Workstation processor i7 vs Xeon

[Alex Gerulaitis]

[Jeff Pulera] “5-10 years, seriously? That would be like still driving a Model T Ford.”

Have a client calling me occasionally about a Targa 3000 / Speed Razor / Win2K system we built for him in 2001. Still works, dammit.

Five-year old systems (5400 chipset) are actually chugging along quite fine, some even as primary CS6 / MC6 editors; some repurposed as secondary systems. HP xw8600 takes up to 128GB RAM, is quiet, easy to service. Can’t say that about custom Core 2 Quads systems that sometimes come to the shop… Anyone remembers Abit? They made decent motherboards until they went out of business.

[Jeff Pulera]

You’re correct that for some people, they are content to use the same system for many years. We also have workstation customers still using 8 year old systems. However, they most certainly cannot edit HD, AVCHD, anything like that on the old system. As long as they remain in their old DV ecosystem, all is well 😉

But my experience with our repeat customers is that they will look to get a newer system every 3-4 years, if not sooner, to keep up with the times, so they can use the latest software and video formats, and get the encoding speed as well from newer hardware. Not that the old system gets junked – it just becomes secondary, backup, or office use at that point.

Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers

[Paul King]

Hi Alex

We use Intel for single socket as opposed to Asus or Gigabyte.
Intel have been 100% reliable. We have used every manufacturer over a 14 year period and Intel by far are the best.

The Intel go in standard cases, but we use the Xigmatek Elysium. Best case we have ever used (and we have used every case on the market, including Mountain Mods, Supermicro and Chenbro).

[Paul King]

The other thing about old systems is the footprint.
I cant think of a single operation today that I would want to do on 5400 Xeon. They were hot and noisy.

Old systems take up space, power and more importantly, a valuable software license.

But I do understand some customer workflows support an older system.

[Donald Moore]

Dell makes a rock solid system and if you buy a Dell Precision Workstation with Premier Support, it will be supported here in the US, not by a foreign call center that barely speaks English.

The thing to keep in mind with Dell is this, by the time they do their research and development and engineering studies, the systems are not the latest and greatest. When you are able to buy it, it is already a year old and there will be something faster available next month from another vendor.
What they will be, is rock solid dependable. I work in a large organization that uses exclusively Dell Precision Workstations and we have some that have been running 24/7 for 8 years.
Another thing about Dell support, it is for the hardware. Only the hardware! If you need support for the software, see the software company that made the software or some third party. Dell doesn’t do that. Sorry.

That said, if you want top end performance and support for the software from one company, Dell is not the way to go. If you want rock solid reliability, day in and day out, Dell can do that but you will need to see someone else for your software questions.

There are sacrifices to be made…

[Gideon peter Tunguy-desmarais]

I have just acquired a Intel xeon hex core processor (X5650 2.66GHZ) that fits my Intel DX 580G extreme motherboard.At present it has an i7 920 (first generation) processor.I mainly do video editing using Premier Pro.Does anyone know if I Can expect better performance with the Six core Xeon?
I have a high end graphics card and 16GB RAM

[Jonas Bendsen]

I’m not sure if this thread is too old for anybody to respond to, but I’ll give it a shot.

I came across this post querying about using a dual Xenon server for video editing. I’m actually trying to string the life of one of our editing bays out a little longer, so I was searching for RAM when I came across an ad for a 2 unit rackmount server with dual quad core Xenon processors and 24GB of RAM. The unit has two 780 watt power units, a decent RAID card and 7TB of storage, an SSD OS Drive, and 3 PCIe 2.0 slots (for a graphics card).

Is there any reason NOT to use a system like this for editing? It seems almost perfect, and the price can’t be beat.

People pull the systems off line and sell ’em cheap because they’ve got their money’s worth out of them as servers. I realize they’ve often been ridden hard and put away wet, but for the price… why not use a system like this for editing?

Thoughts?

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This is my life, I edit and edit and edit and edit…

https://TeahmBeahm.com
https://Digabyte.com

[Paul Hubbard]

@ Jonas; I think the people on this thread have contributed many thoughtful posts.

