Desktop Computer Build Advice

[mfenn]

I think I will go for the 250 GB SSD.
The Samsung 840 was recommended, but my question is: What is the difference between the EVO and Pro? Fifty more dollars for 6 extra gigabytes?
I must be missing something here.​

The Pro drive is faster than the EVO, but they're both so much faster than an HDD that it doesn't really matter that much.

My question is: Will an older version of Premiere Elements [version 7] that supports hyper-threading be hyper-threading-compatible with this new processor?

An application can't really tell if its using HT or not. All it sees are logical processors. On a P4 with HT, it would see 2 logical processors. On a Core 2 Duo it would see the same 2 logical processors. On a dual-core Core i3 with HT it would see 4 logical processors. On a quad-core Core i5 without HT it would see 4 logical processors. On a quad-core Core i7/Xeon with HT it will see 8 logical processors.

Now, obviously the logical processors on a dual-core with HT are "worth less" in terms of performance than a quad-core without HT because they have less hardware backing them up, but the application doesn't know that.

So to answer your question, logical processors are logical processors, the application doesn't know if it's a P4 with HT or a new Xeon.

 

[lehtv]

The OP is in Canada, so the parts are more expensive and that combo deal doesn't exist.

Oops, missed that ;(

 

[John Connor]

Don't forget that Xeons don't have SSE instruction sets like an i5 or i7 would have.

 

[Torn Mind]

Don't forget that Xeons don't have SSE instruction sets like an i5 or i7 would have.

Source? The Intel Ark and CPU-World, although the latter is not immune to error, both say that the Xeon and i7 are practically identical with regards to supporting SSE instruction sets (and AVX 2.0, for that matter). The i7 does have a faster Turbo max, but that's not the point you are asserting.

http://ark.intel.com/compare/75122,75123,75462

http://www.cpu-world.com/Compare/421/Intel_Core_i7_i7-4770_vs_Intel_Xeon_E3-1245_v3.html

 

[mfenn]

Don't forget that Xeons don't have SSE instruction sets like an i5 or i7 would have.

That's crazy talk. The Xeon E3-1245V3 supports every version of SSE known to man as well as AVX2.

 

[John Connor]

I was looking at this CPU and thought all Xeons didn't support SSE. My bad!

Why not go with an E31240V3? According to passmark it's higher ranked.

 

[mfenn]

I was looking at this CPU and thought all Xeons didn't support SSE. My bad!

That's a Sandy Bridge, and they most definitely support SSE as well. The ARK is just wrong (or at least incomplete) in this case.

processor : 15
vendor_id : GenuineIntel
cpu family : 6
model : 45
model name : Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2643 0 @ 3.30GHz
stepping : 7
cpu MHz : 1200.000
cache size : 10240 KB
physical id : 1
siblings : 8
core id : 3
cpu cores : 4
apicid : 39
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 13
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc ida nonstop_tsc arat pni monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr sse4_1 sse4_2 popcnt lahf_lm
bogomips : 6599.99
clflush size : 64
cache_alignment : 64
address sizes : 46 bits physical, 48 bits virtual
power management: [8]

 

[John Connor]

Where did you get that info?

 

[Torn Mind]

I was looking at this CPU and thought all Xeons didn't support SSE. My bad!

Why not go with an E31240V3? According to passmark it's higher ranked.

Xeon E3s with a 0 for its last number don't have an IGP and hence the buyer would need to buy a discrete card if he needs to use a screen to do his work(servers don't need one beyond the initial install).

There's a bit of variance in Passmark scores because they average a bunch of scores together. The Xeon E3-1240 V3 has the exactly same base clockspeed and max Turbo, so the CPUs should perform identically.

 

[mfenn]

Where did you get that info?

I happen to have a Linux box running Sandy Bridge, that's just the /proc/cpuinfo output for one of the cores.

 

[Torn Mind]

I happen to have a Linux box running Sandy Bridge, that's just the /proc/cpuinfo output for one of the cores.

A very high end box. Maybe a Poweredge R720, perchance?

 

[John Connor]

That's a Sandy Bridge, and they most definitely support SSE as well. The ARK is just wrong (or at least incomplete) in this case.

I don't think it's wrong since I looked up some other E5's and they all just say AVX. That's from the ark web site.

 

[mfenn]

A very high end box. Maybe a Poweredge R720, perchance?

Not a Dell, but check this out (yes, those are gigabytes ):

$ free -g
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 755 4 750 0 1 1
-/+ buffers/cache: 2 753
Swap: 0 0 0

I don't think it's wrong since I looked up some other E5's and they all just say AVX. That's from the ark web site.

