Two dual Xeon E5-2650 V2 vs One Ryzen 7 2700X or Core i7-8700K

[mmahmudhasan]

Hi Guys,
I am planning to build a new home workstation rig for my software development /gaming/VR purpose. I am considering building a new machine with Ryzen 7 2700x or i7-8700K with somewhat reasonable graphics card from gtx 1060 to gtx 1080ti (have not decided yet).

However, few days ago, I saw some refurbished Dell Precision T5600 with Dual E5-2560 v2 (2.0 ghz) in sale for 700 AUD. That made me thinking if I can buy one of these and upgrade it with SSD and graphics card and get similar performance for my day to day work.

I am a software developer, mainly work in computer graphics application, VR and have some interest in machine learning and deep learning. occasionally will play games. But while developing VR apps, it is crucial that I get good frame rate out of my machine.

I was trying to compare performance of these Xeon cpu with two other candidates (Ryzen 7 2700x and i7-8700K). According to CPU benchmark site CPU mark for these cpus are as follows:

Xeon E5-2650: 10149
Ryzen 7 2700X: 16965
i7-8700K: 15966

But the Dell T5600 I am looking at has two E5-2650, which may not double my cpu performance but I think it could get close to single ryzen 7 2700X ot i7-8700K performance. Also, Dell comes with 32 GB ECC DD3 memory and being a pro verson component, it should be super stable. So considering the price + upgrade cost, to me it seemed positive. However, I am still confused and wanted to what the community think about it.

Any suggestion, comment on it?

Here is the comparison from CPUbenchmark.net

 

[volkgren]

Synthetic benchmarks are one thing, but gaming performance is another. Gaming (and even VR) usually takes in to account single-core speed as well as some multi-core. Most games today are using 8 CPU threads or less. Dual-CPUs won't really help any more than the single CPU as far as gaming goes.

So it depends on which is more important, more ECC RAM and more cores/threads for development, or better VR and other gaming performance.

The older Xeons have very low single-core speed. Here's a comparison of a slightly faster E5-2670 V2 vs. an i7-8700K. https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Xeon-E5-2670-v2-vs-Intel-Core-i7-8700K/m18414vs3937

I'd go with the newer Ryzen 7 or i7 personally.

 

[mmahmudhasan]

Synthetic benchmarks are one thing, but gaming performance is another. Gaming (and even VR) usually takes in to account single-core speed as well as some multi-core. Most games today are using 8 CPU threads or less. Dual-CPUs won't really help any more than the single CPU as far as gaming goes.

So it depends on which is more important, more ECC RAM and more cores/threads for development, or better VR and other gaming performance.

The older Xeons have very low single-core speed. Here's a comparison of a slightly faster E5-2670 V2 vs. an i7-8700K. https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Xeon-E5-2670-v2-vs-Intel-Core-i7-8700K/m18414vs3937

I'd go with the newer Ryzen 7 or i7 personally.

I totally understand that in case of single thread performance, Ryzen 7 or Core i7 will be better. For gaming and VR performance there is no argument that Ryzen and Core i7 will show better performance. However, as I mentioned, my main use case is development, running, Visual studio, compiling, running multiple apps in the same time (visual studio, web browser, spotify, Unity or Unreal engine, MS word, Photoshop etc.) I will play game or test my 3d Apps that I am developing, but I don't need super high-performing gaming rig for that. For example, having a 90 FPS in VR is required. With a good GPU it should be achievable in Xeon machine.

So my confusion was, considering Xeon 2 cpu machine will give less performance in game and VR, will that be usable enough for my use case? Or should I be worried that I'll not get decent performance to do my not so intensive gaming and 3D application work. Moreover, having 16 core , will that give me any extra benefit while working on multiple application in the same time?

 

[larrycumming]

The E5-26XX v2 in dual cpu config will score about 2000-2800 in cinebench R15. If video editing or VMing is your main purpose, then they will do better than a single 2700X or 8700K. They work with DDR3 ECC RAMs that you can buy pretty cheaply so you can run a config with 64GB-128GB ECC RAM.

The best chip to get for price performance is probably E5-2680 V2 in that bunch.


For gaming 8700K is the best and then 2700X obviously because of higher clock rates.

 

[volkgren]

Which Xeon is it exactly you are referring to? First you say E5-2560 (which doesn't exist) 2.00GHz v2, then you say E5-2650 which does have a 2.00GHz variant that is not a v2.

If it's the old Sandy Bridge with a base clock of 2.00GHz and a max boost of 2.8GHz, I just don't see it being a very good option for 90fps VR.

 

[mmahmudhasan]

Which Xeon is it exactly you are referring to? First you say E5-2560 (which doesn't exist) 2.00GHz v2, then you say E5-2650 which does have a 2.00GHz variant that is not a v2.

If it's the old Sandy Bridge with a base clock of 2.00GHz and a max boost of 2.8GHz, I just don't see it being a very good option for 90fps VR.

I was talking about E5-2650 2,0 Ghz. Sorry for the Typo.
You are right, 2.0 Ghz is not the v2. I saw it somewhere in the net as V2 and never checked with the Ark.Intel site.
Now that I checked it, it's a sandy bridge (as you already mentioned), I think you are correct about 3D performance.