I did exactly what you’re thinking about doing. I bought a used Dell server with dual Xeons, 24 gigs RAM, and a nice disk array from a reputable refurbish outfit – ridiculously cheap.
After I spent some time setting it up, I’ve been quite happy with it. It renders quite a bit faster than my, admittedly old, i7 work station.
This older Dell server is very stable and it will run almost any 64bit OS. You don’t necessarily have to spend $1200 on a server license from MS – depends on how big your org is and what your usage is.

To my mind, it’s all a balance between $$$, immediate needs, future proofing, and support (both hardware and software). In my experience, most hardware today is fairly bullet proof. Cooling seems to be the most troublesome (fans, pumps failing). I’ve used main boards from several manufacturers over the years (including an Abit way back!) – all based on Intel chips – and have not had a chip failure yet. HDDs? Of course – they fail occasionally as do the fans and cooling pumps. Setting up a good disk array with solid redundancy is what I’ve concentrated on. I think that with today’s 6 core i7s, a good GPU, and RAM, you’re going to find you have plenty of horsepower. The traditional bottlenecks are still with storage, although I saw a video where someone hooked up 24 1 gig SSDs in a large array and that disk setup finally over saturated the processor, RAM, serial bus capacity.
On the software end, Adobe CS seems to be good and relatively stable. I’m not too happy with their decision to go with subscription based software which messed up the upgrade paths for a lot of people, but that’s the where it’s all headed now.

Considering that I spent about 1/3 $$$ on the used server (and setting up the additional redundant disk arrays), I’m set for the next couple of years. Yes, at some point, I will have to spend a huge chunk of $$$ for a system that has the latest and greatest hardware, but for now and for my specific needs, the used dual Xeon setup is working quite well.

[Jonas Bendsen]

Thanks for the response, Paul. Unfortunately the unit I was looking at on Craigslist had been sold the week before and the poster didn’t take the listing down (don’t you just love that), but I still think it’s a pretty good budget idea… maybe even just a machine to run renders (not even necessarily actively edit on, though there’s really no reason not to).

I have only had one chip failure in 20 years (knock on wood) and luckily that was just the HTPC in the bedroom. [smile]

I’ve seen that SSD array video… unfortunately it’s still a bit cost prohibitive, but we’re getting there!

I hear you on the Adobe CS. We’re sticking with CS6 for the majority of our machines for as long as we can.

And we basically have the same attitude as you with our equipment… the CPU doesn’t have to be top of the line, but you do need a decent amount of RAM (though it doesn’t necessarily need to be latest generation). The speed of the disk array (and RAID card) is totally where it’s at.

Thanks again for your comments!

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This is my life, I edit and edit and edit and edit…

https://TeahmBeahm.com
https://Digabyte.com

[Paul Hubbard]

Hey Jonas; Too bad the server was sold, but I wouldn’t give up. There are deals to be had out there on very powerful used machines. The particular one I bought had a couple of ‘limitations’ that I knew about going in – not with the machine itself – everything works beautifully. But it is only a 1U height rack model which is not a problem in itself, but it was a challenge to find an additional video card – one that would be good enough and fit. Basically, it came down to some compromises and for myself, budget. When doing editing, I think we’re better served with 2,3,4U units or a tower, but they tend to be twice or more as expensive. With the larger cases, it’s easier to add in various cards. For instance, most servers do not come with any kind of audio chip built in. Since this isn’t my main editing station (I use it for rendering and the disk arrays), the answer was a video card with HDMI output (just for basic sound). Another issue with mine is that the built-in disk array only accepts six 2.5″ drives. It came populated with small high end 15k SAS drives which I swapped out for larger capacity SSDs. That gave me a much larger (and ultimately faster) array with less heat and noise. My main storage arrays are in a separate SAS enclosure attached to the server. I not only reused the 2.5 SAS drives in the external SAS, but added much more capacity and redundancy as well. It took a bit of work and planning to get this all together, but in the end, as I wrote earlier, I ended up with a powerful machine that meets my immediate needs and going forward, the next couple of years as well, for about 1/3 $$$.
Good luck and happy hunting. You should be able to find something that will work for your situation.

Best,
Paul