It's definitely incomplete. I can absolutely run SSE code on that box.

 

[John Connor]

What kind of CPU do you have? Sandy bridge doesn't tell me anything.

 

[Torn Mind]

What kind of CPU do you have? Sandy bridge doesn't tell me anything.

Line 5 of his post with the all of the output(which is post #32) says:

Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2643

 

[John Connor]

Missed that.

mfenn, did you run CPUz to get those results? If not I'd be curious to see what CPUz says.

 

[thomase13]

Thanks for your replies!


What do you think of this combination?
MSI 970A-G46 9 Series Motherboard
FX-8350 Eight-Core 4GHz AM3+ Processor
MSI R5450-MD1GD3H/LP Radeon HD 5450 Video Card


Thomas

 

[mfenn]

Missed that.

mfenn, did you run CPUz to get those results? If not I'd be curious to see what CPUz says.

There's no CPU-Z for Linux, so no I did not. CPU-Z is reading the same feature flags as /proc/cpuinfo though.

 

[mfenn]

Thanks for your replies!


What do you think of this combination?
MSI 970A-G46 9 Series Motherboard
FX-8350 Eight-Core 4GHz AM3+ Processor
MSI R5450-MD1GD3H/LP Radeon HD 5450 Video Card


Thomas

I think that it is much slower in all but the most highly-threaded workloads and consumes a lot more power. It also doesn't meet your small form factor requirement, but saves you $120.

 

[thomase13]

Wow!
Thanks for catching that, mfenn!!!
I don't understand why it's slower, because it has a higher clock speed, and more cores, but that's a pretty darn thorough benchmark direct comparison so I can't argue with that!

Even more importantly though, it won't fit into the small form factor!
How do you tell this when looking at motherboards?

Thanks again,
Thomas

 

[thomase13]

Also, I now realize that I require a board with an FDD connector.
I have searched long and hard for an alternative, but this is really the most ideal solution.
My other main feature I require is the SATA III for my SSD.
I have found a few, e.g., the ASRock P55 Deluxe and Z77 Extreme6, but I just don't know how to tell whether or not they'll fit in my form factor.

Of course they all have different sockets, as I unfortunately haven't been able to find anything with an LGA 1150 socket that fits these criteria. :/

Thanks,
Thomas

 

[VirtualLarry]

you might have to purchase a USB external HDD.

 

[lehtv]

The AMD processor's architecture differs greatly from Intel's. It performs considerably slower per MHz per core, and its cores share resources with each other.

You can tell whether a motherboard fits a case by looking at the form factor. Commonly motherboards are ATX ("normal size"), microATX (or mATX, basically ATX with some of its length cut off) or mini-ITX which is what you're looking for.

What do you need a floppy connector for in this day and age?

Almost any LGA1150 board has SATA 6gb/s.

 

[thomase13]

The AMD processor's architecture differs greatly from Intel's. It performs considerably slower per MHz per core, and its cores share resources with each other.

You can tell whether a motherboard fits a case by looking at the form factor. Commonly motherboards are ATX ("normal size"), microATX (or mATX, basically ATX with some of its length cut off) or mini-ITX which is what you're looking for.

Thank you for the explanation! I have never noticed that in the specifications, I guess because I wasn't really looking for it before!

What do you need a floppy connector for in this day and age?

For a minifloppy diskette drive, of course!
I wouldn't dream of owning a computer without one!

I have looked long and hard for every option, including mounting an external USB floppy drive internally; buying a CatWeasel converter, which exist, but are basically like trying to procure the Philosopher's Stone; KryoFlux, which is procurable, but isn't really what I want; buying a USB floppy drive, taking it apart in the hope that it's really a normal FDD which has a USB conversion board, unsoldering and resoldering all 34 pins from the external floppy to the internal one; or buying an LS-120 SuperFloppy Drive, which is IDE, and converting it to either SATA or USB.

Although the last of those options is actually viable, I still think it would be easiest to simply use my current floppy drive, the one that is already mounted inside of the case, and buy a motherboard which has a floppy connector.
The downside of this of course is that I can't seem to find any 'boards with both a FDD connector and an LGA 1150 socket. I have found a few other boards, as I mentioned in my previous post, but of course I'd then have to find a new processor.

Anyway, please let me know what you think!
Thanks,
Thomas

 

[lehtv]

Why can't you just use an external floppy drive externally? Why does it need to be mounted internally?

I'm wondering what you use floppy disks for ...? There's nothing they do that modern data storage like USB thumb drives don't do.