Dual Processor Systems - 8 REAL Cores

[John_TX]

Is anyone running dual processor systems for photo/video editing? E.g. a Xeon/Operton system.
I'm not talking about a Core i7 system with 1 physical chip that has 4 cores + 4 HT cores.
I mean a dual processor board that has two physical processor sockets.

Anyways, I'm wanting to put together a good workstation for photo/video editing and the 80w Xeons look like a real option (compared to the 130w i7).

I'd like to spend about ~$400 on the processor(s) & was wondering which setup would probably chew through batch processing faster:

TWO Intel Xeon E5504 Nehalem 2.0GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 4MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 80W Quad-Core (NO Hyperthreading, NO Turbo Mode). ($~410)
or
a Single Intel Xeon E5520 Nehalem 2.26GHz 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1366 80W Quad-Core (Has Hyperthreading AND Turbo mode). ($~380)

It seems like the clock speed of either chip is close enough to be a wash. I'm really curious as to what (if any) effect, doubling the L3 cache and adding hyperthreading will have? Would it out-pace a true 8-core system that both runs a little slower and has half the cache per CPU?

Board: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/QPI/5500/X8DAi.cfm

[Moppie]

One of the reasons the i7 systems are running so much faster than the old Q and X series systems is the on board memory controller and tripple channel ram.

The benchmark test shows i7 920s running it faster than the old dual quad core Mac Pro.
Quite simply they can get the data into and out of the chip faster than the Nehalem Xeons, and sometimes that is more important.

[John_TX]

One of the reasons the i7 systems are running so much faster than the old Q and X series systems is the on board memory controller and tripple channel ram.

The benchmark test shows i7 920s running it faster than the old dual quad core Mac Pro.
Quite simply they can get the data into and out of the chip faster than the Nehalem Xeons, and sometimes that is more important.

Do the Nehalem Xeons not have the on-chip memory controller? It was my understanding that all LGA1366 chips did in fact use the new setup.
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=40711&processor=E5504&spec-codes=SLBF9
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=40200&processor=E5520&spec-codes=SLBFD

[Moppie]

Do the Nehalem Xeons not have the on-chip memory controller? It was my understanding that all LGA1366 chips did in fact use the new setup.
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=40711&processor=E5504&spec-codes=SLBF9
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=40200&processor=E5520&spec-codes=SLBFD

Sorry, for some reason I thought you were talking about the old Xeons :o:o

This line threw me off: I'm not talking about a Core i7 system with 1 physical chip that has 4 cores + 4 HT cores

[John_TX]

Sorry, for some reason I thought you were talking about the old Xeons :o:o

This line threw me off: [/size]

I guess since the E55xx Xeons are essentially Core i7's with an additional QPI activated, I should have said dual Core i7's for simplicity sake.

[tim]

Have you checked out the price of motherboards and RAM for dual Xeon processors? They're server class chips so I bet everything cost more, for a marginal gain over desktop chips.

[John_TX]

Have you checked out the price of motherboards and RAM for dual Xeon processors? They're server class chips so I bet everything cost more, for a marginal gain over desktop chips.

RAM is the same as the Core i7 stuff (tri-channel DDR3). Registered and/or ECC ram isn't required (and I see no need for it on a workstation).

The dual LGA1366 boards aren't too bad either; about $50-$100 more than the average mid range X58 chipped motherboards.
Actually, a handful of the Asus & MSI "Workstation" Tri-Quad SLI X58 chipset boards are MORE expensive than almost all dual LGA1366 boards (the one's without onboard SAS Raid)!

[MaxxuM]

Is anyone running dual processor systems for photo/video editing? E.g. a Xeon/Operton system.

