Dual Xeon or Intel Extreme Edition?

[jacobhb]

Well honestly, you will almost never see the benefits of the dual setup unless you’re doing some serious multitasking or rendering. Right now I have a dual 2.4 ghz xeon, and I think it will be the last dual I buy for a bit.

I say for a bit because I am hoping things start to move to multithreaded applications. With the introduction of dual cores, this is a great possibility. However, it is going to be awhile and I honestly don't think it is worth the price as the Pentium extreme will run faster then you xeon setup 90% of the time (unless you render alot).

My 2 cents,
Jacob

[stephen2002]

Video encoding, some 2D effects packages, and some video editing packages will at least partially take advantage of multiple processors. So you will see a speed increase, espeically with things like MPEG2 encoding, which if you get the right encoding software takes full advantage of however many threads you throw at it.

Even if your software is not multi-thread aware you can always run two instances. Handy for when you want to encode a number of media files.

[mlmiller1983]

I got Dual 3.0GHz Xeon Noconas on an ASUS NCCH-DL motherboard with 2GB of Kingston PC3200 memory. What I do like about these processors is that with HT enabled the PC has 2 physical and 2 virtual Processors. I would have to say it is much faster than my 3.2C Pentium 4. At least when it comes to software like Maya Unlimited 6.5, After Effects 6.5, Photoshop CS, Premiere Pro 1,5, and Lightwave. All but the Maya software is commerical so In my own mind I can justifiy the purchase. Unless you use serious multithreaded software then there is really no benefit for going dual processor.

[mlmiller1983]

I am about to buy a new system that will be used mostly for 3D and some video editing and compositing. I am debating between a Dual Xeon 3.4Ghz setup and a Pentium 4 Extreme Edition 3.4Ghz. It appears that the Pentium 4 gives me better performance-for-money. Does anyone know how these two setups function in a 3D environment and can make reccomendations?
Thanks!

Dual 3.4GHz are expensive. Go with the 3.0GHz or 3.2GHz Xeons. The performance difference between the 3.2GHz and 3.4GHz does not justify the price difference.

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