CPU Comparrison: 2.6GHz Xeon vs 3.06GHz Pentium 4

GeoffCampbell wrote on 6/16/2003, 6:03 PM

For VV4 will a Xeon 2.6GHz chip out perform a 3.06GHz Pentium 4 chip with hyper-Threading technology. I was told the Xeon chip is better, because it has a larger cache.
Any thoughts, suggestions, or knowledge, would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks very much.

I_Need_Help
Tony

Comments

Surge wrote on 6/17/2003, 5:02 PM

Most Xeons (currently shipping) have a 512k cache just like their Pentium 4 brothers. Xeons are currently only available on 400 or 533Mhz FSB speeds. They offer hyper-threading, but the new Pentium 4 "C"s do as well. Xeons differentiate themselves from the P4 line by running on "server" and "workstation" chipsets that offer things like multiple processors and ECC memory. I think you best performance move would be to buy the new Pentium 4 "C" 3.0Ghz. It supports hyper-threading, and a front side bus speed of 800Mhz. With the front side bus jump to 800Mhz from 533, the P4c 3.0Ghz out performs the 3.06Ghz(533Mhz FSB). Either of these chips would out perform a single 2.6Ghz Xeon.

Surge

BillyBoy wrote on 6/17/2003, 6:06 PM

I agree that for most cases buying Xeons is probably overkill if you going to mainly use your computer for video editing. As Surge said the new "C" Pentium chips are supported by a similar chipset and can outperform the more expensive chip in some tasks. When you factor in the more costly chips, a more expensive MB you get more bang for your buck using the newer "C" series. I would use the money saved to buy a better grade of memory or a bigger drive. You can never have too big a hard drive.