Which Xeons for max Photoshop performance in HP z420

[iangreenhalgh]

Hi folks

I just acquired a barebones HP z420, needs CPU, Memory, GPU and drives.

I'm currently running a HP z400 so I'm just gonna swap over the components, other than the CPU.

So I need to chose a Xeon for the z420, and I set a tight budget of 50ukp. Not having a suitable cpu to fire the machine up, I can't check if it has the 2011 or 2013 boot block, only the 2013 revision supports v2 CPUs, so I'm sticking to what will definitely work.

Checking ebay, this is what is currently available:

e5-1603 - 10ukp
e5-1620 - 40ukp
e5-2609 - 10ukp
e5-2637 - 24ukp
e5-2643 - 50ukp
e5-4617 - 49ukp
e5-4620 - 37ukp

Quite a variety of chips there, from the 2-core 2637 to the 8-core 4620. Photoshop performance is the important thing for me, and PS along with 3rd party plugins are very single-threaded, so I think single thread performance rather than many cores is probably what I need, so I looked at Passmark single thread scores:

e5-1603 - 1471 (4 cores, 2.8Ghz)
e5-1620 - 1932 (4 cores, 3.6Ghz)
e5-2609 - 1215 (4 cores, 2.4Ghz)
e5-2637 - 1841 (2 cores, 3.0Ghz)
e5-2643 - 1796 (4 cores, 3.3Ghz)
e5-4617 - 1497 (6 cores, 2.9Ghz)
e5-4620 - 1232 (8 cores, 2.2Ghz)

My current W3530 with 4 cores at 2.8Ghz and 12Gb of triple channel DDR3 has a Passmark single thread rating of 1197, I'm going to be using 32Gb (8x4) of ECC reg DDR3 in the z420, which means four memory channels, so that will boost performance somewhat, but I'd also like a processor that is notably faster than my old W3530.

Looking at the list of E5s, the e5-1620 looks like the fastest with a Passmark of 1932, with the e5-2637 and e5-2643 being the next two fastest options.

So what would be the best choice - a e5-1620 for maximum single thread performance or an e5-4620 for it's 8 cores, more cache etc?

 

[iamacow]

How you know the V2 chips are supported in that computer? The X79/2011 platform is dated and the fastest CPU 8CORE is actually slower than a overclocked 4core i7 7700K.

I had a E5 2680 for a while. It got roughly 1k in Cinebench 15. Might want to look into those.

 

[iangreenhalgh]

The z420 with the 2013 boot block supports v2 processors, the older models with the 2011 boot block don't, I found this on the HP support forum.

My budget is limited to 50ukp, I doubt I will find a e5-2680 for that price.

The highest single thread scores I could find for the 5 series is the 2687W with a passmark of 2033, but that's an expensive chip, and not much faster in single threads than a humble E5-1620 with a passmark of 1932.

I'm just seeking confirmation that I am right in making my choice based on single thread scores or should I be taking into account other things like number of cores, amount of cache etc.

 

[iamacow]

Your right the 2680 is expensive now. A few years ago you could get 2 for 60ukp. That is how I got mine.

I would jut get a 1650 since its equivalent to a i7 3930K.

But if you are poor I found this 4617 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon-E5-4617-Sandy-Bridge-2-9GHz-15MB-LGA2011-6-Core-Server-Processor-CPU/302714733873?epid=1022847815&hash=item467b344531:g:rIMAAOSwEaNa3eLV