Yes, I am running a few systems. The largest is four Xeon CPUs - It's a Dell PowerEdge server that I loaded Windows (4 CPU license version – not off the shelf Windows mind you) on to use as a workstation. I'm also using multiples of the following systems:

Mac Pro 2008 series w/ dual 2.8GHz CPUs (Mine)
Dell Precision T5400 w/ dual 2.5GHz CPUs (5420's I believe) (work)
Mac Pro G5 w/ dual 2.0GHz CPUs (Work)

If you are just speaking about something like a single license of Adobe Premier or After Effects then get as many cores as you can and don’t worry ‘too much’ about GHz. There is almost no speed increase between a quad core system and a dual quad system until you get to rendering as most software packages do not render of the fly unless you set them up to – but the obvious down side is that it will eat away performance while your editing the movie/3D environment. Final Cut Pro has some really nice features with respect to background processing that CS3 lacks (Haven’t used CS4 Premiere/After Effects yet).

Look at it this way; if a 1hr long video takes 30m to render on a quad core it will take roughly 1/3 less time on a dual quad system (or about 18-20m). This is of course an example as filters, transitions and fx will change the time dynamic greatly. Current Xeon CPU’s offer no real benefit over reg quad’s except in reliability and supported features. And Intel of course will beat AMD CPU’s MHz vs MHz with the newer chips now available.

That said, I have never built a dual cpu system – I’ve simply purchased them. The OS DVD/CD’s almost always state how many processors are supported. I THINK the only two Vista OSes that support up to two processors is Ultimate and Business (Enterprise) editions – but don’t quote me.

[samsen]

If only I knew the difference between macs with Intel and non...

[MaxxuM]

If only I knew the difference between macs with Intel and non...

Newer Mac's use regular Intel CPUs just like PC's do - no difference whatsoever. Older Mac's however used to us CPUs built by IBM & Motorola that were called PowerPC's. They use a different architecture that until the Core Duo came out was a better performer than Intel Pentiums. Apple changed over to Intel due to a few reasons complicated reasons, but they did and didn't look back. Power Mac's (like the G4 & G5) are dying off as support for them gets dropped from more modern updates of the OS and software. It's pretty much the end of the line for them now.

[Faolan]

I used to run a self built Opteron workstation (2 x 2218 processors) until the board/PSU died. The newer Istanbul (6 core) are faily cheap about £650 a piece for the 2431 and a mobo around £200-400. RAM is the real killer for prices about £80 for 2Gb modules and £170 for 4Gb ones.

You can still get the quad core Opterons fairly cheaply these days, even cheaper second hand due to below...

The great advantage of the Opteron F Socket is that it's the same socket and has been for the last three years meaning all you have to do is flash the BIOS and plug in the two new processors and off you go. Everything else can stay the same!

The system I ran was fairly powerful and was ideal as the main render server, admittedly the 16Gb and 4 RAID 10 143Gb 15k drives did help here. Photoshop also had a ball with that much RAM.

[basroil]

Another thing you need to remember is that for video encoding, the fewer threads you use the more compact a file will be. Might not matter making youtube videos, but if you are making 8mbps 720p video with high profile 5.1 and everything to the max, you can save a few MB every hour of video by taking away one thread. Reason isn't that it actually takes less space, rather the encoding is more efficient and you can reduce the bitrate a bit. I don't know the exact numbers, but x264 seems to have no change between single and dual threads, then loses 1-2% quality per additional thread.

No real point in single e5520 system, has the same QPI as the i7 920, and costs $50 more. And the i7 is 2.66gh, with the ability to be overclocked quite easily.

[CyberDyneSystems]

One of the reasons the i7 systems are running so much faster than the old Q and X series systems is the on board memory controller and tripple channel ram.

The benchmark test shows i7 920s running it faster than the old dual quad core Mac Pro.
Quite simply they can get the data into and out of the chip faster than the Nehalem Xeons, and sometimes that is more important.

And a dual system thus gives you DUAL memory controllers and Dual banks of memory,. each at their own full speed (at least I assume this is so, it was with Opterons)

Anyway, can;t help with the OPs question, my Dual socket board is too old to be any indicator. but at the time, I was confident (and correct) to feel that a Dual socket opteron board was going to be a speed advantage.

