Xeon vs P4...boring question

[greyface]

Dual processors are only worth the price for rendering, and won't change your viewport performance much, that would be the graphic card and individual processor speed. I think I would go for the 3.6 Ghz P4 if I were you, you'll get much better performance in single-threaded tasks, and close performance in multithreaded.

If you are going to build a render node, that is another matter, but I'm assuming that is your work computer.

For the render times of your scene, I think you can expect an increased performance of the clock speed difference, so like 2.5x speed increase.

[xiao_x]

actually sometimes i confused about xeon and p4........the product xeon is xeon,p4 is p4.y sometimes i see the product name like `xeon p4 3.06` ?????
that proccessor is p4 or xeon???? :shrug:
i know xeon can be use for dual,how about p4???
izzit xeon mean the p4 can use with dual???
:shrug:

[Shogmaster]

actually sometimes i confused about xeon and p4........the product xeon is xeon,p4 is p4.y sometimes i see the product name like `xeon p4 3.06` ?????
that proccessor is p4 or xeon???? :shrug:
i know xeon can be use for dual,how about p4???
izzit xeon mean the p4 can use with dual???
:shrug:They are just differentiating between the Xeons. Xeon goes back to the days of Pentium 2 IIRC. Remember: Xeons are just SMP enabled Pentiums for the most part (although back in the days before Itaniums, they also had googobs of more cache to distinguish between it and the normal Pentium version).

[greyface]

To put it simply, Xeons are Pentium 4s which work in dual processor configurations too.

[rakoon]

AI-X, Thanks for reply and u'r right. That's my work system...probably i'll update to dual xeon instead of P4 for taking advantage of rendering times and u know, time is money. I'm thinking that if a scene takes 30min.on p4, a dual 2.8 xeon takes 15-20min.. I use only 3dsmax and rhino and photoshop sometimes..so 40% of the total time for modelling and all the rest for rendering and , if necessary, for texturing.

Regards,
Ed

[anevsky]

Well, time, indeed, is money. However, the price of ownership of a decent dual Xeon system is not justified by the performance gains. This is because of the way the market works - since demand for dual boards, processors, and related items is very low - you are much less likely to encounter such items on special low price "end of season" deals. Ultimately you will nearly be able to put together 2 decent single proc. units for the price of one blazing fast dual machine. No, it's definitely not nearly as much fun as owning the fastest thing around - but in almost all work environments - It makes more sence financially. Especially when rendering large numbers of frames - Two decent machines side by side will serve you better.

[OC-NightHawk]

Then you have to waste time properly networking them and finding software to distribute the render job between the machines to keep up with the dual xeon system.

Plus lets not forget that building two full single machines takes up more space and wastes money in other areas. For example a decent case that wont fall apart is going to be at least $70. A decent PSU is going to be at least $80. Then you'll need to buy a cd drive for both unless you want to network install from one of the the machines to another, which is a pain; $40. You'll need at least a 7200RPM 8MB Cache IDE or SATA drive for both machines with decent storage space; $80. With a dual xeon you'd only need to buy one of each so obviously building two singles has hidden costs.

Lastly, maintaining two systems is just more of a pain the the butt.

[anevsky]

No.

I don't agree. I think just dividing the workload will save you the "hassle" of using real matrix software. This becomes an issue only when using several systems together. Hard disks - I think a quick check will show you that two 160gb HDD's are cheaper than 1 holding twice that. And so on.

It's hard to admit that having the fastest system only serves your ego - but its true.

If you log on to Xi, Boxx or one of those system integrators and outfit a dual and a single machine the difference wont be that great. But, if you go out and put together two decent systems from parts and/or deals youll be getting more power for the money (Including the network cable :) )

If you can get your hands on a cheap used dual proc system - go for it.

[OC-NightHawk]

Who said anything about having the fastest system? You don't have to buy the top of the line xeon or opteron processors. If you go a notch or two down on the clockspeed you'll get a more reasonable price. When I bought my dual a couple years ago I speant a total of $400 on the processors. You would have speant a lot more on one P4 cpu that could keep up with a dual 2.4GHz at rendering, especialy since I overclocked it to 2.93Ghz from day one. That alone saved me a grand. I paid just shy of $2000 for everything including the monitor, keyboard, mouse, and speakers. There is no way you could build two singles for less then $2000 and keep up with it. Thats not possible.

It's more then possible to do the same thing again with the new generation of hardware to build a cheap effective render node/workstation.

