Re: AW: Xeon vs i7 and ECC vs SDRAM

From: Kenno Vanommeslaeghe (kvanomme_at_rx.umaryland.edu)
Date: Wed Jun 25 2014 - 10:26:26 CDT

On 06/25/2014 01:31 AM, Norman Geist wrote:
> Xeon is more expensive but also more reliable.

I've never seen a single indication that the CPU itself is actually more
reliable. In your comparison, the main advantages of the Xeon are:
- multi-socket support (which you're not profiting from in a single socket
configuration)
- ECC support (which means that a Xeon will be more reliable *if and only
if* it's paired with ECC memory). Also worth noting is that:
        * some i7 models do have ECC support
        * ECC memory typically has slower timings, though that may or may not
impact real-life performance for any particular application. For a lot of
applications, the impact is very small
- bigger cache; on paper, that's good for performance for some
applications, but for the specific purpose of trajectory analysis, it is
quite likely you'll swamp the cache no matter how big it is, so then I
wouldn't expect it to make much difference (though you'll never know for
sure without benchmarking)

> I wouldn't put my shirt on the i7 in this regards.

Unless one buys a top-of-the-line i7 with very high TDP, running 24/7
shouldn't be an issue.

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