i7 vs Xeon for Adobe CS5 users

[idata]

Soon I must buy two identcal PC's for Adobe CS5

I know that much CS5 speed can be gained, by using a Nvidia card which has CUDA technology; this is much faster than any CPU based technology.

However, I think I need the fastest CPU's there are, since not everthing is CUDA accelerated.

I was thinking about something like a HP Z800 or a Boxxtech machine.

Some say Xeons are not the best for video and graphics, i7 would be better.

If I am correct, Adobe assigns 3 Gb per CPU core.

A Xeon system would have 2x4=8 cores I guess, resulting in 24 Gb being usefull.

A i7 can have 2x6=12 cores maybe? That would give 36 Gb really working.

The more RAM the better, really After Effects is an extreme RAM hog.

Please give this noob some advice or try to answer my questions:

What is the fastest processor for rendering video (not encoding, that's something different!)?

Is my cores vs Gb story correct?

Any constructive comment is very welcome!

Cheers,

Geoff Vane

[idata]

I've seen this Nvidia movie on Youtube, in which there is an 8 core 16 thread CPU.

Is that an i9 or a very expensive Xeon? Who knows this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xso6CGdsl2c http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xso6CGdsl2c

[idata]

There is an eight-core, 16-thread processor in existence - a very expensive Socket LGA1567 Xeon intended for use in MP servers. It is sold as the 65xx and 75xx series Xeons. That processor will not fit desktop or workstation boards at all.

Other than that, the system described in the NVIDIA video is likely a dual-Xeon W55xx workstation system (two processors per system board) The W55xx series processors use the same LGA1366 socket as the i7-9xx series processors.

[idata]

Thanks for the reply

>> You say expensive: How expensive is that?

>> What computer would be able to take this mysterious CPU?

>> So you say I'm probably looking at a dual Xeon movie here. Is there not a six core Xeon so I can build a 12 core PC? And, to get back to my question, what is the best choice for Adobe CS5: iX or Xeon?

[idata]

To answer the first question, the least expensive of those eight-core Xeon 7500 series, the X7550, costs more than $3,000. That's as expensive as or more expensive than many complete dual-Xeon-W55xx-powered video editing workstations just for the processor alone!

To answer the third question: Yes, there is a six-core, 12-thread Xeon called the X56xx series. It uses the same socket as the i7-9xx series processors (LGA1366). However, the X56xx costs 65% more (at the same clock speed, although slower-clocked versions of the X56xx can be found for somewhat less than the 3.33GHz X5680) than that of the 3.33GHz i7-980X processor - but the extra cost goes into a processor which can be used with another identical processor on the same system board.

Which goes back to Adobe's minimum requirements for Premiere Pro CS5: Adobe has loosened its minimums just to run that program. Even though a more powerful processor and more memory are better, CS5 needs only a Core 2 Duo processor and 2GB of RAM to run. Thus, you can't go wrong with an i7 or dual-Xeon system (as long as you have 4GB or more RAM) because CS5 is more efficient than CS4 ever was.

[idata]

Thanks RJL; lots of clear info. The price of such a processor is no problem, but it seems I can get a configuration just as fast for less money. So, that would be better.

I know I can't go wrong with a i7 or dual Xeon, but I have been working for about 13 years as media graphist and I found out that yesterdays fast machine is slow tomorrow. I must find out, which processor architecture is best suited. Some say Xeon focus on even ditribution of their power. I guess I don't need that, but that's a gut feeling, not very objective. I reckon I need CPU's that give everything to their current task without thinking about even loads.

If you can describe how Xeons and iX differ, that would be great. If you know what is best, that would be optimum!

Is there a possibility to have a dual i7 or can only a Xeon be doubled?

[PCarl2]

Hi Geoff,

Spending tons of money on CPUs is not going to dramatically improve rendering performance for a CS5 machine. If you are trying see a difference with Encore or Premiere Pro, you're may want to approach this build entirely different. You can do a power i5 or i7 and have enough CPU performance. The most important items you should throw money at would be a graphics card that supports Mercury Playback Engine & lots of memory. A desktop motherboard that maxes out at 16GB of RAM would be a good workstation. However; if you really want to have a high-end rendering workstation, you should select the Intel S5520SCR motherboard paired with the Intel SC5650WS case. You should select a Nvidia Quadro FX 5800 or 4800 GPU for the best rendering performance. I recommend 2 Xeons with two 8GB memory module for each CPU to start. This motherboard scales up to 96. This will be a great foundation machine that will last you a very long time. This will start you off with 32GB of RAM. 2 middle of the road Xeons would be suffice. This will be an awesome machine for redendering.