You neglected to even consider the fact that building two full singles is still going to cost you about the same as one dual any ways. You'll have to buy twice the system memory, still need to buy two processors, properly cool both systems, and everrything else from my last post. You'll spend at least $400 more in these areas then you would with a single dual machine. I think that kind of equals out to the expensive mobo. So if you go with less then top of the line speed current gen xeons or opterons you'll get two machines in one for about the same cost minus the hassel. unless you're making your two singles in the form of a cluster rack you'll save your self a lost of space too.

[stephen2002]

Having Dual is great, the system responsivness is just much nicer. I use a Dual 2.8GHz and a single P4 2.8GHz, 1GB of RAM in each, and working with the Dual is just a smoother experience. Things don't lock up or slow down because of CPU overload as much. The BIG advantage of dual is that your test renders will render that much faster, without any fancy network setup or distributed processing software. Just having a second mashine will only help you out when you are doing your final renders, unless you software supports single-frame distributed rendering. Overall workflow is much easier on a Dual vs two networked mashines, no shuffling files or any of that stuff.

[anevsky]

I say again - yes, it's less fun working with a single processor machine. The main thing is to be aware of exactly how much and what kind of performance gain youll be getting - and to consider wisely how much it's worth to you. If all you do is test renders and have an allergy to any holdups while working - it might be worth it to spend the extra cash. In my work experience - it's much more handy to be able to run things such as dynamic simulations (or finetuning an animation while simultaneously doing test renders) on two different machines. In fact it tends to cancel out many holdups in the workflow (you might not like to give up your "cigarette while rendering" or whatever your pleasure, but, at least youll have the option to do so).

Stephen2002 - Really? Your dual 2.8ghz runs much more smoothly than your single 2.8ghz? COME ON - be serious.

Nighthawk - Overclocking your xeons indeed makes for more financial sence - Why not go ahead and point out to the Poster to take this issue into account ie: make sure he purchases an appropriate board, etc.

[Andreu]

If some day is possible to render 'whatever' in few seconds; I'll miss read this thecnical forums...
Oh! My render it's done! I have to go..:D take care and thank you all!.

[OC-NightHawk]

Nighthawk - Overclocking your xeons indeed makes for more financial sence - Why not go ahead and point out to the Poster to take this issue into account ie: make sure he purchases an appropriate board, etc. anevsky, please if he's buying a single more then likely he'll over clock it. $400 for two processors is nothing. Cosidering that at the time one 2.8Ghz Xeon cost ~$700. I think it was worth it. Besides I kept an eye on the temps like a hawk. They have never gone past 70C full lload. If your on a budget or demand price to perfomrance for a personel machine mild overclocking can be a good thing. How many people overclock their graphics cards, which btw cost more then one of my xeons even when new? Don't act so shocked. Hell if I had a PC-DL, DH800, or DPI533 I'd have gone for more FSB at the cost of some clock speed and saved money on the mobo. There must be something to people wanting to overclock xeons because if there were not those three boards would never have been created.

Edit: sorry needed my morning cafine. Reading your post again it looks like you where not being sarcastic. Sorry. Well I haven't looked into overclocking any of the newest xeons because I'm waiting a bit to upgrade. One thing you could do I suppose is get some 533FSB xeons and a DH800 and crank the FSB to 800MHz. The problem here is that you don't get the 64bit extensions. I do know that the DH800 supports narconas but I don't know if you can crank the FSB past 800 for them. You also don't get PCI-e.

Edit Edit:I should also note that when overclocked cooling becomes a lot more important. That means keep your wires out of the way, use intake and exhaust fans, and make sure you have the heatsink on good.

[stephen2002]

Stephen2002 - Really? Your dual 2.8ghz runs much more smoothly than your single 2.8ghz? COME ON - be serious. I am being serious. I use the single proc at work (programming) and things like compiles, or even a program that has locked up in an infinite loop (whops, it happens) will slow the whole system to a chunky crawl. If I do something like that on my Dual (home PC, I use for CG, games, PVR, etc.) and it dosn't flinch. I can be rendering in the background, messing with an open scene, and recording TV all at once without a hitch.

However you are correct in that for any single task there is no difference, and probably if I were to do a direct compairson for single-threaded things the single might go faster, but once you start doing more than one thing at a time, the dual becomes smoother.

[OC-NightHawk]

Stephen2002 - Really? Your dual 2.8ghz runs much more smoothly than your single 2.8ghz? COME ON - be serious. Yes a dual does run that much smoother. You have two processors handeling all the active threads instead of one. Of course its going to be smoother and rarely feel like its under load. That doesn't mean single threaded aps will run faster, but they won't have to wait for time on the processor thats overwhelmed either.

Edit: where it gets dicy with the xeons is the shared bus. Over all it still works in favor but the Opterons way of doing things is way better.

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