I3 vs Dell Precision 670 Xeon w/ 2x 3.6GHz

[liuzx]

Hi experts,
going to DIY a desktop, think of i3, Asus/Gigabyte mobo, limited budget ~$400.-

Usage SOHO: mainly Photoshop, will learn Premier in a few months. Leisure will listen/burn some CDs/DVDs, watch net TV, e-mail,....but little gaming.

But, there is a second hand Dell Precision 670 with 2x Xeon 3.6G, 4G ECC RAM, Quadro1300 PCIe display. And is 2/3 of my budget. Wow!! 680W.

Could somebody give some advise please. Thank you!

 

[metalicaman8]

i3 will rape the performance of 2 xenon 3.6

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i3+530+@+2.93GHz

+Intel+Xeon+3.60GHz]http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=[Dual+CPU]+Intel+Xeon+3.60GHz

 

[enzo matrix]

The only Xeon 3.6GHz single-core processor I know of is based on the netburst (same as the pentium 4). This is old. Consider that even a core 2 based processor or even an Athlon II processor would outperform it at a lower clockspeed (under 3GHz)

 

[liuzx]

Best answer selected by liuzx.

 

[king smp]

The only Xeon 3.6GHz single-core processor I know of is based on the netburst (same as the pentium 4). This is old. Consider that even a core 2 based processor or even an Athlon II processor would outperform it at a lower clockspeed (under 3GHz)

With all respect you are wrong. On 3dmark03 my 2 x Xeon 3.2 533fsb/1mb l3 with an OC'd 7600 gpu scores approx 9600 which matches up to many of the core 2 and athlon x 2 processors.
On the other hand if he has the budget for the I3 then that would definitely be a better build but if he needs to save money then 670 would easily do what he is looking to do with it.

 

[24bit]

I have both machines. The bottom line is that the Xeon's will do what you want as already mentioned. In a real world application the Dell kicks the i3's butt in my opinion and I use it for numbercrunching (stats - large volumes of data) and graphics rendering, stuff that you have to let run for half a day or over night sometimes, and the Xeon, to me and regardless of benchmarks, is by far the superior set up all else equal. That said, if you were doing some moderate multitasking and no rendering/photoshop etc at the same time as you watch tv etc, the i3 might be the way to go. I just saw a dell 670 with 2x 2.4 Xeons and 6gb ram for under 150.00 somewhere...that is a deal. My workplace bought this machine in 2005 and was a cool $5 grand ( I know it's not 2005 anymore but most basic computer / consumer needs are not that much different than in 05 people). By the time you get tired of it, you will be able to get an i7 extreme machine for 400. My vote is for Xeon workstation at under $400 (make sure you get the Dual cpus, some sellers on "the bay" are taking one out and selling with one chip, just be aware.