Sandy Bridge E processors out today...

[Subhadip Sen]

Subhadip, if you come across any benchmarks for these chips please share them here. Sounds really interesting.

Thus far, the only independent review I could find was this: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/reviews/sme-s...r815-40094404/. There's not much regarding performance, except a single Geekbench test, pitting 4x 16C Opterons versus "equivalent" 4x 8C Xeons. However, considering the cheapest 8-core Xeon is twice the price of the most expensive Opteron, I am not sure how "equivalent" the test really is. Still, the Opteron outperformed the Xeon system by 12%. Not much of a benchmark, but that's all we have thus far.

AMD has also published internal benchmarks: http://www.amd.com/US/PRODUCTS/SERVE...ks-filter.aspx, which unsurprisingly paints a pretty picture for the new Opterons vs Xeons, but it is better to wait for independent reviews which should be up soon. Unfortunately, the benchmarks will concentrate mostly on server and workstation workloads. Don't think many reviews will consider Adobe CS5 or X264 performance.

Here's some analysis from "experts": http://blogs.computerworld.com/19273...urce=rss_blogs. Mind the hyperbole!

[Mark George]

Okay, the results Brandon posted from xbitlabs and the coolaler.com site have me convinced that the 3930K is the way to go (if you're in the market for one of these, that is). The cost differential will go towards half a RAID card, or a couple of HDDs. Thanks for posting.

[John Bellari]

Here's a dumb question and a cutting edge option:

What specifically do you need those cores for?

One possible solution:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/maximus.html

Nvidia is teaming up a $200 Quadro with $2400 Tesla card to smoke pretty much everything, if you use Premiere or Maya, etc...

[DJ Meyer]

Here's a dumb question and a cutting edge option:

What specifically do you need those cores for?

One possible solution:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/maximus.html

Nvidia is teaming up a $200 Quadro with $2400 Tesla card to smoke pretty much everything, if you use Premiere or Maya, etc...

This is only going to accelerate CUDA enabled tasks. Basically its an initiative to make CUDA resource management a bit easier for devs. So while great, it won't really affect things that are CUDA enabled for awhile, and it won't affect things that are NOT cuda enabled ever.

For instance, with Maya, none of the core application is CUDA accelerated, only a few plugins here and there.

[Brandon J.F.]

Here's a dumb question and a cutting edge option:

What specifically do you need those cores for?

One possible solution:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/maximus.html

Nvidia is teaming up a $200 Quadro with $2400 Tesla card to smoke pretty much everything, if you use Premiere or Maya, etc...

Sounds great, but...

Prices for Maximus workstations are estimated to begin around $8,000 to $10,000.

http://www.deskeng.com/virtual_desktop/?p=4604

[Brandon J.F.]

This is only going to accelerate CUDA enabled tasks. Basically its an initiative to make CUDA resource management a bit easier for devs. So while great, it won't really affect things that are CUDA enabled for awhile, and it won't affect things that are NOT cuda enabled ever.

For instance, with Maya, none of the core application is CUDA accelerated, only a few plugins here and there.

Correct, and it won't do much for RED footage either:

Table 12. Rendering times for the RED project.
Since most RED producers are probably on dual-CPU workstations, I tested preview on the Z600 using the Quadro 4000 card with playback resolution set to 1/4 and Use Maximum Render Quality not enabled for preview. Table 12 shows the results, which were better with the GPU, though not dramatically so.



Table 11. Preview performance for the RED project.
From this particular RED-based project, it appears that CUDA acceleration is definitely a plus for rendering RED-based projects, though performance did not appear to scale with the card as the $423 Quadro 2000 performed similarly to the $1,700 Quadro 5000. If you’re producing RED source footage, you should prioritize CPU cores over GPU cores, and buy a dual-CPU workstation rather than the most expensive graphics card.

http://www.streaminglearningcenter.c...55.html?page=8

[Justin Harrison]

Hey I'm ready to pick up one of the 3930K chips but I'm stuck on finding a board for it.

So far I'm torn between the ASUS Sabertooth X79 and the Rampage IV. Any recommendations?

Thanks!

[DJ Meyer]

Hey I'm ready to pick up one of the 3930K chips but I'm stuck on finding a board for it.

So far I'm torn between the ASUS Sabertooth X79 and the Rampage IV. Any recommendations?

Thanks!

Got an EVGA x79 myself. Asus makes good stuff though.

[Corey Culp]

Got an EVGA x79 myself. Asus makes good stuff though.

The entire ASUS X79 line also has (8) DIMM slots, while the three EVGA X79 motherboards only have (4) DIMM slots.

Also, MSI's X79A-GD65 (8D) has (8) DIMM slots.

[DJ Meyer]

The entire ASUS X79 line also has (8) DIMM slots, while the three EVGA X79 motherboards only have (4) DIMM slots.

Also, MSI's X79A-GD65 (8D) has (8) DIMM slots.

Yep.

Don't need more than 4, personally.