2x i7 920 vs Dual Xeon E5520- advise please

[branskyj]

Hi all,
Did some digging around and found some helpful topics in other forums but I guess this is the best place to ask. My current options are:

1. Buying two systems i7 920 2.66GHz each and adding them to my current two other systems as rendering nodes in a LAN network.
2. Buying a single system with a dual-CPU motherboard and two Xeons E5520 2.26GHz each on it (again it will be added to my current two other systems as rendering node through a LAN network).

I need to elaborate that I do not intend to overclock neither system nor I am interested in playing games. Price difference is not an issue (meaning I am satisfied with what 2x E5520 on a specialized motherboard cost at the moment but not willing to spend more on a better chip). The only interest I have is cutting down rendering times.
Which of the above options is better suited for that purpose? I checked some benchmarks (randomcontrol's frybench, 3dspeedmachine, cpubenchmark and other) but they compare 2x Xeon E5520 to 1x i7 920 and I do not know if adding a second i7 920 means doubling the existing score of a single one.
Is there anything special about having two Xeons E5520 on a single motherboard and running at 2.26GHz each that will overcome having two separate i7 920 2.66GHz each?

Any help is greatly appreciated.
Thanks you.

[branskyj]

No suggestions?

[Da_elf]

you sure your on the right forum?

[branskyj]

Well, Da_elf, I would assume that VRay users use different hardware and somebody might share some experience. Plus, that is the only forum accessible for me as a " non-V-Ray customer". So yes- I am as sure as I can be.

[crazy homeless guy]

Well, I use both those processors, though the 5520 Xeon is on a single processor board. My 920 out preforms the 5520 on the Cinebench test. So I would vote for 2 920 systems, over a dual core 5520 for keeping rendering time down... in theory distribute rendering on the 920's would give the best performance out of the two, and give you better flexibility by allowing you to work and render on different machines if need be.

http://forums.cgarchitect.com/40019-...tml#post277561

[raymarcher]

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/ here you can see nice comparisions

[branskyj]

Thank you so much for the help, guys. I actually checked already cpubenchmark results, but was a little confused about some of them. Crazy homeless guy, that is some precious info from you- I decided to go with two i7 920.
Thanks a lot for the help guys.
Cheers.

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Hyea

I had that dilema few months ago. What is better 2x xeon or 4ghz i7. The answer depends what you are doing. If you have fumefx/real flow/physic(one pc taskas) calculation then of course xeon but atleaste E5530+(they oc to 2.5ghz/20ghzin total). These processes cant go throught network. Also if you are doing many pre renders, optymalizing shaders/scene etc etc Xeon will be faster too. However if you already do have strong workstation for your max work and only need Render fam then I suggest i7. I am thinking of making a mini (10/20) rack server farm based on i7. Buil up i7 system for 500-700£ stick it to rack tower with other 10 of it and OC to 4 ghz minimum. Get ReFaMo - amazing network manager for max and etc, wake on lan and you are set to go. Great power menagment and loads of hourse power.

Also if you do the math you will see that 2x i7 give more hourse power, but like I say if u doing pre renders etc etc, u might render faster but its gona be a lot harder to use quickly distribute bucket rendering(lag/network). Howerver Vray-RT works amazing on distributed nodes.

Currently running :
Mobo - Asus Z8Pe-D18
CPU- Xeon E5530 ( still loking on inted for OC software for 2x xeon...nothing sofar :/)
Ram - 24gb kingston
And it is ofc outperforming i7/4ghgz

Hope this helps, if somthing just ask

[silentvisual]

i currently using a i7 920 and is super fast not sure if u need 2? personally i found i7 is much faster than xeon.. even xeon is workstation processor..

[BeaZtiE]

The right question is
2x E5620 (BUT NOT 5520) vs core i7 930 (but not 920)
the newest i7 and xeon have the same price!
Xeon series 55 is out of production! the same thing for 920!

the choice is yours.
actually if i was in your place will get core i7 980 Extreme (hexa core)
the my system runs 4,4 ghz (and got a good result at 4,8 ghz, but soon come the summer.... )
The budget is so so similar as dual nodes i7 920/930..
cheers

NB!
For hexa core cpus or xeon series 56xx you need a NEW BIOS and lot of recent motherboard still runs the old one.

[branskyj]

Hi guys,

That is great information. I went with two i7 920 and built a micro render farm (2x i7 920 + 1x Phenom II 965+ 1x q9550). Tonight I will do some test renders through distributed rendering and see how it goes. Just read some news about Phenom x6 (hexa-core) and its great price- under 300 Euros. Oh well, I can't have it all.
Thanks a lot for the replies.
Cheers.

[naxos]

I have both...
One system with Tyan dual 1366 mobo, and 2 xeons nehalem E5530 (16 cores total), 26gb ecc ram...
and 2 separates i7 920...

I should say it depends on what you're going to render...

Of course, basically, i7 920 as a highter frequency than xeons E5530, but the speed of network exchanges can be a serious problem regardless of the fast speed between the 2 xeons...

With distributed or very high detailed scenes, best is to have one big machine, full of ram...
With animation, well, best is to have several machines...

My problem was elsewhere when i bought my dual xeon system : i need to use sometimes RealFlow that is not really good at distributing renders... so a big one was the good choice...

Now there are other things to thing about : RealTime renderers : Arion (Fryrender engine) and here VrayRT (and future CPU+GPU VrayRT)...
In those cases, better QDI than Lan speed for rendering...

So if money is not the problem, best is to have a big one system and some "small" i7 920 (cheaps) for animation rendering and some network-friendly renders...

oh, and sorry for my english