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FX-53 vs. a dual 2.66 Xeon setup
- Thread starter The_man27
- Start date
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2004
The latter two should have the Duallie Xeon being the better for the job--IF the programs are optomized for SMP. Gaming, the FX should be better, but games are heavily videocard dependent today.
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2002
While I am an AMD fan and I think the FX53 has more raw horse power under the hood, the Dually Xeon's would provide a smoother performance all around, for example, you could be gaming and encoding video at the same time, won't work so nice with the single FX53.
Comparing a very high end single cpu system to a high end dually is hard to do, even it most of the hardware is nearly identical, there are still a lot of variables in place, whether or not the programs are SMP aware for example, but even if they aren't, you will still see a little improvment as the OS will manage background tasks better.
Comparing a very high end single cpu system to a high end dually is hard to do, even it most of the hardware is nearly identical, there are still a lot of variables in place, whether or not the programs are SMP aware for example, but even if they aren't, you will still see a little improvment as the OS will manage background tasks better.
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- Jan 23, 2003
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In terms of gaming performance the FX53 will whup the xeons, especially as they only have a 533MHz FSB. Regarding the encoding, it depends what sort of encoding you're doing, if its using the Xvid codec, the FX will win easily, if its using DivX, then it will probably be about equal unless the Xeons can use SMP and their HT?
I think the Xeons will provide a smoother ride, so to speak as it appears dual rigs are very good at that, though the Xeons lower FSB and clock speed mean that they won't perform as well as a standard P4 in most situations, when using SMP, the dual rig will of course have an advantage, but there are very few applications around... I guess the Xeons would have the upper hand in rendering, due to the SMP, but I really can't see them out performing the FX in much else.
I would suggest a fairer match would be between a 3.4GHz P4 and the FX 53 - again the FX would win the games, but the P4 would have a distinct advantage in video editing/encoding using DivX by a few fps anyway. Though the P4 still gets trounced when encoding using Xvid.
Just my 2 cents.
I think the Xeons will provide a smoother ride, so to speak as it appears dual rigs are very good at that, though the Xeons lower FSB and clock speed mean that they won't perform as well as a standard P4 in most situations, when using SMP, the dual rig will of course have an advantage, but there are very few applications around... I guess the Xeons would have the upper hand in rendering, due to the SMP, but I really can't see them out performing the FX in much else.
I would suggest a fairer match would be between a 3.4GHz P4 and the FX 53 - again the FX would win the games, but the P4 would have a distinct advantage in video editing/encoding using DivX by a few fps anyway. Though the P4 still gets trounced when encoding using Xvid.
Just my 2 cents.
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- Jan 23, 2003
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- England
Come to think of it, if you were to overclock the P4 that I suggested in my last post, you would get even better performance, again, you can also overclock the FX, usually to 2.6GHz as far as I know (FX55 spec), which provides some quite substantial gains again.
Its up to you, but a 3.8GHz P4 is about rivaling a 2.6GHz FX, so its pretty fair all round.
Its up to you, but a 3.8GHz P4 is about rivaling a 2.6GHz FX, so its pretty fair all round.
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- Jan 15, 2001
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- Denver, CO
Pretty simple really - if you run programs that are multi-threaded the dual xeon will rule. If you run games or other programs that can't take advantage of an smp environment then the fx would be the way to go.
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- Jan 23, 2003
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dropadrop said:
Agreed
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yeah
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id go with the fx just for the upgradibility, the opterons are even behind the high end p4s now since they have the 533 bus. unless you get a 800mhz fsb xeon board for upgrading later, go with the fx
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- Phoenix. YOUR HAIR IS GOOD TO EAT
There is no such thing as an 800mhz fsb Xeon, the highest they go is 533(133), some of them are even 400mhz.(100FSB)
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- Jan 2, 2004
Xenocide said:
Socket 940 is being phased out for uniprocessor performance platforms, what with 939 coming.
The Opteron has two DDR400 memory busses and a bidirectional 800MHz (x2) hypertransport bus. The Opteron does not have an FSB per se.
Originally Posted By Myself
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Xeon. The Xeon is Intel's latest version of their heavy duty server chip. Modern Xeons run on Socket 603/604, usually in SMP configurations. Most Xeons also feature hyperthreading. I do not know much about the Xeon myself but do know that they are robust, if not expensive, processors.
