivers (?) for SSDs. http://techreport.com/articles.x/17136
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The slow down over time issue won't be resolved. It is a fundamental performance characteristic of flash-based storage. The only "solution" I can think of is to have partially-used pages consolidated and wiped during idle time. Otherwise just consider the "dirty" speed as the actual speed of the drive.
 
hmmm. I got out of it wait, and buy later. However, considering I'm pretty much XP Pro, and 2003 Server, and, I'm not real likely to go to 7 anytime soon, I wonder where that leaves me.?
 
Honestly, though, I wouldn't recommend picking up any SSD until we have a clearer picture of which drives will support the TRIM command and how they'll perform in Windows 7

ntel's X25-M remains the all-around performance leader, and even with a higher cost per gigabyte than its rivals, the 80GB model's $325 asking price is relatively affordable. The Samsung PB22-J and its Corsair twin aren't quite as quick as the X25-M overall, and with these 256GB models running about $700, they're not as affordable. However, a low cost per gigabyte combined with frugal power consumption and solid performance makes these drives easy to recommend
 
I'm running SSDs on Win7 at work and the same SSDs on XPx64 at home. XP is still faster, the TRIM command doesn't give you as much as MS has taken away.
 
Santilli said:
Honestly, though, I wouldn't recommend picking up any SSD until we have a clearer picture of which drives will support the TRIM command and how they'll perform in Windows 7

ntel's X25-M remains the all-around performance leader, and even with a higher cost per gigabyte than its rivals, the 80GB model's $325 asking price is relatively affordable. The Samsung PB22-J and its Corsair twin aren't quite as quick as the X25-M overall, and with these 256GB models running about $700, they're not as affordable. However, a low cost per gigabyte combined with frugal power consumption and solid performance makes these drives easy to recommend
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The issue I have with the Intel drives is that even the enterprise models appear to not only choke but fall off the bus with heavy writes. 15K spinning disk may be slower in seeks but there are no wear concerns. For storage reliability is the prime consideration, have they learned nothing from the DeathStar days?
 
Mercutio said:
Other than, you know, mechanical breakdown from drive heads flying micrometers over the surfaces of a platter that's spinning at 15,000rpm.
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Yes but the drive doesn't wear out based on read/write mix. The physical failures can be mitigated via RAID 6 etc. The E series needs it's cell erasing performance upgraded, hopefully with the 34nm versions.
 
I've had really good luck paying about 100 bucks a drive, and, getting 15k or 10k drives for boot and storage respectively. They last an average of 5-7 years each.

The real problem is finding tests that work on the SSD's.
 
Pradeep said:
IIRC your current Xeons are of the Pentium 4 gen. Core 2 is about twice as fast per clock cycle, per core. That said I wouldn't go with duals for your needs, a single quad core Phenom II cpu and mobo with PCI-E 2.0 will be a much faster base to add SSDs to. Adaptec make non crappy controllers now.
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Thank you.
 
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