topic Re: Purchasing the best Xeon Processor for a single workstation in Inventor Forum

Purchasing the best Xeon Processor for a single workstation

Anonymous — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 14:37:59 GMT

I'm about to build a new computer and want to make sure I purchase the right processor it'll be used as a single Workstation 4 design and rendering would you please advise something around the 6 or $700 range for a single processor

thank you,

. Richard Sher

Re: Purchasing the best Xeon Processor for a single workstation

mcgyvr — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 15:06:35 GMT

The fastest in your price range...

What socket?

Overclocking?

E3-1585 V5

Re: Purchasing the best Xeon Processor for a single workstation

Neil_Cross — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 15:25:09 GMT

+1 for @mcgyvr suggestion. Or the E3-1280V5 for a bit extra MHz.

http://ark.intel.com/products/88171/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E3-1280-v5-8M-Cache-3_70-GHz

http://ark.intel.com/products/93742/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E3-1585-v5-8M-Cache-3_50-GHz

Tough to suggest something but it's rarely an exact science. If you do more rendering than anything else, consider going with more cores, but that'll bump up the price and compromise on core speed. But those 2 chips are solid for Inventor with light rendering use.

Re: Purchasing the best Xeon Processor for a single workstation

Anonymous — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 19:28:46 GMT

LGG 2011 -v3
No overlooking
I'll consider anything up to $1,000 but I'd rather keep it around 700

Re: Purchasing the best Xeon Processor for a single workstation

Anonymous — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 19:30:57 GMT

The ES 2630 v3 is the chip I've been looking at

Re: Purchasing the best Xeon Processor for a single workstation

Neil_Cross — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 19:38:18 GMT

The 2630 is no good, the clock speed is too low. Obvs it'll work but you'll feel the sluggishness.

The E5-1650 V3 is a good choice, I think we've got a couple of them in the office. Solid high clock speed at turbo and 6 cores/12 threads for that extra edge at rendering over standard quad cores.

I'd say out of the LGA2011-3 line that's the best in the budget. I put a E5-2687W-V3 in a workstation used for FEA, there's a video of it being benched against an i7 4790K on my YouTube channel. It's a good demo of how clock speed is king for Inventor, a $2000 CPU was thrashed by a $300 i7

Re: Purchasing the best Xeon Processor for a single workstation

Neil_Cross — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 19:40:06 GMT

Re: Purchasing the best Xeon Processor for a single workstation

mcgyvr — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 19:42:04 GMT

In general..

For modeling/assembly in Inventor you want the fastest single core processor speed you can get..

Rendering/Drawing environment/FEA make use of multiple cores...

I'm not sure if any of us are aware of reasons why xeon is better (for Inventor) vs a i7 or something like that..

There is a HUGE "Inventor Benchmark" thread around here and you can see how well certain build perform based on that test..

Here is that thread.. I stopped reading it a long time ago.. Just TOO much information in there.. (but all valid info)

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/inventor-forum/how-fast-is-your-inventor-pc-really/td-p/5950908

Don't forget about memory and graphics cards.. "FAST" memory really seems to help quite a bit too...

I think @mdavis22569 and @Neil_Cross both have build some of the "top" performers (scores of ~12 and 13) and I believe they are both using i7 processors.. But their scores are about more than just the processor I believe.. I think they are running some high memory speeds,etc.. too

Re: Purchasing the best Xeon Processor for a single workstation

dgorsman — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 19:49:36 GMT

Nice comparison.

The only place to be considering a Xeon-based workstation, IMHO, is when you have an Enterprise-level agreement with Dell, HP, etc. to source dozens (if not hundreds) of identical boxes on a regular basis. The per-unit purchase cost and service becomes competitive with the small-unit suppliers.

Re: Purchasing the best Xeon Processor for a single workstation

Neil_Cross — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 19:53:05 GMT

Apologies if this is known but Xeons are cut from the same cloth as i7's, Intel simply offer a higher spec in the Xeon range.

Other than the very expensive Extreme range of i7's (6950X etc) the i7's are generally all a 4 core variation of the same chip, then with the Xeons they offer the 6, 8, 10, 12, 18 etc core chips which are intended for servers, VM hosts, that kind of thing.

