What's the quickest processor currently available?

[JonJ678]

I'm slightly out of the loop - last time I checked it was the 980X six core from Intel, which iirc ran at about 4.6ghz under water. That would still constitute a marked improvement on my current system, but not quite enough to be worth the hassle.

I believe multiple socket overclocked systems are still a pipe dream. The choice is then between multiple sockets, stock speeds and single socket, overclocked speeds. As such - what's the current market leading chip, and roughly what frequency does it clock to?

I am hoping Intel or AMD have put something on sale that trounces an X58 920 at 4ghz, or that they're expected to within the next few months.

Thank you

 

[JonJ678]

I think my 920 is around 55gflops, it looks like the 3960k is approximately double that. Which is convincingly better.

Cheers

 

[JonJ678]

Interesting. Thanks for the additional information. I need to look into the cost/return of multiple cheap systems too - a diy cluster of cheap hardware vs one high end box.

For the curious, this would be for quick & dirty computational fluid dynamics work. Anything seriously intensive is likely to run on someone elses cluster, but there's normally a queue. A quick home computer would help with testing/prototyping.

 

[JonJ678]

Well, my 920 is definitely slower than I would like. I'll keep an eye out for a second hand x58 hex core, but will probably be moving platform.

The Xeon Phi looks staggeringly good. Approximately 64 x86 cores on a pci-e card. That pretty much kills the cluster idea, will wait to see how it progresses. Otherwise I suppose I could bite the bullet and embrace cuda, but I'd rather not.

 

[JonJ678]

I don't think anyone is using overclocked dual socket boards. They're very hard to come by. Still, if you know of one that can take recent processors and overclock them both, please let us know what the board is.