[CyberDyneSystems]

RAM is the same as the Core i7 stuff (tri-channel DDR3). Registered and/or ECC ram isn't required (and I see no need for it on a workstation).



this is huge! A great advantage to the modern multi socket MOBO cost wise!

[basroil]

And a dual system thus gives you DUAL memory controllers and Dual banks of memory,. each at their own full speed (at least I assume this is so, it was with Opterons)

Anyway, can;t help with the OPs question, my Dual socket board is too old to be any indicator. but at the time, I was confident (and correct) to feel that a Dual socket opteron board was going to be a speed advantage.

Yes, dual xeons means dual QPI if the motherboard supports it (luckily many do), but I can't see the speed increase being that much compared to a single chip for what OP wants to do.

Still think i7 system is more economical, since you are looking at 400 bucks for cpu alone for xeon or 500 for cpu AND mobo for i7. Even after taking into account the 130W vs 80W thing (dual processor is 160W though, hope you did that math) which is exaggerated as those are thermal design limits and general usage means half that power when near idle.

EDIT: and turbo is a geek's best friend. Sadly it's nearly useless on the i7 920, but on better i7s, hacked firmware boards with 920, or xeons, it's quite nice to get a 10% boost in performance without pressing a button.

[John_TX]

Thanks for all the info. I had a Dual Athlon MP+2400 from about 2002 until 2007 and I guess I'm starting to miss it a little!

About the TWP ratings, I'm currently using a 65w chip and am pleased with how cool & quiet it runs. I think Intel is insane for putting out a 130w chip. I value a near-silent computer and figured that would be much easier to do with 80w chips (compared to a 130w chip). And yeah, I'm well aware that it puts me 30w above a single 130w chip. HOWEVER, with a dual setup, I now have TWO heatsinks + TWO fans to deal with 160w TDP ;)

Maybe I'll just wait & see what the Core i5 processors look like. I've heard they're only dual-channel DDR3 based, but from the numbers I've seen, none of the Core i7 processors are even close to maxing out tri-channel DDR3 available memory bandwidth configurations.
Here's to also hoping the Core i5's will also run at a more respectable ~95w TDP!

[basroil]

Thanks for all the info. I had a Dual Athlon MP+2400 from about 2002 until 2007 and I guess I'm starting to miss it a little!

About the TWP ratings, I'm currently using a 65w chip and am pleased with how cool & quiet it runs. I think Intel is insane for putting out a 130w chip. I value a near-silent computer and figured that would be much easier to do with 80w chips (compared to a 130w chip). And yeah, I'm well aware that it puts me 30w above a single 130w chip. HOWEVER, with a dual setup, I now have TWO heatsinks + TWO fans to deal with 160w TDP ;)

Maybe I'll just wait & see what the Core i5 processors look like. I've heard they're only dual-channel DDR3 based, but from the numbers I've seen, none of the Core i7 processors are even close to maxing out tri-channel DDR3 available memory bandwidth configurations.
Here's to also hoping the Core i5's will also run at a more respectable ~95w TDP!

Plenty of good cooling systems designed for i7 that are fairly quiet though, and with the money saved you can probably put it towards one of those (and a case large enough to fit them ;))

[John_TX]

Plenty of good cooling systems designed for i7 that are fairly quiet though, and with the money saved you can probably put it towards one of those (and a case large enough to fit them ;))

I've got the case covered.
After cutting away the back grill, I bolted a quiet Panaflo 120mm x 38mm fan to the back of this case (the fan is actually on the outside) and it's absolutely silent running at about 8v.

http://www.yeongyang.com/yy-w2xx.htm

[In2Photos]

Thanks for all the info. I had a Dual Athlon MP+2400 from about 2002 until 2007 and I guess I'm starting to miss it a little!

