Dual-Core Xeons - 7000-series vs. 5000-series?

[MIDIman]

Does anyone have some concrete stats on how these CPUs compare in the real world, particularly multimedia applications (re: premiere, windows/real encoding, etc)?

Are they comparably related to the difference in performance between Intel's desktop Core CPUs (i.e. Core2 vs. Pentium-D)?

Just trying to see if I have to punt up the bill on a new Dell powerhouse that will be used for live encoding, webcasting, DVD editing, Premiere, etc - at work.

 

[Aluvus]

Depends on which exact models. Realize that Xeons of different cores and different microarchitectures can be in the same "series". Dempsey (Netburst, comparable to Pentium D) and Woodcrest (Core, comparable to Core 2) are both in the 5xxx series, and they are dramatically different. Are you specifically refering to the 7000 and 5000 series to the exclusion of, say, the 5100 series?

 

[Accord99]

The 7000 series are NetBurst processors with a big L3 cache. They're designed for big servers that have 4 sockets or more and priced at $10,000 and higher. They're great for big, highly threaded enterprise applications like databases but for single-threaded or workstation apps, they'll get beaten badly by a Woodcrest-based Xeon 51xx or even a Core 2 Duo.

 

[MIDIman]

Superb, and agreed on all accounts. My concern was in the fact that certain boxes offered by Dell had 7xxx-series Xeons, and certain ones didn't, and I wanted to make sure I got the latest and greatest for this box. The main issue was cost (budget = $6000), and support for certain expansion.

Sounds like a 51xx Xeon is the way to go for my particular situation. Thanks!