beegee
2004-05-12, 10:42 PM
With the interest in our Revit benchmarks and discussions of performance v price, Tom has helped out with a timely article (www6.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20040514/index.html).
Designed primarily for server and workstation applications, dual Xeon systems have largely led a niche existence. Additionally, their high price made them unattractive for standard users. Dual Xeon systems also required expensive storage modules, special power packs and big, ugly cases. Now, however, the situation has changed considerably.
When we compare, for example, the price of a Pentium 4 Extreme 3.2 GHz against two Xeons with 2.8 GHz, we see that the latter option turns out to be much less expensive. A Pentium 4 Extreme costs $950, while two 2.8 GHz Xeons can be had for $760. Applications that explicitly support the dual processor environments usually operate much faster with two CPUs than with one.
Conclusion
Applications already optimized for HyperThreading see performance gains from the use of two physical CPUs. In view of system costs, it is therefore worthwhile for users to go with a Dual Xeon as their next system if most of their time is spent rendering or encoding.
Designed primarily for server and workstation applications, dual Xeon systems have largely led a niche existence. Additionally, their high price made them unattractive for standard users. Dual Xeon systems also required expensive storage modules, special power packs and big, ugly cases. Now, however, the situation has changed considerably.
When we compare, for example, the price of a Pentium 4 Extreme 3.2 GHz against two Xeons with 2.8 GHz, we see that the latter option turns out to be much less expensive. A Pentium 4 Extreme costs $950, while two 2.8 GHz Xeons can be had for $760. Applications that explicitly support the dual processor environments usually operate much faster with two CPUs than with one.
Conclusion
Applications already optimized for HyperThreading see performance gains from the use of two physical CPUs. In view of system costs, it is therefore worthwhile for users to go with a Dual Xeon as their next system if most of their time is spent rendering or encoding.