Dual DC Xeon 3.0ghz vs. Dual Quad Xeon 1.8ghz?

[MIDIman]

Built a Dell Precision 690 yesterday for the purposes of video encoding, premiere, NTSC uncompressed capturing, webcasting, etc... they just came out with Quad Core chips for it though this morning. The only dual Quad option available is 1.8ghz.

Will two Quad 1.8ghz beat out two Xeon 5160's (two dual-core 3.0ghz)?

If I get the 5160's will I be able to drop-in the Quad's later on?

 

[dguy6789]

First of all, do you have a way of verifying the compatibility of your PC with the quad cores? If your PC supports them now, it will always support them regardless of any processor upgrade you do in the meantime. As to which would perform better, it really depends on how much you multi task. Normally, I would go with saying more cores is better. However, it would seem to me that four cores at 3Ghz would be more than enough for pretty much anything. Eight 1.8Ghz cores would have some uses, but it really depends on how much you run applications in parallel.

 

[MIDIman]

First of all, do you have a way of verifying the compatibility of your PC with the quad cores? If your PC supports them now, it will always support them regardless of any processor upgrade you do in the meantime.

This is a Dell Precision 690 purchase. I am ordering it this week, and 2x Quad Core was released for it this morning and the 1.8 Quad is available in the configuration.

As to which would perform better, it really depends on how much you multi task.

The main purpose for CPU need in terms of this particular system will be encoding and video capture...yes, for typical needs, this is overkill. But, the plan for this system is to capture via some specialized webcasting software (see Accordent) and run uncompressed full NTSC capture in the background, likely through a lightweight app like VirtualDub.

However, webcasting alone has proven to be very CPU and disk intensive, and I'm just wondering if such tasks will take advantage of the quad or not. As we've seen in benchmarks from anandtech, certain applications (gaming?) do not appear to take advantage of the extra cores.

 

[gsellis]

Not sure how well threaded Premiere is. You might as on the Adobe user's forum. Videoguys just built a dual core in their DIY5 project, but no benchies yet. They did say it was smoking. But not sure it can fully use 8 CPUs. What that does give you is leeway for starting an encoding run and then opening another app like Maya/After Effects/3d animation (Animation:Master is mine)/Premiere and working on something else. So, until we see better benchmarks, the faster 2x2 might be faster than a 2x4. But if the app threads really well or the user multitasks well, 8 cpus can kick butt.

I have "fake" quads with my HT dual Xeon. I know that Tsunami can max it doing MPEG2 encode from DV-AVI in 10bit, highest movement detection. A 10 minute video takes 30minutes to encode on 2 pass VBR max/avg 8500. But even at 100% CPU across both processors and the HT units, the system is still responsive. I just do not trust it to add another heavy load.

 

[MIDIman]

Thanks for your thoughts gsells - yeah, I'm still a bit misunderstood about performance improvements that quad can offer over the normal 51xx Xeons. Can anyone else chime in on this?

To dig into this setup a bit more, the main webcasting plan right now is to run 3x Streams (56k, 128k 256k) through Accordent's software and one Osprey 230 (all Realmedia, live only), and simultaneously, via a seaprate Osprey 230, try to capture an uncompressed AVI or MPEG-2 stream. We'll have 4x250gb drives that I'll probably set those up as raid-5 or 0, so disk performance shouldn't be a problem. I'm more worried about CPU load.

Here's an intersting benchmarking sheet on the similarly configured Niagara systems, though this is quite old, and even thie highest-end listed unit (PowerStream) is only Dual Xeon 3.2ghz - the old, non dual-core ones.

 

[MIDIman]

JUst got my quad core quote and its already $500 less than yesterday's dual core request. My thinking is that the original quote has dropped as well, so if going with the dual core better, I'll requote it.

But I really need to make a decision on this...anyone else have any feedback?

Ah - here's an additional question as well...does 2x quad core require x64? I'm forced into x32 only due to software.

 

[Ayah]

Nope. You can run quad core off of 32 bit OSes.

 

[The-Noid]

Quad Core will outperform.

 

[MIDIman]

Originally posted by: Yoxxy
Quad Core will outperform.

Are you sure - even at only 1.8ghz (vs. DC 3.0ghz)? Anyone have links to benchmarks? I've only seen benchmarks for the QX6700. My box will have two E5320's.

 

[MerlinRML]

There is more to it than just lower CPU clock speed.

