batsonaMaryland
join:2004-04-17
Ellicott City, MD Reviews:
 ·Vonage
 ·Verizon FiOS
| Similarly-priced Xeon & i7 (3gen): which one? Greetings --
I'm building a machine soon, and was wondering what the difference was (ie. pros/cons) of one over the other.
Quad-core Xeon, 95W, 8MB cache 3.2Ghz LGA1155 (~$310)
and
Quad-core i7 (3rdGen) 77W 8MB cache 3.4Ghz LGA1155 (~$310)
Apart from the obvious difference in power consumption & clock speed, what are the significant determining factors of using one over the other?
I'm building a home-server of sorts, for an ESXi server, maxed out at 32GB RAM. Video is not a priority. On-board is just fine... |
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JoelC707Premium
join:2002-07-09
Stone Mountain, GA
kudos:5 | You didn't specify specific model numbers but I'm going to guess E3-1235 for the Xeon and 3770 for the i7.
Here's the intel ARK comparison between the two: »ark.intel.com/compare/65719,52272
Basically it breaks down like this:
Cores/threads/cache - Tie
Base/max frequency - i7
Instruction set and extensions - Tie
Max memory/channels - Tie
Max memory speed - i7
Memory bandwidth - i7
ECC support - Xeon (duh lol)
Integrated graphics - i7 (maybe, not sure, Xeon has higher clocks but it's moot since its for a server...)
PCIe revision/# of lanes - i7
Virtualization related items - Tie
Demand Based Switching - Xeon
The Xeon also has some kind of improved MCH called Fast Memory Access and allows you to populate memory in differing sizes and keep dual channel (called Flex Memory Access). This last one isn't much of an issue if you're going to fully populate the RAM right off the bat.
Unless you need ECC support or demand based switching (very low power states), then I say go for the i7 as it has a few legs up on the Xeon otherwise. What motherboard are you planning on using? |
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batsonaMaryland
join:2004-04-17
Ellicott City, MD Reviews:
·Vonage
·Verizon FiOS
| Thanks -- I was looking for a good base comparison between the two. It looks like before the 'i' series came along, and we had Pentium Core2 Duo, the Xeon would have been a hands down winner, but now with the advent of i7, i5 and i3, it looks like i7 is a close running mate of the xeons... |
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JoelC707Premium
join:2002-07-09
Stone Mountain, GA
kudos:5 | I'm not positive but I believe all the "low end" Xeons that use the same socket at the desktop components are actually the same basic core as their desktop counterparts. Ones like the E3 or the older 3000 series are this way. Basically the two you are comparing are likely identical save for the MCH differences that allow the Xeon to access ECC RAM. The E5/E7 or 5000/7000 series are a separate and unique core and likely to be different from the E3/i7. They usually have more cache and faster bus speeds to name some obvious differences. |
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