So, why go with a Xeon over a P4 nowadays?

[jj1492]

P4's have the 800 Mhz front side bus and hyperthreading, so what is the advantage of going with a Xeon with only a 533 Mhz front side bus? Do the Xeons still have more L2 cache or something? The Xeons are still the more expensive. This vexes me... I'm terribly vexed.

 

[FreiGuy]

SMP

L3 if you spring for the Xeon MPs.

 

[sharkeeper]

SMP, and much higher quality mainboards with PCI-X, ECC (that actually works!) and better long term stability. Xeons are found in workstations and servers.

-DAK-

 

[dexvx]

Contrary to popular belief, raw processing power is not the only reason you should buy a computer for. Xeon boards are generally more stable, have better I/O bandwidth with multiple PCI-X devices and their backplanes are superior.

 

[dullard]

1) The cost is almost the same for the processors and the motherboard/PS prices have plummeted for the Xeons in the last few months.
2) The Xeon allows dual processors - meaning some programs can easilly be ~80% faster. Going single Xeon is pretty silly.
3) The new 3.06 GHz Xeon has 1.5 MB cache (the same 0.5 MB L2 that the P4 has but an additional 1 MB L3 cache is now added). You don't even need to buy a Xeon MP anymore for this much cache. Server programs and several other memory intensive programs have shown a 5%-19% speed boost from this extra cache.
4) The fsb will shortly be increased, but is usually delayed so that workstation owners can keep upgrading. For example the 400 MHz Xeons went all the way up to 3.0 GHz - owners of the first Xeon motherboard can have a lot of upgrade potential. The same isn't true with the P4 - as Intel changes motherboard requirements very frequently.
5) Better quality motherboards with more features for the high end users.

 

[Regs]

Ok here is what I've been reading from other members:

ECC is worthless on the home front. It also puts a hamper on performance.

Duel CPU technology offers little performance increase since all they do is split up tasks but never work together in regards of using clock cycles more efficiently. Except for those few programs that little of us use.

Stability is only good for running a server which such stability is needed for.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. I love to flame bait.

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: Regs
ECC is worthless on the home front. It also puts a hamper on performance.

Duel CPU technology offers little performance increase since all they do is split up tasks but never work together in regards of using clock cycles more efficiently. Except for those few programs that little of us use.

Stability is only good for running a server which such stability is needed for.

My thoughts:
1) ECC will prevent a majority of the random computer crashes. That is up to you if it is 'useless'. Theoretically ECC should only harm performance while it is preventing the crash. No one has ever been able to provide me a single benchmark where ECC harmed performance either (if you have one I'd love to see it). At work I tested ECC vs non-ECC memory on a memory intensive scientific calculation program and saw identical performance.
2) You are correct that if you don't have a program that needs dual CPUs it is most likely a waste of your money. In that case you'd only see a benefit if you happen to run two CPU intensive programs at the same time. But again it is probably better just to have two computers then. However if you are like me and have programs that really benefit by dual processors, I get an 80% performance boost on average.
3) Again if you don't mind crashes then stability is not an issue. But this will vary from user to user.

 

[dexvx]

Originally posted by: Regs
Ok here is what I've been reading from other members:

ECC is worthless on the home front. It also puts a hamper on performance.

Duel CPU technology offers little performance increase since all they do is split up tasks but never work together in regards of using clock cycles more efficiently. Except for those few programs that little of us use.

Stability is only good for running a server which such stability is needed for.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. I love to flame bait.

Who the hell said Xeons were for "the home front" ?

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: dexvx

Originally posted by: Regs
Ok here is what I've been reading from other members:

ECC is worthless on the home front. It also puts a hamper on performance.

Duel CPU technology offers little performance increase since all they do is split up tasks but never work together in regards of using clock cycles more efficiently. Except for those few programs that little of us use.

Stability is only good for running a server which such stability is needed for.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. I love to flame bait.

Who the hell said Xeons were for "the home front" ?

Well for one thing he compared a P4 system to a server based system. Not like he compared a Xeon to a Operton. So I easily presumed he was wondering what a server based system has over a home based system like a P4 set up.

 

[yhelothar]

lol just don't stick an ati card in it
my radeon 9700pro crashes my computer with ECC ram

 

[sharkeeper]

lol just don't stick an ati card in it
my radeon 9700pro crashes my computer with ECC ram

I never had any problems with a 7505 based X5DAE using 9700 Pro, 9800 Pro, 9800 Pro 256MB, FX5900 Ultra or QuadroFX2k.

-DAK-

 

[patrickj]

Originally posted by: virtualgames0
lol just don't stick an ati card in it
my radeon 9700pro crashes my computer with ECC ram

I have a 9800 in my Dell Precision Workstation. My question is why does Quake 3 seem slower on my Xeon 2.4 that it is on my P3 1Ghz box with a Gf2 card? Does the Xeon not game as well? What are you running for an OS, XP Pro or Win2k Pro?