The Pentium 4 Extreme Edition is a repackaged Xeon, built for Socket 478 motherboards, and has a 200MHz ("800 MHz Quad Pumped") front side bus. The P4EE has 2MB of L2 cache.
Athlon64*. There are two current types of Athlon-64, AMD's latest and greatest desktop processor. The Athlon 64 FX-51 and FX-53 are the high end chips that require a Socket 940 motherboard (like the Opterons below) normally found in high end servers. The FXen all have 1MB of L2 cache, and are built on the same 64-bit Hammer core as the Opteron. The Athlon 64FXen do not have a front side bus; the memory controllers (two in this case for dual-channel memory access) are integrated into the processor itself, and communication between the RAM and CPU is at DDR400 speeds. The Athlon64FX also has bidirectional HyperTransport (800MHz) for communication with perhipheral devices. The FXen also require the use of Registered DDR-SDRAM.
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Opteron*: The Opteron is AMD's high end 64-bit server processor, built on the Hammer core with 1MB of L2 cache. Opterons are built on a 130 nanometer process and are for Socket 940 motherboards. The Opterons are akin to the A64s in that they do not have front side busses, the memory controllers (two in this case, just as for the Athlon FX for dual channel DDR) are integrated into the chip, and a bidirectional HyperTransport link is used to communicate between the processor and perhipheral devices on the Opteron 100s. At present, Opterons run between 1.4 and 2.4GHz. AMD does not brand the Opteron with a PR rating as it is expected that the target audience (server builders) will know that these are quite heavy duty chips. These chips require the use of Registered DDR-SDRAM.
The Opteron 2xx and 8xx series are designed for two way and eight way symmetric multiprocessing, respectively. Building a box with Opteron 8xx will cost more than my car.These Opterons have additional HyperTransport links for inter-processor communications.
Processors with an '*' by their name support the x86-64 extensions. AMD has extended the conventional 32-bit x86 instruction set to include operations that can take place on operands that are up to 64 bits long, meaning that they can manipulate unsigned values directly that are smaller than 2^64.
What we need to know is, what do you want your computer to do the best? That really determines the right motherboard and processor for you.
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- Jan 16, 2002
Captain Newbie: The P4 EE contains the usual 512k of L2 cache + 2MB of L3 cache.
Opteron 8xx series work in 4 & 8 way confiurations and while they are expensive, they are less than the Xeon MP's by a good margine. Normal Xeon's will not work in a 4 or more way configuration.
Just a little to add to your info
Opteron 8xx series work in 4 & 8 way confiurations and while they are expensive, they are less than the Xeon MP's by a good margine. Normal Xeon's will not work in a 4 or more way configuration.
Just a little to add to your info
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- Oct 9, 2003
- Location
- Phoenix. YOUR HAIR IS GOOD TO EAT
^He's right, at work I'm almost ALWAYS dealing with Xeons.
Xeon 2.8 - $550
Xeon 2.8 MP - $3,300
And that's each, so the DL740s that I put together last week got a rack of 4 Xeons($14,000 for processors and rack) on top of the original 4 that were in there.
Those servers came out to about $70,000 each. Porsche anyone?
Xeon 2.8 - $550
Xeon 2.8 MP - $3,300
And that's each, so the DL740s that I put together last week got a rack of 4 Xeons($14,000 for processors and rack) on top of the original 4 that were in there.
Those servers came out to about $70,000 each. Porsche anyone?
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- Jan 2, 2004
JDXNC said:Captain Newbie: The P4 EE contains the usual 512k of L2 cache + 2MB of L3 cache.
Opteron 8xx series work in 4 & 8 way confiurations and while they are expensive, they are less than the Xeon MP's by a good margine. Normal Xeon's will not work in a 4 or more way configuration.
Just a little to add to your info
::Adds revisions.::
It's still a carp-load of cache RAM...
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- Jan 23, 2003
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- England
Can someone fill me in on what the Hammers use instead of a FSB to communicate with memory? Do they use HT, and if they do, how come the ram doesn't run at 800MHz instead?
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- Mar 13, 2004
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- USA, Vermont
so u are saying that by all means the EE's have 2512 chche "total" if so why do they nor market it as so instead of just (listen to me "just") 2mb? Any way i would take an opty over a xeon any day but that is me.
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2003
Personally, I'd go with the dual Xeon setup. It'll be better for encoding and such, and with a decent video card it'll still play games nicely.
