IctusBrucks
Member
Hey guys,
I have a dell T7400 workstation with dual xeon X5372s @3ghz. The video card I have is a loaner radeon 7970 from work that I can't keep forever, and the actual card is some really old non-dx11 geforce model. There are lots of things I don't like about the T7400 so I am looking to replace the whole thing.
I work in the gaming industry and I work primarily with dx-11 realtime game engine tools. I also do a heavy amount of work in 3dsmax, Zbrush, photoshop, worldmachine, and other generator type programs.
This is a bit of an odd situation to analyze, since the common wisdom here is that you want the highest ghz single-cpu i7 for gaming, and xeon X5s or another recent Xeon multi-cpu setup for 3d-production or servers.
From some of the tests I've seen around here, it looks like even a single-cpu 6-core i7 of the extreme variety would beat my current dual-cpu setup for most of the things I do individually.
I do have some typical multitasking needs. At minimum I have 3-4 major programs open at a time (usually 1 or 2 level editors, 3dsmax, zbrush, photoshop, worldmachine). ...and I also currently enjoy being able to render something while also playing Borderlands at the same time without too much impact. I honestly am not sure how much my dual-cpu setup is to thank for this. All my tools and the games I play have all changed since I had a single-cpu system so I don't have much to compare to.
So I basically want to get a boost in performance AND still be able to render something in a program like 3dsmax or worldmachine while playing another intensive game in the background. Sometimes a tiled worldmachine build will take 3-4 hours.
As much as I love all the multitasking and production stuff, at the end of the day real-time 3d performance is what matters most to me.
Is the fastest i7 actually going to outperform the fastest xeon in this realtime "gaming" environment? It's hard to tell if people are saying it's better for gaming because it actually is superior, or just because the xeon would be massive overkill.
I want to make a decision on what gives me the best realtime 3d rendering performance (with unoptomized unstreamed game content keep in mind, a bit more intensive than gaming itself). I know multi-CPU doesn't get me much of anything in that realm, but if it turns out that the xeon isn't any worse, then I would gladly pay alot more to get both CPU's just for the added workflow benefits... and being able to play a game while rendering something 🙂
Also current machine is 16gb and looking to move up as high as I can practically go. Are there any differences between i7 and xeon in this regard?
wow that was a mouthful.... thanks to anybody who made it this far 🙂
I have a dell T7400 workstation with dual xeon X5372s @3ghz. The video card I have is a loaner radeon 7970 from work that I can't keep forever, and the actual card is some really old non-dx11 geforce model. There are lots of things I don't like about the T7400 so I am looking to replace the whole thing.
I work in the gaming industry and I work primarily with dx-11 realtime game engine tools. I also do a heavy amount of work in 3dsmax, Zbrush, photoshop, worldmachine, and other generator type programs.
This is a bit of an odd situation to analyze, since the common wisdom here is that you want the highest ghz single-cpu i7 for gaming, and xeon X5s or another recent Xeon multi-cpu setup for 3d-production or servers.
From some of the tests I've seen around here, it looks like even a single-cpu 6-core i7 of the extreme variety would beat my current dual-cpu setup for most of the things I do individually.
I do have some typical multitasking needs. At minimum I have 3-4 major programs open at a time (usually 1 or 2 level editors, 3dsmax, zbrush, photoshop, worldmachine). ...and I also currently enjoy being able to render something while also playing Borderlands at the same time without too much impact. I honestly am not sure how much my dual-cpu setup is to thank for this. All my tools and the games I play have all changed since I had a single-cpu system so I don't have much to compare to.
So I basically want to get a boost in performance AND still be able to render something in a program like 3dsmax or worldmachine while playing another intensive game in the background. Sometimes a tiled worldmachine build will take 3-4 hours.
As much as I love all the multitasking and production stuff, at the end of the day real-time 3d performance is what matters most to me.
Is the fastest i7 actually going to outperform the fastest xeon in this realtime "gaming" environment? It's hard to tell if people are saying it's better for gaming because it actually is superior, or just because the xeon would be massive overkill.
I want to make a decision on what gives me the best realtime 3d rendering performance (with unoptomized unstreamed game content keep in mind, a bit more intensive than gaming itself). I know multi-CPU doesn't get me much of anything in that realm, but if it turns out that the xeon isn't any worse, then I would gladly pay alot more to get both CPU's just for the added workflow benefits... and being able to play a game while rendering something 🙂
Also current machine is 16gb and looking to move up as high as I can practically go. Are there any differences between i7 and xeon in this regard?
wow that was a mouthful.... thanks to anybody who made it this far 🙂
