Which CPU is more future proof?

[Hi-Fi Man]

I've got a Xeon X5650 and i5 4570 to use. Which would be more future proof in regards to games? Assume the Xeon is running at 4GHz (easy).

It seems some games and engines are trending towards being more multi-threaded past four cores but it doesn't seem quite decisive where it's all headed.

 

[Vesku]

Your 4570 isn't a K model I don't see much of a reason to use it over your X5650.

 

[Yuriman]

4ghz Xeon doesn't have too much of a single-threaded disadvantage over a 3.4ghz (4 thread) Haswell i5.

However, that Xeon is sure to be relatively power hungry, hot and noisy.

 

[Hi-Fi Man]

I'm aware of the single-thread performance, acoustics, and power consumption but that's why I ask will these newer/future games and engines take advantage of the higher multi-threaded performance of the Xeon?

 

[Yuriman]

It seems to be catching on, but slowly. For the past 5 years people have been saying, "next year, game engines will use more threads!" and so far we've had a small but growing number of AAA games that are able to use more than ~3 threads. I wouldn't count on things being significantly different in 2 years, but in another 5 years or so I'd be surprised if it weren't more common.

EDIT: Perhaps part of the reason games aren't using more than 4 threads is that a vast majority of PCs (probably >95%) don't have more than 4 logical processors. It may be that games won't really become more threaded until Intel starts pushing 6+ threaded processors into everything. For now, we have i3's and i5's dominating the market.

 

[SPBHM]

I wonder if AVX is going to be a factor,

DX12/Vulkan should benefit the Xeon more than the i5.

 

[ArisVer]

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Xeon-X5650-vs-Intel-Core-i5-4570

At the same clock speed the Xeon should be better. Benchmark them for us.

 

[escrow4]

Haswell. I'd take 4 modern cores over 6 obsolete ones anyday.

 

[Hi-Fi Man]

I've got cinebench 11.5 and 15 results for both, I'll post later on today.

Just got an i5 4690K on a big discount at Tigerdirect today because they're closing and I work there. So I'll be using that instead. I'll bench the i5 4690K in comparison once I put it in and OC it.

 

[bonehead123]

Tigerdirect today because they're closing

Kinda off topic, but did I miss a headline somewhere ? I had not heard about this... :'(

 

[Hi-Fi Man]

I should rephrase, their retail stores are closing within 6-8 weeks, except three of them (Jefferson, Miami, and PR). It was in their Q4 earnings statement that came straight from the Systemax CEO and murderer in chief. Their excuse is they want to focus on business to business sales and that's what the remaining three stores will be for. I have the Q4 earings summary that I can post if interested (any forum rules on this?).


preliminary results:
i5-4570: 506
i5-4690K @ 4.6GHz core and 3.9GHz uncore: 683
Xeon X5650 @ 4GHz core and 3.4GHz uncore: 915

The Xeon could've scored a bit higher because I had two kits of RAM running at CAS 11 and 1600MT/s.

 

[Burpo]

Wow, it's true.. Systemax to close TigerDirect

"The move will include closing a distribution center and 31 of its 34 stores and the company will lay off an unspecified number of workers.

The decision comes a week after two brothers who once ran Systemax's retail operation in Miami were sentenced on bribery changes. Carl Fiorentino, who admitted to taking $9.5 million in kickbacks in exchange for buying from certain vendors, was sentenced to 6½ years. Gilbert Fiorentino, who took $600,000, got 5 years"

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article13654826.html#storylink=cpy

Back on topic..
CB 15 scores over 1000 are possible with the Xeon. Even a 4790K is no match..

 

[Denithor]

I've seen a number of comments around the web (here and elsewhere) that indicate that although the IPC for the Westmere chips isn't as high as Haswell, adding in those extra true cores can make a large difference in the smoothness (minimum fps) of some games.

 

[Lepton87]

4threads vs 12threads. How is that even a question? There's no way that HW can be faster in integer workloads, the only place where it holds an advantage are AVX 2.0 FP workloads. But I think integer performance is way more important than FP performance and 4 threads seem very limiting, if only that HW was HT enabled but it isn't so I think that older tech will actually hold out better even much better. What software can take advantage of AVX not to mention AVX 2.0 with FMA? LINPACK? But is it actually useful beyond stress testing? The fact that this HW is locked seals the deal for me. I would have chosen the Xeon.

 

[Hi-Fi Man]

Wow, it's true.. Systemax to close TigerDirect

"The move will include closing a distribution center and 31 of its 34 stores and the company will lay off an unspecified number of workers.

The decision comes a week after two brothers who once ran Systemax's retail operation in Miami were sentenced on bribery changes. Carl Fiorentino, who admitted to taking $9.5 million in kickbacks in exchange for buying from certain vendors, was sentenced to 6½ years. Gilbert Fiorentino, who took $600,000, got 5 years"

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article13654826.html#storylink=cpy

Back on topic..
CB 15 scores over 1000 are possible with the Xeon. Even a 4790K is no match..

The funny thing is, is that everyone working there knew Tiger was getting paid to carry certain products. I remember asking the manager one day "Why don't we carry AsRock and etc. in addition to Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte" his response was "Because that's who we have deals with".

Corporate has acted like the arrests have nothing to do with the closures and that it's all about B2B growth but I'm not buying it.