You've got 8 cores spread over 2 sockets as compared to 4 cores spread over 2 sockets. Each socket has its own dedicated FSB running at 1066 Mhz compared to 1333Mhz. So you're looking at a lower clocked processor 1.8Ghz vs 3.0Ghz, a lower overall FSB 1066 vs 1333 Mhz, and more cores on each FSB spreading the FSB thinner 1066/4 per socket vs 1333/2 per socket. Each pair of cores on the chip has a dedicated shared 4MB cache, which should be very comparable to two cores with a shared 4MB cache.

If the video encoding can be broken up equally across 8 processors AND it doesn't overwhelm the bus trying to hit system RAM all the time, I think you'll see a little bit of performance gain.

My own thoughts on the quad core processor are that in a few cases it will offer slight performance gains and most cases will offer a slight penalty as compared to a dual core woodcrest processor unless you're in an extremely CPU intense environment. I'm not all that impressed with what I've read about the Clovertown processor yet, but it looks like it will get better.

Regardless of which one of the two that you get, you're going to have a faster outright CPU or more cores than anything else out there. So you're going to have a nice system. I haven't used the quad cores yet, but the Intel 5160s are very very nice processors.

 

[MIDIman]

Done and done...procurement is purchasing today. I've gone with the Quad core setup.

 

[MIDIman]

w00t!

GROUP: 1 QUANTITY: 1 SYSTEM PRICE: $4,882.02 GROUP TOTAL: $4,882.02
Base Unit:
Dell Precision 690 Mini-Tower Quad Core Xeon Proc E5320 1.86GHz, 2 X 4MB L2 Cache 1066MHz (222-6966)
Processor:
2nd Processor,Quad Core Xeon Proc 5320,1.86GHz,2X4MB L2 Cache, 1066, Dell Precision 690 (311-6891)
Memory:
4GB, DDR2 ECC SDRAM Memory 533MHz, 4X1GB in Riser, Dell Precision 690, Factory Install (311-5936)
Keyboard:
Entry Level, USB, No Hot Keys keyboards, Dell PrecisionWorkstations (310-7949)
Monitor:
Dell UltraSharp 1907FPV Flat Panel with Height Adjustable Stand,19.0 Inch VIS,Optiplex, Precision and Latitude (320-4976)
Video Card:
ATI FireGL V3400, 128MB, dual VGA or dual DVI or DVI+VGA Graphic Card, Dell Precision 690 1KW (320-4835)
Hard Drive:
250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 7200RPM HardDrive with 8MB DataBurst Cache, Dell Precision 690 (341-3729)
Hard Drive Controller:
C3- All SATA Hard Drives Non- RAID for 4 Hard Drives, Dell Precision 690 (341-3380)
Floppy Disk Drive:
NO FLOPPY DRIVE, Dell Precision 490/690, Factory Install (341-3414)
Operating System:
WINDOWS XP PRO SP2, with MediaDell Precision,English Factory Install (420-4860)
Mouse:
Dell USB 2-Button Optical Mouse with Scroll for Dell Precision (310-7958)
CD-ROM or DVD-ROM Drive:
16X DVD+/-RW w/Cyberlink PowerDVD,Roxio Digital Creator DellEdition,Dell Precision X90 (313-4287)
Speakers:
Dell A225 two piece stereo Speakers (Black),Dell OptiplexPrecision and Latitude (313-4298)
Documentation Diskette:
No Resource CD for Dell Optiplex,Precision and Latitude Systems (313-3673)
Additional Storage Products:
250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 7200RPM Additional HardDrive with 8MB DataBurst Cache, Dell Precision 690 (341-3733)
Controller Option:
SATA/SAS integrated controllerfor Connecting Internal Hard Drives, Dell Precision 690 (341-3435)
Service:
Dell Hardware Warranty Plus Onsite Service, Initial Year (984-2917)
Service:
Type 3 Contract - Next Business Day Parts and Labor On-Site Response, Initial Year (970-6650)
Service:
Dell Hardware Warranty Plus Onsite Service, Extended Year (984-2918)
Service:
Type 3 Contract - Next Business Day Parts and Labor On-Site Response, 2YR Extended (970-1072)
Installation:
Standard On-Site Installation Declined (900-9987)
Mouse Pad (310-0007)
250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 7200RPM Additional HardDrive with 8MB DataBurst Cache, Dell Precision 690 (341-3733)
250GB SATA 3.0Gb/s, 7200RPM Additional HardDrive with 8MB DataBurst Cache, Dell Precision 690 (341-3733)
No Express Upgrade to Windows Vista selected (420-6431)

 

[gsellis]

No matter what, it will be loads faster than what you have today. That is the real benchmark that matters 😀