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i7 vs dual e5520s

T

twoodcc

Limp Gawd
Joined
Nov 25, 2009
Messages
265
i'm just curious about these two. i've read online people saying that an i7 920 @ 4.0 ghz is close to 2 e5520s @ 2.26 ghz. is this really true?

also, what about the i7 960? wouldn't it be easier to overclock the 960 higher than the 920?

what kind of ppd could i expect from any of these with the bigadv units? i've read about some online, but not all.

thanks
 
yes and yes. the deciding factor is usually ppd vs price or points per dollars. the the 920 or 860 are the best points per dollar. unless you score a good deal. I believe over 20k ppd
 
At full speed my 920 i7's @3.9 Ghz fold at ~26k PpD.
They are actualy folding ~1-1.5k PpD slower than this due to running multi GPU2 clients on all my boxen.

My Skulltrails MoBo with dual E5355's @3.4 Ghz fold at the same speed as my i7's.

Once a good overclockable dual socket 1366 MoBo is out, Then I'll upgrade my Skulltrails boxen and see what 16 cores can do.

Luck .......... :D
 
My i7@ 3.8GHz running solo, native Linux, on a custom kernel is doing ~28K PpD.

Uncle Evil Alchemist is the Xeon God and has Kendrak as an apprentice in training. I am sure we will hear from Evil at some point in this thread. :)
 
thanks for the replies. so from what i've read, the e5520s get ~30-31k ppd? and the i7-920 gets anywhere from 26-28k, depending on speed and if they have gpus going?
 
twoodcc said:
thanks for the replies. so from what i've read, the e5520s get ~30-31k ppd? and the i7-920 gets anywhere from 26-28k, depending on speed and if they have gpus going?
Click to expand...

That sounds about right from what i have read when looking into a dual xeon -bigadv build.

And for the price of the dual xeon you could almost build 2 i7s.
 
Price for performance single sockets have always been better than duals, and will assuredly always be better. Whether you go one route or the other will depend where your priorities lie.
 
I have a Dual E5530's no Turbo running the EVGA VM and i get 34min TPF for 20kPpD.
Since i can only run a VM with 8 cores, i have HT off. 1GPU Client running Collatz.

What i would like to do next is do a Ubuntu install and try it with SMP -8 no HT, and SMP 16 w/ HT and see if there is a difference.
I am thinking that there is not, just like we dont see a difference with HT on the A3's, because there is really still only 8 cores, but HT just "shows" 16 Logical Cores. And i think Kyle showed in a review that you can fully max the CPU even with HT off.

Which also makes me wonder, and maybe tobit or Tiger, would be willing to try this on one of their i7's. do you guys get similar results on a bigadv if you turn HT off?

Having HT off is saving me a ton of heat, and electricity.
 
What you guys are saying, makes me very disappointed with the performance of the current crop of Xeons, especially considering the price of an entire system. Part of that I'm sure is related to being stuck at or near stock frequencies. From what I'm gathering here, in order to really see a big improvement in performance one has to buy the processors approaching 3GHz or higher.
 
I think the real test will be when -bigadv comes to wimdows through SMP2.
There is considerable power savings though.
 
APOLLO said:
Price for performance single sockets have always been better than duals, and will assuredly always be better. Whether you go one route or the other will depend where your priorities lie.
Click to expand...

I thought i read that the -bigadv bonus points for early return are exponential. If you get a single Work unit done twice as fast as 2 i7s then you may still end up with more ppd.

using the calc @ http://www.linuxforge.net/bonuscalc.php We can see that a 30min TPF should bring in 29264 ppd so with 2 i7s you would get 58528 ppd . While a 15 min TPF will bring in 82771 ppd. So in this case a dual socket xeon setup oced could be faster than 2 oced i7 920s.
 
Kardonxt said:
So in this case a dual socket xeon setup oced could be faster than 2 oced i7 920s.
Click to expand...
Exactly but not possible right now as we are all patiently waiting for EVGAs new board. It would also require one to run native Linux which many people don't like. Once the EVGA board is out and -bigadv is migrated to A3 so native Windows folks can run it, things will be a lot different.
 
i know we cant do it yet. But soon it will not "always be better" to run single socket setups.

I'm really surprised no one has found a way to enable overclocking on current boards. I'm sure some t3h 1337 haxor would have if it was more popular.
 
