Which config is better or would you rather have?

mknabster

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Jul 31, 2012
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I'm looking at upgrading my main machine which has 1x 2.83Ghz Core2Quad Q9550 with 8GB of RAM, the rest doesn't matter for this posting, at least to me it doesn't. So i'm looking into investing in a newer machine, and i see two options for their configs. One of them has 2x 2.8Ghz Xeon Quad X5560 with 8MB cache and 24GB RAM, while the other has 2x 2.66Ghz Xeon Hex X5650 with 12MB cache and 24GB RAM. Which should I choose?

If you're asking what I do with my computer, I do Photoshop, Illustrator, and Premiere Pro work, along with gaming and video conversion. Lately, after upgrading to a Canon EOS 5D MK III, sinc the RAW files are much larger than my last camera, I have noticed a slow-down in how it handles the files. Thanks
 
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All other things being equal I'd take the Dual X5650 (hex) over the Dual X5560 (quad). Despite the model numbers being so similar, the X5650 is from a newer generation than the X5560 (source: http://ark.intel.com/compare/37109,47922)

The Quad core CPUs will likely edge out the Hexa core CPUs in single or lightly threaded workloads due to higher peak turbo clocks**, but in anything well threaded, the extra cores will trump the slight clockspeed difference. Assuming you're using modern versions of your Adobe products, (CS6 or CS Cloud) you should see overwhelming benefits from the extra cores.

In addition to the performance question, the 32nm are likely more energy efficient. At idle they should draw less. At full load they'll...
All other things being equal I'd take the Dual X5650 (hex) over the Dual X5560 (quad). Despite the model numbers being so similar, the X5650 is from a newer generation than the X5560 (source: http://ark.intel.com/compare/37109,47922)

The Quad core CPUs will likely edge out the Hexa core CPUs in single or lightly threaded workloads due to higher peak turbo clocks**, but in anything well threaded, the extra cores will trump the slight clockspeed difference. Assuming you're using modern versions of your Adobe products, (CS6 or CS Cloud) you should see overwhelming benefits from the extra cores.

In addition to the performance question, the 32nm are likely more energy efficient. At idle they should draw less. At full load they'll probably draw a similar amount of power (based on TDP) but assuming the Hexa cores complete the task more quickly you'd get race-to-idle benefits. Assuming you threw a fixed load at both systems (say enough to load 4 cores) I'd expect the Hexa core to draw less power.

**Edit: I did some further reading (here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/2960/2) and it looks like due to the larger unified L3 cache in the hexa-core, you may still see better perf in lightly threaded workloads compared to the quad, even with a clockspeed deficit. Also, that article basically explores your question, except for a 1 socket system rather than a 2 socket system.

Edit 2: More of just an FYI, looks like 1 of these Hexa core CPUs will still stand up well against a non-Hyper-Threaded Haswell quad-core.
 
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Thank you for your helpful reply MyCommunistGen, that's exactly what i was looking for. I would be running Win 7x64 with CS6, though i am currently running Win7x64 with CS5.5 and i'm having problems, though that is with a single quad core machine. Thanks