Difference between i7 and Xeon in detail.

[Rojlani]

Hello Everyone,

I will be composing a rig: ASRock Z97 Extreme4; Palit GTX 950 (Ti) ; CPU ?

My question is, if i should get the i7-5770T or the Xeon E3-1265L v4.

(The under-level of the GPU is because of the passive cooling, which is a must.)

The machine will be used for gaming and working (3D Sculpting, 3D Animating, 3D Rendering and Video editing).

With the i7 will maybe the integrated Graphics, in the presence of the dedicated one, be useless, or it won't?

So i think it would be better if we discuss the Haswell versions of the ones i mind. That is, i7-4770T & Xeon E3-1265L v3.

According to cpubenchmark.net the first Haswell versions (not the refresh) are: i7 - 8.794; Xeon - 8.859. (I don't know either if these scores are for gaming, for working or for both.)

Since i have some small understanding of PC electronics, would i very much like to know why the Xeon CPUs are better for work and the i7s for gaming. I mean, with what exactly?

Thanks

 

[Nextg_Rival]

i7 - K series are overclockable, multi and hyper threaded CPUs.
Xeons - just like i7s except that they aren't overclockable and can withstand 24/7 use.

EDIT: Yes, the integrated graphics are useless when you have dedicated graphics. The Xeons are just as good for gaming as the i7s, they are just not overclockable. Also, does a GTX 950 Ti even exist yet? (Answer is no, it does not.)

 

[Rojlani]

I don't plan to overclock. The GTX 950 should come somewhere with Broadwell. Come more in detail please.

 

[drtweak]

here is a quick break of the Con's and Pro's of each one.

http://www.velocitymicro.com/blog/xeon-vs-i7i5-whats-difference/

If you plan on doing some 3D Rendering the Xeon may be a little better.

 

[Nextg_Rival]

I don't know what more detail you want, as that's pretty much the only difference. Xeons can work for longer with no breaks because they were designed for servers, but also can not be overclocked for the same reason. Otherwise they are basically the same.

 

[Rojlani]

With the 24/7 of Xeons, what is the component that is most likely to brake on long-term usage. The Motherboard is with 12-Power-Phase-Design and i hope this will help. And what components would you recomment for such usage - with something specific?

 

[Nextg_Rival]

I doubt you'll find any test data on the internet including long term 24/7 stress test performance of many different components. However, generally the less power consumption and overheating, the longer a component's life. Therefore, GPUs like the new Maxwell architecture and to be more specific with an affordable and powerful example, the GTX 970 should last longer. G.Skill makes the best RAM, regardless of the series and finally for the motherboard I could possibly suggest Gigabyte Z97 Gaming 5. Any Antec Bronze or higher PSU which is remotely bigger than the requirements with 100-200W should do the trick.

 

[synphul]

That was a simple comparison and all but it was a bit inaccurate and in other areas misleading. It jumped around all over the place comparing xeons to i7's, they both have very different extremes which may or may not apply. The fact there are 16 core xeons has no bearing on the typical choices most consumers are making. If people are comparing socket 1150 xeons to i7's, that's all null and void. The 6, 8, 12 core etc xeons aren't for the 1150 platform. They also don't have any more l3 cache than the i7's at that point either. Some xeons on the 1150 like the e3-1276v3 do in fact have the same igpu as i7 4790k's.

I would suggest if someone's looking to compare, first off pick the platform - 1150, 2011v3 etc. Then compare processors within their budget (both above and below by a little) and look at the specs via intel's ark. Most any modern cpu's can handle 24/7 use, I've even used older cpu's in excess of 6yrs in a machine that's on 24/7 without a problem. As for computing 24/7 most people don't need this unless they have very specific niche needs - and then they usually know what hardware they'll need for those things.

