Advice: Upgrade current workstation to Xeon E5 2683 or buy new 1950x TR?

[Luke]

Looking for advice (pros/cons) on whether or not I should upgrade my current i7 5820K x99a WS to something like a Xeon E5 2683 and 64GB ram or bite the bullet and fork out
for a 1950x 64GB system?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Luke

[Nejc Kilar]

Hey Luke!

From my point of view the 1950x should definitely be the way to go on this one.

Here is the reasoning:
A single 5820k scores around 1100 CB points. A single 2683v4 scores around 2100 CB points. A single 1950x (You can't have double anyway) scores around 3000 CB points.

The 2683v4 retails for around 1600 EUR while the 1950x retails for like 700 EUR right now. The motherboard for the 1950x is probably going to be cheaper and you'll get more PCI-E lanes if you ever decide to go for a GPU build.

So basically, if you go for the 1950x you'll pay like 50% less than the 2683v4 and have 50% more performance that you would with a 2683v4. My math sucks but the numbers work out :)

I specifically mentioned CB points which are Cinebench points. These are a good indicator of how the performance of different CPUs scale. It is basically like the Corona Benchmark. In fact you can kind of look at it like this - If a CPU scores 800 CB points it achieves around 4 minutes on the Corona benchmark. If you double its Cinebench points to 1600 then that CPU will complete the Corona benchmark in around 2 minutes.

If you go for the 1950x you'll have another big pro besides the ultimate rendering speed - Single threaded speed. The all-core boost clocks for the 2683v4 are at 2.5GHz while the 1950x never drops below 3.5GHz if its cooled properly.

So definitely the 1950x I'd say.

Now if you have the budget to go for two 2683v4's then thats a different story. It is going to cost you a lot more money but it is going to be faster than the 1950x. I presume you were thinking of getting just one. Also, the older versions like v3 are slower than the v4, just in case you were wondering.

Hope it helps!

[Jens]

I too was looking to upgrade my 5820k system to a new TR system back when it was released. Ended up getting lucky on ebay with a Xeon e5 2693v4 for the same price of a TR cpu (at the time). I could then just update bios on my x99 motherboard and have enjoyed the crazy speeds since :) (I already had 64gb ram and they worked fine with the Xeon).

I'm not feeling any differences regarding single core performance at all, so I don't get why this is always brought up, but the render speeds and IR - oh man, I was buzzing for weeks. After a couple of months however, you get used to the speed ;)

So in short: If you can score a cheap high-end xeon you can squeeze much more performance out of your current system. Just make sure to check if the Xeon will be supported after a bios update.

[Luke]

Thanks for the replies.

My case is similar to Jens, in that I can land a Xeon E5 2683 on ebay for around $500 and upgrade my RAM for around $1200 ($1700 total) whereas a new
1950TR system is gonna come in at $5000aud... so the xeon is the much cheaper option...

my mother board is the asus x99a with 2011v3 socket... will the V4 Xeon work with my motherboard? I was looking at V3's....

I'm really just trying to find the cheapest option for now, I do intend on purchasing a new system down the track and will opt for the TR at that time unless of course
the xeon route isn't going to work or yield decent results...

[Jann]

The only CPUs for the X99 I'd look at are V3 series. You can get a modded bios for most boards, allowing max turbo on all cores. This combined with lower price on the used/QS sample market makes them a much better buy than anything from V4.
Unless maybe it's a render node with two CPUs and you get top V4 for cheap.

As mentioned somewhere before, current top V3 models are 2683v3, 2686v3 and 2696v3. The 2696v3 on a modded board gives better speed than the top model 2699v3.

[Luke]

The only CPUs for the X99 I'd look at are V3 series. You can get a modded bios for most boards, allowing max turbo on all cores. This combined with lower price on the used/QS sample market makes them a much better buy than anything from V4.
Unless maybe it's a render node with two CPUs and you get top V4 for cheap.

As mentioned somewhere before, current top V3 models are 2683v3, 2686v3 and 2696v3. The 2696v3 on a modded board gives better speed than the top model 2699v3.

is modding the board just a matter of flashing the bios?

[Jann]

is modding the board just a matter of flashing the bios?

Yes.
It used to be copying files it boot partitions etc. Now it's just finding pre-modded bios for your board.