Rendering: Xeon X5550 vs newer i7

[nicktyelor]

Thinking of building a PC for rendering (Maxwell and VRay for Rhino) and it needs to be decently beefy. Dad found this : http:// which has a Xeon X5550 clocked at 2.66 GHz with hyper threading, 4GB Ram etc. It's a good price, but I'm afraid it will be too weak. The clock speed is relatively low compared to the mid 3GHz newer i7s are getting. Can anyone recommend either one or give a pros and cons of both?

 

[logainofhades]

The newer chips would be faster. You could look into a Xeon 1230v3. They are reasonably priced compared to an i7 4770 and will perform similar to one as they are just an i7 without IGP and some added features.