Where to find benchmarks for multiple socket systems?

[JonJ678]

I'm trying to get a handle on the relative merits of dual and quad socket computers, such as how four E5-4650's compare to two E5-2697V2's. The former is 32 cores, the latter 24 - but the former comes with double the memory bandwidth and cache coherency overhead.

Essentially I can't judge which way it would go, I don't think intuition is worth a great deal here. Can anyone point me in the direction of finding out how the two systems compare?

I'm trying to work out how much bang-for-buck I can get into a single system for 10k.

Thanks for any suggestions you may have.

 

[Doomedspeed]

It all depends on what you are using it for really but in general terms (most cases) i think the latter would be better.

From my breif research i have found some user comments which mention the improved memory bandwidth and cache as having massive advantages. 30%-40% seemed to be the average improvment in benchmarks. (see this thread: http://forums.servethehome.com/proc...473-ivybridge-xeon-e5-2697v2-experiences.html)

As you can see above, that was comparing a Ivy 8-core to a sandy 8 core, where as you are comparing 6 to 8.. ) though i know you are using different multiples.

I know price may not be a big consideration to you, but the two 2697's (with motherboard and appropiate memory) will be a massive whack cheaper than the 4650's..

 

[JonJ678]

That's a really useful link, thank you. It also leads to a discussion about folding @ home which shows an almost linear increase in performance with core count - a remarkable achievement for Intel!

If the code was perfect, we would be memory bandwidth limited. But the code is probably quite a long way off perfect, in which case we're cpu limited.

Budget is a factor but weirdly not the dominant one. I'll need to talk to various people next week about specifications and it's unwise to talk to sales without checking the numbers first.

Thanks