About the TWP ratings, I'm currently using a 65w chip and am pleased with how cool & quiet it runs. I think Intel is insane for putting out a 130w chip. I value a near-silent computer and figured that would be much easier to do with 80w chips (compared to a 130w chip). And yeah, I'm well aware that it puts me 30w above a single 130w chip. HOWEVER, with a dual setup, I now have TWO heatsinks + TWO fans to deal with 160w TDP ;)

Maybe I'll just wait & see what the Core i5 processors look like. I've heard they're only dual-channel DDR3 based, but from the numbers I've seen, none of the Core i7 processors are even close to maxing out tri-channel DDR3 available memory bandwidth configurations.
Here's to also hoping the Core i5's will also run at a more respectable ~95w TDP!
I'm running a i7 920 at stock speeds in a Cooler Master RC590. I have 4 120mm fans (1-front, 1-top, 1-rear, 1-on the cpu cooler). I run the cpu at full speed and all the others at 50%. My cpu runs at ~25C at idle and I can't hear the fans running.

[tim]

I'm running a i7 920 at stock speeds in a Cooler Master RC590. I have 4 120mm fans (1-front, 1-top, 1-rear, 1-on the cpu cooler). I run the cpu at full speed and all the others at 50%. My cpu runs at ~25C at idle and I can't hear the fans running.

You should try smart fan control, based on core temp. It's a feature of most motherboards.

[In2Photos]

You should try smart fan control, based on core temp. It's a feature of most motherboards.
I don't see the need to be honest. Even batch processing several hundred RAW files the temp never goes above ~40C.

[Yogesh Sarkar]

Smart fan control doesn't help when the CPU has full load, it works when there is really no load and excess heat generation and cuts the fan speed down.

[In2Photos]

Smart fan control doesn't help when the CPU has full load, it works when there is really no load and excess heat generation and cuts the fan speed down.
Right, and then speeds the fans back up under load. Since I rarely have any load on the machine I can just leave my fans at slower speeds without relying on something else to control them.

[Trey T]

I use a Dell c521 w/ 2gb of ram to edit 5dII stuff. i don't do anything crazy like applying plugin filter or corrections bc 5DII renders an awesome picture already. one of the reason why 5D is powerful for video.

If I mix formats, it goes onto another computer. so you need to understand what you're doing b4 going out and waste money.

[tim]

I don't see the need to be honest. Even batch processing several hundred RAW files the temp never goes above ~40C.

It's quieter, fans can often run really slowly. But if you can't hear them anyway it doesn't matter.

[Yogesh Sarkar]

Right, and then speeds the fans back up under load. Since I rarely have any load on the machine I can just leave my fans at slower speeds without relying on something else to control them.
according to your earlier post, you are running CPU fan at full speed. The smart fan control being talked about is for CPU fan.

[Moppie]

Smart fan won't increase fan speeds for other devices in the system.

If you have a CPU fan that can run at 100% and is silent, then there is no harm in letting it run, as it will also circlate air around the rest of the case and non activly cooled components, like HDD's and RAM.

[In2Photos]

according to your earlier post, you are running CPU fan at full speed. The smart fan control being talked about is for CPU fan.
Ah yes, gotcha. I might have a look then although as I said I can't hear it now. But it certainly can't hurt!
Smart fan won't increase fan speeds for other devices in the system.

If you have a CPU fan that can run at 100% and is silent, then there is no harm in letting it run, as it will also circlate air around the rest of the case and non activly cooled components, like HDD's and RAM.
Thanks for the info.

My front fan blows across the HDDs, the CPU fan blows across the cooler, the top and rear fans blow out of the case. I had a side fan that blew air into the case, but it had a slight rattle so I took it out. Temps didn't seem to indicate that I needed it either.

[jdizzle]

I love my i7 965. It chews everything I throw at it. I would go with the i7 chips, it's much more economical.