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bigcahunak · September 14th, 2004

Elliot.
I wont be getting into the philosophic discussion of "should we be sponsoring firms like autodesk..." as I also tend to get somewhat pissed...
If we need those duals vs. singles - 95% of the time we DON'T, but during those 5% when you do your materials and lighting test over and over again... it is much nicer.
The single CPU chipset are always more powerfull. whatever works there (technology wise) finds its way to the workstation arena. A 4GHZ XEON will most likely be released months after a single P4 at that speed.
But for your topic:
For Solidworks I dont know but I assume it doesnt really matter.
For VIZ Xeons are better, but thats about the only program which is faster on xeons vs. opterons. Opterons also scale better than Xeons. Adding a second Opteron to the first one in a system would result in an avarage 22% performance bost, While Xeons are around 17% (accept for MAX/VIZ).
What is very important about duals vs. singles and cant be benchmarked is the feel. Multitasking becomes a breeze, and doing Photoshop work while VIZ renders doesnt feel like something is gonna freeze or crash on you... Its that confident feedback you get from your machine when you put your load on it.
I still think you can shave a lot of $$$ from that list you had at the top, and still stay with Xeons which I think is a good pick.

September 14th, 2004	#6 (permalink)
bigcahunak Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Israel Age: 36 Posts: 820 Name: Itzik Kelner	Re: Ideal Workstation Configuration Elliot. I wont be getting into the philosophic discussion of "should we be sponsoring firms like autodesk..." as I also tend to get somewhat pissed... If we need those duals vs. singles - 95% of the time we DON'T, but during those 5% when you do your materials and lighting test over and over again... it is much nicer. The single CPU chipset are always more powerfull. whatever works there (technology wise) finds its way to the workstation arena. A 4GHZ XEON will most likely be released months after a single P4 at that speed. But for your topic: For Solidworks I dont know but I assume it doesnt really matter. For VIZ Xeons are better, but thats about the only program which is faster on xeons vs. opterons. Opterons also scale better than Xeons. Adding a second Opteron to the first one in a system would result in an avarage 22% performance bost, While Xeons are around 17% (accept for MAX/VIZ). What is very important about duals vs. singles and cant be benchmarked is the feel. Multitasking becomes a breeze, and doing Photoshop work while VIZ renders doesnt feel like something is gonna freeze or crash on you... Its that confident feedback you get from your machine when you put your load on it. I still think you can shave a lot of $$$ from that list you had at the top, and still stay with Xeons which I think is a good pick.