There are several variations of xeon on just the 1150 platform alone so it would be good to have a read through their specs. Some have igpu's some don't, some have advanced instructions that may or may not be benefical - for instance between the xeon and i7 models I referred to earlier in this post, the xeon has the capability to use flex memory which will allow different sized sticks of memory to still run in dual channel while the i7 does not. Tedious differences, but differences none the less.

Treating a budget xeon like it's godly because wayyy up the food chain xeon's are total powerhouses could very well be misleading and have people purchasing something without realizing why or what exactly they're getting. It's not as if someone's getting a 12 core xeon for less than a quad core i7 or as if it has oodles of cache vs the i7 for less money and it's just some little known secret that no one knows about.

My first question in all of this is, why the need for passive cooling? Especially given the intended uses, both of these chips are severely underperforming compared to the standard desktop counterpart and at really high prices. It's going to cost a lot for a somewhat underwhelming system in both graphics work listed and in gaming.

 

[Nextg_Rival]

Xeon 1234 v3 is a pretty good Xeon and is comparable to i7.

 

[drtweak]

With the 24/7 of Xeons, what is the component that is most likely to brake on long-term usage. The Motherboard is with 12-Power-Phase-Design and i hope this will help. And what components would you recomment for such usage - with something specific?

In my experience the two component to break first are ususaly either the PSU or Hard Drive. Don't have too many issues with Motherboards, nearly Zero issues with CPU's (No matter what CPU it is and usually that goes back because of the Motherboard or PSU blows out) and RAM can be a hit or miss at times too. But usually PSU and RAM are what go out the most from what I expereince so as far as what will last longer the i7 or the Zeon. Well i know people still pushing PIII's with out issue still and Xeons in dell servers from 2005 that work perfectly just they can't keep up with the work load.

 

[Rojlani]

The Passive cooling is meant:
1. not to annoy the me, resulting as nose in the music and then in work non-optimization
2. not to give the me solid grounds in future to buy a new rig, as i won't say "stupid old PC", because it will still be silent. (After a big thinking i hope nVidia's Pascal with its stacked DRAM will set harder cooling areas. So Maxwell should last quite long till a Passive cooling could be added to a Pascal.)

As of the CPU, i guess i will go for the i7 because many do so. The budget is unlimited (planned €1600), the goal is Passive cooling, and thats all. If someone can recommend something . . .

Yet , thanks for the answers .

 

[synphul]

Well the reason I asked why the passive cooling is so I can understand your goals. It looks like you want a nice quiet pc and that's very doable with coolers and fans. If you're able to still have a quiet pc using fans it will allow you the option to use regular desktop cpu's rather than the expensive low power versions and get much better performance for the cost. Even using aftermarket coolers, your cost on the cpu's would be a bit lower than the expensive low power versions and you'll get much faster choices in either xeon or i7.

People immediately think of cooling fans being loud and annoying and it doesn't have to be that way. Cheap or low quality (sometimes not cheap in price) fans can be loud, whining, humming etc. and be disruptive. Good quality fans will move a decent amount of air and still remain very quiet.

I like this particular video only because it shows just how quiet fans can be. The person in the video puts his microphone right up to the fans and just so you know it's working properly, drops a small pin and at that point you can tell just how quiet the fans are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aDID5S41_A

If you think it's still too loud, then it makes perfect sense to go low power and silent/fanless. Just be aware it's going to be at a performance cost and run the same or more money.

 

[Rojlani]

Well yes, i have some experience with silent fans. Still, i want the noise to be 0 (have in mind, that the pin dropped, if that was a constant fan-noise, would be super-ultra loud for a PC) But comparing the benchmarks, a GTX 950 Ti should be as a GTX 480. So a GTX ~1450 should be as the GTX 980. That are ~6 years. I am with a 8600 GT and am used to have an outdated PC.

The 4770T is behind of the 4770K with ~20% and has ~180% the efficiency. The new GPU is ~1800% of mine, and is half the GTX 980.

My question is if the Benchmarks are only for gaming, or and for work.