Xeon E5520 vs. Core 2 Q9550

[meester]

I'm curious the difference in performance between these chips.

I'm building a server to replace my workstation-cum-server (which will revert to workstation), and I'm looking at 1 or 2 E5520s.

The Q9550 is a 2.83GHz chip and the E5520 2.26 GHz.

Another question is how much difference 8 threads makes compared with 4 - the E5506 runs 2.13GHz (albeit with slower memory & chipset interfaces). Given that there are the same number of physical cores, does the HT make a big difference? My work load would be 8 VMs running at the same time.

 

[PlasmaBomb]

The E5520 also supports turbo mode, for a boost to single threaded apps (it will run at 2.53 GHz)

Running 8 concurrent tasks I would expect performance to be - dual E5520 > E5520 > Q9550 > E5506

The problem is the Xeons cost way more...

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews...intel-xeon-5500-series
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/943/2/

 

[mozartrules]

How is your RAM requirement. Anything above 12Gb would drive you towards the 5520 Tylersburg chipset and Xeons because you can get 3x4Gb ECC for less than $400.

I would recommend 8 real cores if you have 8 active VMs, HT will be a bonus. A 5506 is probably OK but the E5520 is the sweetspot.