Those Xeons are indeed multi-threaded monsters, but this unlocked i5 is a single-threaded monster!

I'm going to stick with this unlocked i5 because it's on a newer platform and has higher single-thread performance which right now and in the close future seems to matter the most for me.
I'm also going to ebay my Gigabyte X58A-UD3R, Asus P6T SE, and X5650 for a nice sum. These boards go for crazy on ebay.
I will always have a sweet spot for the X5650 though.

 

[tamm]

Future Proof is a hard question. CPUs are not future proof by a long shot.

If your current and future workload is single threaded mostly, then any Haswell will knock out the Xeon. The additional cores will be dormant for all it matters. Plus if you need the amazing new age features provided by the LGA1150 platform then again Xeon is going to age rapidly. You also will have an upgrade path in used 4790Ks later on.

If your current and future workload is multi-threaded and can take advantage of the additional cores properly then Xeon will be sufficient now and well into the future. However the upgrade path is nil, the platform is also dead and no longer well supported by OEMs. But again if your gonna need the additional cores anyways and can live without the extra feature set, then nothing beats a good Xeon.

Future proof in this case is heavily dependent on what workload the comp currently and in the future sees.

 

[Lepton87]

Future Proof is a hard question. CPUs are not future proof by a long shot.

If your current and future workload is single threaded mostly, then any Haswell will knock out the Xeon. The additional cores will be dormant for all it matters. Plus if you need the amazing new age features provided by the LGA1150 platform then again Xeon is going to age rapidly. You also will have an upgrade path in used 4790Ks later on.

If your current and future workload is multi-threaded and can take advantage of the additional cores properly then Xeon will be sufficient now and well into the future. However the upgrade path is nil, the platform is also dead and no longer well supported by OEMs. But again if your gonna need the additional cores anyways and can live without the extra feature set, then nothing beats a good Xeon.

Future proof in this case is heavily dependent on what workload the comp currently and in the future sees.

If all he cares about is single threaded performance he should buy that unlocked HW celeron. It will be much faster that that locked I5.
UPDATE: I meant Pentium.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

It seems to be catching on, but slowly. For the past 5 years people have been saying, "next year, game engines will use more threads!" and so far we've had a small but growing number of AAA games that are able to use more than ~3 threads. I wouldn't count on things being significantly different in 2 years, but in another 5 years or so I'd be surprised if it weren't more common.

EDIT: Perhaps part of the reason games aren't using more than 4 threads is that a vast majority of PCs (probably >95%) don't have more than 4 logical processors. It may be that games won't really become more threaded until Intel starts pushing 6+ threaded processors into everything. For now, we have i3's and i5's dominating the market.

2014 looks like it was that year

New games are making use of 8+ threads now.

http://gamegpu.ru/test-video-cards/igry-2014-goda-protiv-protsessorov-test-gpu.html

 

[SPBHM]

I wonder if the Xeon would be good at this, considering how bad the only old CPU is (and it's a 6 core CPU)
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph8864/70794.png

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I don't see it as all that surprising that games are using 8+ threads now. AAA games are no longer held down by the XBox 360 as a lowest common denominator. The two major consoles are octacores now with really weak per core performance, so growing out towards using more cores is the only way to make them run well on these consoles.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Haswell. I'd take 4 modern cores over 6 obsolete ones anyday.

Westmere not exactly obsolete...and its not just 6 cores vs. 4, its 12 threads vs. 4...and its 12 overclocked vs. 4 locked...

for me the biggest detraction against the Xeon is the platform, not the performance, but that might not be enough to sway anything depending on the rest of the OP's components/future plans

 

[ClockHound]

Yes...stay with the square core. We, Hexaphonic Westmereans, would like to keep the demand low on our chosen upgrade path, 5675 thru 5690.

Thank you for respecting our needs for superior multi-threaded performance at cheapskate prices.

:biggrin:

 

[AntonioHG]

The major reason I got rid of my 920 was because of the heat. In the USVI. UGH. It was like being baked in an oven. Not to mention we had two of them (girlfriend and myself) and I also ran two 580s. I would be there sweating like crazy.


Recently though, I downsized and couldn't find a decently priced mATX board for 1155, so I took a bit of a loss and went to 1150.

If the features and extra warmth don't matter, I'd just sell all those new parts and pocket the cash. Call it a day. You still get decent performance for a bit more and you can pick up a crazy GPU which would probably be worth it more than a socket, cpu update.

 

[Maximilian]

I got the i5 4570, been using it for a lot longer than I anticipated *insert ramble here about how its fine and does everything and its modern etc etc*

The hexacore with 12 threads is better. Its not that old anyway, things havent come that far since nehalem and I dont see the new instructions being of much benefit anywhere that matters (anywhere that isnt synthetic benchmarks or niche stuff).

 

[beginner99]

Westmere not exactly obsolete...and its not just 6 cores vs. 4, its 12 threads vs. 4...and its 12 overclocked vs. 4 locked...

for me the biggest detraction against the Xeon is the platform, not the performance, but that might not be enough to sway anything depending on the rest of the OP's components/future plans

Agree. In these days you need a new CPU due to the platform being outdated not because the CPU is too slow.

Yes you can buy add-on cards up to a certain extent but that has a cost as well. IMHO the biggest advanatge of Skylake will be bootable NVMe ssds.