The performance difference between a 4C Xeon and a 4C i7 on the same platform, the same clock speed, is pretty much nothing, they'll perform absolutely identically. Xeons can utilise ECC memory but that's not really much help to Inventor, it'll still crash out with or without ECC RAM.

The main difference is back in the labs. The Xeons go through much higher stress testing, because they're designed for 24/7 server use in mission critical environments, they have much more lab time behind them hence the price premium.

There's more to it than all that, but the same spec Xeon to i7 will perform the same. A higher spec i7 will perform better than a lower spec Xeon, and vice versa.

TLDR; I'd never buy a Xeon for my home PC, but I'd always put a Xeon into an office workstation. Exactly the same applies to Quadros vs GeForce.

Re: Purchasing the best Xeon Processor for a single workstation

mcgyvr — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 20:05:57 GMT

Neil,

Thanks for the good explanation there..

I just stated what I did above because it could save the OP quite a bit of money vs them thinking the xeon is going to perform better because its more expensive..

Processor speed is king..

Re: Purchasing the best Xeon Processor for a single workstation

Neil_Cross — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 20:16:51 GMT

@mcgyvr wrote:

Neil,

Thanks for the good explanation there..

I just stated what I did above because it could save the OP quite a bit of money vs them thinking the xeon is going to perform better because its more expensive..

Processor speed is king..

Yea good shout too. If it was my money I think I'd be looking at the highest spec i7 in budget rather than lose some performance paying for that Xeon premium.

Actually with my money I'm waiting for the Kaby Lake architecture to release next year, I need to knock @mdavis22569 off the top of the performance charts!

Re: Purchasing the best Xeon Processor for a single workstation

Ray_Feiler — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 20:18:26 GMT

Maybe this will help.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

Re: Purchasing the best Xeon Processor for a single workstation

mdavis22569 — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 22:06:15 GMT

@Neil_Cross wrote:

@mcgyvr wrote:

Neil,

Thanks for the good explanation there..

I just stated what I did above because it could save the OP quite a bit of money vs them thinking the xeon is going to perform better because its more expensive..

Processor speed is king..

Actually with my money I'm waiting for the Kaby Lake architecture to release next year, I need to knock @mdavis22569 off the top of the performance charts!

LOL ... I'm planning my next one too. However on a serious note, ty for the information. I'm not a 100% familiar with the Xeon's ... I'm just use to my comfort zone of I-series.

I think the new Nvidia Pascal Architecture is going to help make things run smoother as well...

Re: Purchasing the best Xeon Processor for a single workstation

Neil_Cross — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 22:15:02 GMT

Certainly won't do any harm, however when I upgraded from a 970 to 1070 I noticed precisely exactly zero improvement in Inventor performance, but it won't have gone backwards that's for sure. The increase in VRAM is where it's at for what Inventor needs.

I very nearly quickly upgraded again to the new Titan but at £1000, I figured I best wait to see if they drop a 1080Ti first. Dual 1080Ti's mmmmm

Re: Purchasing the best Xeon Processor for a single workstation

Anonymous — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 03:08:11 GMT

Thank you all for your suggestions. I'm new to the form and should have posted my question to 3ds MAX and not the Inventor group. I copied my question to the MAX Q&A.

I'll do some comparisons b/w the ES-1650 V3 and the I7 family. It may be worth using the 6800K for the next year and then upgrading.

I'm going to wait it out until January, so any thoughts are always appreciated.

Best,

Richard

www.richardsherdigitalart.com

Re: Purchasing the best Xeon Processor for a single workstation

Neil_Cross — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 08:56:50 GMT

Yea 3DS Max could have a completely different set of requirements to Inventor, so any advice we give on a spec optimised for Inventor might not be appropriate or the best for the money for Max.

I found this post, it's a few years old but there's a guy in here who clearly knows his CUDA cores from his stream processors, so there could be some valuable info in this post for you http://forums.cgarchitect.com/75337-3ds-max-gpu-impact-rendering-gpu-vs-cpu.html regarding hardware choice for Max.

Good luck.

p.s. Really nice portfolio you have there, very different and unique.