Any owners of HP Z420 here? (Xeon E5-1650, 8GB)

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by dima777, Dec 10, 2012.

  1. dima777

    dima777

    Hello!)
    I wonder if there are any owners of HP Z420, Intel® Xeon E5-1650, 8GB here?(http://www.amazon.com/HP-Workstatio...sr=8-1&keywords=HP+Z420,+Intel®+Xeon+E5-1650,))) I am seriously considering this workstation for a large number crunching project that would involved recalculating large excel files (300-mbs, and 500mbs in size) thousands of times per each day (5/7/365)...this will be a long term project so I need a super fast and a super reliable system...I understand Xeon E5-1650 is the twin brother of i7 3930k with the addition of ECC memory support and a few more sever options...I was wondering if there are people here who have this machine and hwo submit it daily to very hard loads???well - EXTREMELY HARD LOADS....Like running 100% for 10 hours non-stop....I wonder how it handles that?)) I will be very happy to hear about your experience!)
     
  2. ANYTHING which runs "extremely hard loads... at maximum capacity" is much more likely to fail. (Run a $100K F1 engine at 20,000 RPM day-and-night, and it will break.) You ask a nonsense question. Besides... that CPU is too new for hardly anybody to have much experience with it.
     
  3. dima777

    dima777

    well as I understand Xeon processors have been designed to run at full load for days at high performance server stations....well I hope there is someone who has experience workign with this cpu..
     
  4. Here is a crash course in Intel - Xeon = multiple processors, non Xeon (like i7, i5, etc.) will only work by itself.

    If you are buying that workstation to run dual CPUs then it's fine and probably worth the $$. If you are going to just run a single hex-core CPU then Xeon will be a waste.

    Also, for what it's worth, that processor is a power thirsty beast (130W per CPU and only 32nm tech) whereas the Xeon x5600 series CPUs are much cheaper and also are 32nm technology and draw 130-135W.

    I'd say if you are running a single 6-core CPU just get a retail i7, if you need 12 cores (24 threads with HT) then look at the Xeon X5600 series and if you have money burning a hole in your pockets then go for the newer E5 stuff.

    If there is one thing in the world I could short it would be technology hardware. I own CPUs that depreciate about $5 per day. Imagine earning $5 a day per day on a 100lot of $15 stock... that's only a nickel per day, per share... but it's consistent month-over-month...
     
  5. dima777

    dima777

  6. ofthomas

    ofthomas

    Xeons are basically "more reliable"... there are actually real differences, but let's just stick with that... true, if you are going dual, then a xeon is the way to go...

    if you are doing number crunching, the first question you need to ask yourself is if your code can be parellelized... if not, it will make no difference how many threads you will be running... and speed matters... so just get a K proc and overclock it with closed loop cooling...

    what kind of operations are you really doing for calcs? have you looked at using GPU cores for the processing? you can use excel with cuda/opencl and handle a lot of calcs... specially if doing modeling... and depending on accuracy required a GTX690 with 3K cores will set you back $1K... and a tesla will set you back $3.5K... again, what level precision do you need for your calc results?

    in any event, HP workstations are the best IMO, I have their 600 line which is the dual proc... but there is no need to buy "new"... just buy them reman... and save $$$... a top of the line 620 with 2x2690's will set you back 10K reman... but honestly, look at CUDA... find a reman server that will meet your requirements and then stick it in a closet(not literally) and let it run doing your calcs and access remotely via RDP...