4 x Xeon E7540 vs Intel 5960X

[vedolino]

Hello everyone. I am a 3D arch viz artist, using 3Ds Max + Vray render. I am looking for additional render power.

My budget is around 2.000 Euros, so I was considering 2 options:

A guy is selling a HP DL580 G7 server, which includes 32 GB ram and 4x Xeon E7540 2 GHz (6-core CPU, based on Nehalem), which is a total of 24 cores / 48 threads.

For the same money, I could buy a 5960X system or 2 systems running a Core i7 4790 CPUs. The hardware in my country is a bit more expensive when compared to USA / EU.

I can't find any benchmarks for the E7540 CPUs, so I am not sure if 4xE7540 would outperform 2 modern 4-core Core i7 CPUs (like the 4790K). That would be 24cores vs 8 cores / 48 threads vs 16 threads.

Vray render uses all of the available CPU cores, no limit there.

 

[Lepton87]

How about 2x5820K? It makes more sense to buy hexacores for rendering. That old system will be faster than either of the options you mentioned but it should be slower than 2x5820k. I wouldn't buy it for that much due to power and heat.
ps. There are some really cheap westeme Xeons available but clocked at 3GHz not 2GHz, if you can replace those CPUs for 3GHz ones that would be best performance-wise.

UPDTADE: probably not, as those are from 2XXX series that is they are limited to 2P systems.

 

[vedolino]

Thanks for the reply!

How do you know that the 2x5820K will be faster than the 4XE7540, do you have any links for some benchmarks?

Or, maybe easier, the E7540 is equivalent to which "normal" CPU, the i7 920 (since both are Nehalem architecture)? If I knew that I would get a clearer picture of the combined performance.

 

[jhu]

I can't help you with v-ray, but here's my Povray data and Blender data.

Extrapolating data between the two:
2 x 5820K > 4x Xeon E7540 > 2 x Core i7 4790

 

[ShintaiDK]

One option could be some dual LGA2011-3 board with 2xE2630v3 for 16cores/32threads 2.4Ghz base 3.2Ghz turbo, 85W TDP per CPU.

I assume operating cost also matters.

 

[tweakboy]

The cost must be crazy high .. grrrr