Which CPU would you choose ?

[Tuffrabbit]

Both Gulftown, socket 1366, six core and 32nm... (Asus Rampage III Extreme motherboard) Thx!

Intel Core i7-990X Extreme Edition Gulftown 3.46GHz 6 x 256KB L2 Cache 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Six-Core...

VS.

Intel Xeon W3690 Gulftown 3.46GHz (3.73GHz Turbo Boost) 12MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 130W Six-Core Server Processor...

 

[postmark]

What's the price diff? The only differences according to this:

http://ark.intel.com/Compare.aspx?ids=52586,52585,

Are that the W3690 has Intel® Trusted Execution Technology and Intel® Demand Based Switching. It also supports DDR3 800 and 1333 as opposed to just 1066 as well as supporting ECC memory.

Are any of those useful to you if there is a price increase?

 

[notty22]

The extreme edition benefits from a unlocked multiplier, - my choice.

 

[lol123]

I'm pretty sure you mean the X5690. The only benefit of choosing that processor is that you can use it in a dual-socket configuration, which you will not be able to do on your motherboard anyway. It is also the case that server processors are usually of higher quality (higher binning) than their desktop counterparts, but the i7-990X Extreme Edition is probably an exception to that rule.

Edit: Nevermind, apparently there is also the W3690, which cannot be used in a dual-socket config. I would guess it's cheaper than the i7-990X but lacks the unlocked multiplier, so unless you intend to overclock your processor it would probably be a better choice.

 

[postmark]

Actually at the egg it's $80 more for the workstation part. I would say pick the 990x

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Wait?

I'm guessing but those are both over 500$ right?

A total system platform build with a SandyBridge 2500K or 2600K, Z68 Motherboard, & 8G of Ram is less than 500$ and you get more from Sandy Bridge than 1366 Socket.

Am I wrong?

 

[postmark]

actually $1080 vs $999

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

actually $1080 vs $999

Never Again for me

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

Unless you are already have the board or are doing something that is very heavily multi-threaded I would advise that you go with the Intel® Core™ i7-2600K and save the money to put in something else like an SSD.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

 

[RussianSensation]

2600k, or if you really feel like spending $900+ on a CPU, you should wait for Sandy Bridge-E LGA2011 platform.

 

[Tuffrabbit]

Ok, lot's of great input and advice. Wasn't aware the Xeon W3690 Gulftown 3.46GHz had a locked multiplier ? (Deal breaker) Not to interested in Sandy Bridge because chipset won't support dual 16x PCI-E for my crossfire GPU set-up... (Currently CPU and GPU's are liquid cooled to not only allow overclocking but also to keep the noise level down)

 

[postmark]

This board seems to support SB + 2x x16 PCIe for Crossfire:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128499

 

[postmark]

Also, I'm not savvy on all the Crossfire stuff, but I was wondering what kind of dent running x16 + x8 or dual x8 as opposed to x16 would have. Considering a PCIe 2.0 x8 slot still has 4GB/s throughput each direction, I couldn't imagine it would be much. So I have no idea what your setup is currently or what kind of scores you get, but here is a post with a very similar SB setup to what people are recommending, so it might be worthwhile to check out.

http://www.overclock.net/amd-ati/971273-sapphire-hd-6950-1gb-crossfire-scaling.html

Also, here is a P67 board that also supports dual x16 in SLI/Crossfire:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131714

 

[TemjinGold]

About the same dent as running 1333 ram versus 2000 ram.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Not to interested in Sandy Bridge because chipset won't support dual 16x PCI-E

Are you familiar with the benchmarks comparing Sandy Bridge Dual GPU vs 1366 GPUs?