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Kardonxt said:
using the calc @ http://www.linuxforge.net/bonuscalc.php We can see that a 30min TPF should bring in 29264 ppd so with 2 i7s you would get 58528 ppd . While a 15 min TPF will bring in 82771 ppd. So in this case a dual socket xeon setup oced could be faster than 2 oced i7 920s.
Click to expand...
Yes, but therein lies the rub. You can't OC, unless someone has figured out the pinout in the new Xeons and there exists a BSEL mod like there was for the previous generation. And, that's just to start off because even a hypothetical BSEL mod will yield modest improvements at best.

IMV, purchasing a $600+ motherboard just to OC dual sockets is NOT an option for folding other than building a general purpose machine for overall high performance in every application. Been there done that. All my Xeon systems are OC'd, and that was accomplished with motherboards costing less than half what the release price for Skulltrail was, or what the new EVGA board will likely cost. I also acquired a Skulltrail later when the price dropped and that was a BIG mistake. Although the Skulltrail permits a wide range of OC options, it was NOT worth even the discounted price because the performance plainly sucks compared to my other boards. I still cannot figure out the reason why. :confused:

I don't want to beat on a dead horse, but one has to carefully look at what is being offered for the price, and I'm not talking features. I mean total performance for the package, or if you will, PPD/$. Yes, it would be great to have an OC dual-socket 1366 board, but not at sky-high prices when the return for the investment starts dropping off dramatically after a certain point, bonus calculations or not. Having a show-stopping motherboard in a god box is great for an applause, but in the world of folding it's quantity not quality that wins the day.
 
Well I'm trying to come up with some stats on this. What about the i7-960? I don't see many on here with one. Would it be easier to overclock the 960 or the 920?
 
I'm sticking to 920 boxes. I'm going to be building a third 920 box in a couple more months.
 
twoodcc said:
Well I'm trying to come up with some stats on this. What about the i7-960? I don't see many on here with one. Would it be easier to overclock the 960 or the 920?
Click to expand...

I really don't think it's worth all the extra $$.

The one plus would be you can run -bigadv with out OC-ing or even turbo. But that is not very [H]ard.
 
nitrobass24 said:
Kendrak said:
The one plus would be you can run -bigadv with out OC-ing or even turbo. But that is not very [H]ard.
Click to expand...
Also though after building my second dually nehalem, im not quite sure there are worth the $$ over an i7 920
Click to expand...
Exactly the reason I haven't touched S1366 yet. I just can't build something and leave it at stock, and I have a slight aversion to single sockets, so for now it's minor upgrades and wait to see what lies over the horizon...
 
so if some can overclock a 920 50% to run @ 4.00, can you just as easily run a 960 @ 4.8 ghz? or will the 960 use too much heat and power?
 
also, i've created an excel file with some info on the 920 and e5520:

AVG GHZ (920) - 3.77
AVG PPD(920) - 25,010.87
AVG PPD e5520 - 27,485.00
 
Get the 920 and spend the extra money on RAM.... you will need it.

I don't think you will get much above 4.0 with either without special cooling.
 
so even though the 960 is already at 3.2, it won't get to 4.0 or higher easier than a 920?
 
twoodcc said:
so even though the 960 is already at 3.2, it won't get to 4.0 or higher easier than a 920?
Click to expand...

probably not.

If anyone is looking to go i7 in the near future i would wait until westemere(32nm) is here.
Yea some will be 6 core, but they are also releasing 4 core variants w/ HT and they will OC much higher.

I have seen some 6 cores OCd to 4.8, and they claim to be on air. So it looks promising :)
 
nitrobass24 said:
probably not.

If anyone is looking to go i7 in the near future i would wait until westemere(32nm) is here.
Yea some will be 6 core, but they are also releasing 4 core variants w/ HT and they will OC much higher.

I have seen some 6 cores OCd to 4.8, and they claim to be on air. So it looks promising :)
Click to expand...
Awww shucks and I just got done upgrading to an i7, lol. looks like I might have to upgrade again to the 6 core and get another MB for this i7 :) ahhh the Ppd ;).
 
nitrobass24 said:
probably not.

If anyone is looking to go i7 in the near future i would wait until westemere(32nm) is here.
Yea some will be 6 core, but they are also releasing 4 core variants w/ HT and they will OC much higher.

I have seen some 6 cores OCd to 4.8, and they claim to be on air. So it looks promising :)
Click to expand...

i gotcha. but it will be a few months before you'll be able to buy them, and i bet they won't be cheap
 
twoodcc said:
i gotcha. but it will be a few months before you'll be able to buy them, and i bet they won't be cheap
Click to expand...

