How fast is my computer?

[Clair de Lune]

CPU-Z program reports:

Xeon Dual-core 2.8Ghz (Nocona)
2 Gigs DDR2-3200 ECC (200mhz)

Geforce 7600GS (I know how fast this is)

I guess the question really is, how fast is Xeon dual core? How does this compare to the typical Core 2 Duo at SAME clock speed? I know they're for servers but how beneficial are they with home usage (I do use photoshop extensively as I'm a wedding photographer)

How about my memory? Does ECC really help in avg day usage?

Thanks.

 

[lxskllr]

I don't know about the cpu, but the ram should be slower than non ECC ram. ECC ram helps ensure data integrity with a small performance cost. It might be better to use it as a home server. ECC ram is kind of pricey, and a server's where you'd want to use something like that.

 

[WildW]

I used to have a Nocona core Xeon based machine. Are you sure it's dual core?

The Nocona Xeon is basically nothing more than a Prescott core Pentium 4. They have hyperthreading, making it appear dual core, though in reality it's only slightly faster than single. Alternatively you may have a dual processor machine, with 2 or 4 threads depending on whether you have hyperthreading enabled. I didn't think Intel released dual core chips until a good while after Nocona.

In modern terms it's not a monster machine, but those dual hyperthreaded processors can chew through multitasking more snappily than "faster" proper dual core Athlon 64 X2's in my experience.

I had ECC ram at first but when I added more memory later I added the regular non-ECC kind and disabled ECC in the bios. Not something you need as a workstation user really. Wouldn't worry about speed issues - I think it's the same speed as regular DDR. Registered RAM is the slower one, not ECC, and those come in different slots.

 

[Denithor]

Yeah, this is just Xeon based on Prescott architecture. So it runs hot and is very, very inferior to C2D processors (a 1.6GHz C2D would outperform this Xeon).