Hi all,
I’m building a new workstation and I’m trying to decide between either dual 6 core Intel Xeon E5649 Processors (giving me a total of 24 threads) or one Intel I7 990X Extreme Edition processor (6 core - 12 threads). I’ll probably put 24GB RAM to either option.
The software I predominantly use is Blender, After Effects, CorelDraw and then all the usual running of a business type stuff (Office, Internet Explorer etc)
Putting aside cost variances any thoughts as to which way to go here?
The Xeon is slightly cheaper; the i7 is slightly faster.
With a dual i7 motherboard, you’d also get 24 threads.
-Ron T.
I7! works great on my 48gb ram! 
RiVit: can you name a dual i7 mobo? any recommendations? does Blender use all 24 threads?
?
Intel Core i7-2600K, 4x 3.40GHz, Socket-1155: ~250 Euro
Intel Xeon E3-1275, 4x 3.40GHz, Socket-1155: ~270 Euro
You will not, there are no dual processor boards supporting LGA1155/56.
Due to the architecture of the LGA1155/56 boards there is nothing yet. Not going into details there.
Sockets that support more than one CPU are: 604, 771, 1366, 1567.
As far as I know only Dual-CPU is supported by socket 771 and 1366.
The 1366 for instance has compared to the LGA1555 (1556´s predecessor) an additional QPI because the DMI is too slow for inter processor communication.
Socket 604 and 1567 support Multi-CPU systems, but also usually have “only” 2 CPU sockets.
1567 should have Quad-CPU boards soon, but they´ll be rare and expensive and currently I don´t see many that need it.
The “Westmere-EX” the Xeon Flagship currently is a 10-core chip, if that´s not sufficient you buy another blade, or mainboard with another chip on it, clustring them up. I guess the need for a system with 2 or 4, 10-core CPUs is so small that no chipset and mainboard manufacturer bothers to build such a mainboard.
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I´d recommend to go with a Ci7-2600k, cool it with H20 or a highend air cooler, crank it up to 4-5GHz, which is neither magic, nor a problem today, it´ll run stable and fast given you buy a good mainboard.
That´s plenty for a workstation, if you need more power for rendering, buy one or two Phenom2x6 (they are fast for rendering and rather cheap) and cluster them up.
The alternative is to wait a bit and see how Bulldozer will perform, which should be out in October, or wait until Dec/Jan, when Intel’s hexacore Ci7 are supposed to hit the shelves.
Also for complex projects you´ll benefit from the memory speed LGA1155 (Ci7) offers. You can use memory with 2333MHz+ while Xeon Platforms only support up to 1333MHz and usually need more expensive EEC registered memory for multi GPU operation. Westmere CPUs might support more (remember, the memory controller is in the CPU now for Intel as well) but I usually don´t hear, nor do I know about overclocking a Xeon Server 