Q9550 (2.83GHz) vs E5530 (2.26GHz)?

[Vimeous]

Which of the above mentioned CPU's will be faster for a single threaded app?

Will the older 2.83GHz be faster or the next-gen 2.4GHz?

I ask as they're similar price in the workstation I have to spec and I don't know enough of the E55xx series CPU's to know the answer.

EDIT - Corrected E5530 clockspeed

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The E5530 runs a 2.4ghz:

http://ark.intel.com/cpu.aspx?groupId=37103

I would go for the E5530 personally. In some applications the Q9550 maybe faster and in others the E5530 would be faster. However since the E5530 is a quad core with multithreading it will be faster in multithreaded applications.

[Vimeous]

Good point - misread the details.

This is for 3 apps.
WorkNC is for calculating toolpaths and the most intensive.
Visi 16
CATIA V5 the most graphically intensive.
Expect to run WorkNC at all times (day and night) with Visi during the day. CATIA will be occasional.

The most important thing is to nail down the WorkNC calculation time which is heavily CPU dependant.
The E5530's slower clock does concern as does the hit in gfx terms, I'd have to go from an FX1700 in the Q9550 to a FX580 in the E5530. Thing is CATIA is the least concern and the only one that requires the workstation gfx so it's somewhat less of an issue.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The E5530's slower clock does concern as does the hit in gfx terms, I'd have to go from an FX1700 in the Q9550 to a FX580 in the E5530.

You cannot compare the E5530 and the Q9550 directtly as the former is much faster clock for clock than the latter and is a very different architechure. I would look for comparisons of the 2.66ghz Core i7 920 to the Q9550 for an indication of how fast it is(the E5530 is clocked 10% slower than the Core i7 920).

The E5530 and Cor i7 920 have exactly the same Nehalem architechure IRC:

http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollecti...codeName=33163

http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollecti...codeName=28102

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehalem...oarchitecture)

The Nehalem based Xeons have a lower TDP and higher QPI speed.

[badass]

At best, the 2.83 GHz Q9500 will be a little bit faster. At worst, it will be less than half the performance. The Nehalem Xeons are anything up to 3 times faster at server like operations at the same clockspeed as the Core2 CPU's
I'd personally go for the E5530 unless I have seen benchmarks comparing the two for your workloads and the Core2Q is quicker.

[Vimeous]

CAT very useful links there.
badass ta for your input.

Those links tell me something significant.

We know the i920 kicks the Q9550.
From the links the W3520 is essential the same spec as the i920.
From my costings the E5530 is £270exVAT more than the W3520.

I reckon then a W3520 with a FX1800 (FX1700 not an option) would probably offer the best single threaded performance vs the graphical output despite the drop from 5.86 to 4.8GT/s.

Time for a requote

[Vimeous]

Ended up going for a W3540 (2.93GHz) and the FX580.
Our usage of CATIA doesn't warrant more than the basic Quadro card so a faster CPU it is!