Bi-Xeon X5677 or X5680

[Batalov]

Originally Posted by joblack

That's true but the advantage of Xeon cpus is that you can have more than one cpu (dual cpu system) in a system. Without that option in a normal mainboard they are just expensive 'normal cpus' ...

No doubt Xeons are the better solution (especially if you want to have full ECC support) but that costs you much more. I was focusing more on the performance vs. price relationship.

No, not much more. The price difference recently all but disappeared - that's why I mentioned it.

Here's a toy system:
W3530 instead of a i7 930 is extra $25 -- $315
ECC 12Gb of memory (because one may want to do an occasional Block Lanczos or something else) - $308
Workstation board is just a bit more expensive than the desktop enthusiastic boards - $280

All these components bears a mere markup of ~ +10%, not a +100%.

[joblack]

Originally Posted by Batalov

No, not much more. The price difference recently all but disappeared - that's why I mentioned it.

Here's a toy system:
W3530 instead of a i7 930 is extra $25 -- $315
ECC 12Gb of memory (because one may want to do an occasional Block Lanczos or something else) - $308
Workstation board is just a bit more expensive than the desktop enthusiastic boards - $280

All these components bears a mere markup of ~ +10%, not a +100%.

At first you don't need 12 GByte of memory (that's the main reason you get a moderate percentage price increase). The i730 is overpriced as hyperthreading is contraproductive for Prime95 usage (as shown in the i790x benchmark). Use an i760 instead. The workstation mainboards are around 120 USD.

With this configuration in mind you'll get more than a 10% price increase.

Anyway, you will always find a way to tweak the configuration so that a Xeon will or won't look expensive.