4 ms·
That's not correct. Sandy Bridge was a huge performance jump over Westmere, with ~50% performance for most applications on equivalent models between these two g
by hhw 11y ago
That's not correct. Sandy Bridge was a huge performance jump over Westmere, with ~50% performance for most applications on equivalent models between these two generations. A first gen E5 2640 should handily outperform the X5690, and a current gen (v3) E5 2620 would even outperform that.
http://cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html http://cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html
Obviously, the upfront cost of the older hardware is still better value when ignoring power consumption, but the v3 will also support much more and faster RAM, PCI-E 3.0, USB 3.0, and other newer technologies which will matter more as time goes on. You'll also have the option of a CPU only upgrade to higher end E5 v3's or even E5 v4's at a later point in time when those CPU models are more affordable.
- jotm 11y agoI totally missed the fact that the HP Z620/820 supports v2 and v3 E5s. That definitely makes it a better choice for future upgrades. The X5690 is comparable to the first generation E5-2640 (slightly slower), and the X5670 is comparable to the E5-2620. Even the first gen E5 has the AVX instruction set, 4 memory channels (vs 3 for the Westmere-EP) and a faster QPI, so it might have better performance in certain applications.
- hhw 11y agoSorry, I didn't meant to imply the Z620/820 supports v3. Just pointing out that the performance jump in Sandy Bridge was significant. v1 and v2 are socket compatible, but v3 is not socket compatible with the earlier versions, but will likely be compatible with v4 (Intel socket changes usually happen only every other generation). I'd suggest going all new with even a low end E5 2620v3 if you can, which you could for everything other than the GPUs for under 1700 (based on a Supermicro workstation build).