The quads wont be expensive, but its a waiting game right now.
Its the Hex-cores that will be $$$
 
is there really no reason to get a 960 over a 920 then? surely it would be easier to overclock the 960 by 130% than overclock the 920 by 160% right?
 
I am in CA right now (very far for a Tennessee guy) so i have to make this very brief.

A Dual Xeon E3320/E5530 vs Core i7 @ 4.0ghz about the same PPD on A3.
We have no idea what will happen with smp2 -bigadv
Also remember that an overclocked Core i7 will put a lot more power.
A dual E5530 system at 100 % load = 287 watts with HT 237 w/o HT
I do not know what that Core i7 @ 4.0ghz will be .. but it will be close.

Will be able to comment more on monday when i return. (Paying $3.00 a min to type for ya )
 
twoodcc said:
is there really no reason to get a 960 over a 920 then? surely it would be easier to overclock the 960 by 130% than overclock the 920 by 160% right?
Click to expand...

No

All the CPUs are essentially the same.
 
I'm saving up for a 3.33GHz W3680 Xeon - Six cores, twelve threads, 12MB L3 cache and it will work on current X58 motherboards with a BIOS upgrade. I've already seen ES screenshots of it on XS and other forums. Gonna be expensive but fsck it, I haven't bought myself a really high-end CPU in over a decade.. I can treat myself.

I know I was initially all hyped up for EVGA's dual Xeon board but I doubt I will do it. Who knows though, I often change my mind on these things. :rolleyes:
 
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EvilAlchemist said:
I am in CA right now (very far for a Tennessee guy) so i have to make this very brief.

A Dual Xeon E3320/E5530 vs Core i7 @ 4.0ghz about the same PPD on A3.
We have no idea what will happen with smp2 -bigadv
Also remember that an overclocked Core i7 will put a lot more power.
A dual E5530 system at 100 % load = 287 watts with HT 237 w/o HT
I do not know what that Core i7 @ 4.0ghz will be .. but it will be close.

Will be able to comment more on monday when i return. (Paying $3.00 a min to type for ya )
Click to expand...

thanks for the response! so overclocking the i7 to 4.0 ghz would use more power than dual e5520s. interesting. i doubt i'll overlock a 920 over 4.0 ghz on air.

nitrobass24 said:
No

All the CPUs are essentially the same.
Click to expand...

if that's true, then why even have the different versions? it seems like there's got to be something different about them. but maybe not.
 
twoodcc said:
thanks for the response! so overclocking the i7 to 4.0 ghz would use more power than dual e5520s. interesting. i doubt i'll overlock a 920 over 4.0 ghz on air.



if that's true, then why even have the different versions? it seems like there's got to be something different about them. but maybe not.
Click to expand...

Clock speed is different.
So they can charge you more money.

The difference between a 920 and 960 is the BLCK. Different steppings maybe depending on when it was manufactured, but essentially the same. If all the chips were really different Intel would never make any money and all our CPUs would be way more expensive.
 
Yeah I'd love to get one of these but unfortunately Microcenter doesn't have Xeons for $199. :D
 
EvilAlchemist said:
I am in CA right now (very far for a Tennessee guy) so i have to make this very brief.

A Dual Xeon E3320/E5530 vs Core i7 @ 4.0ghz about the same PPD on A3.
We have no idea what will happen with smp2 -bigadv
Also remember that an overclocked Core i7 will put a lot more power.
A dual E5530 system at 100 % load = 287 watts with HT 237 w/o HT
I do not know what that Core i7 @ 4.0ghz will be .. but it will be close.

Will be able to comment more on monday when i return. (Paying $3.00 a min to type for ya )
Click to expand...

Running a I7 920 @ 3.8Ghz 6GB RAM, Single HD, PCI 2MB Vid card, draws 270 Watts at the wall according to kil-a-watt. Not all that stable at 4.0Ghz but when running draws maybe 10 watts more.
 
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Air Cooled 420 said:
Running a I7 920 @ 3.8Ghz 6GB RAM, Single HD, PCI 2MB Vid card, draws 270 Watts at the wall according to kil-a-watt. Not all that stable at 4.0Ghz but when running draws maybe 10 watts more.
Click to expand...

so does that mean that dual e5520s would consume less power then?
 
how does the i7-860 compare? i'm in an awkward situation where if i get a machine in the next couple months, i gotta go pick it up at the store. i found this rig at a near best buy. what do you think? they don't have any 920s
 
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