Which processor should I use?

[Devin Johnston]

I'm going to build 5 new render nodes and I need to decide which processors to put in them, I'm looking at the Xeon X5650 or the X3680 and I'm unsure which to use. The X3680 is a Westmere-EP (Extreme Performance) which I'm unfamiliar with but it's priced about the same as the X5650 and is much faster. These systems are going to be dual processor and will be working very hard so they need to be able to take the pounding, I'm not worried about the X5650 but I'm unsure about the X3680 and if it will hold up.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117231

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117242

[AJLynn]

3600-series Xeons can't be used in dual CPU configurations, so you can actually think of it as an overpriced i7. 5600-series can. (This was way more obvious in the last generation when they had 775 and 771 sockets. Now they're all 1366.)

 

[Edited because of previous brain lapse.]

[Devin Johnston]

I see the socket had me thinking it could be used on a dual mother board, oh well that makes my choice easier unless you have any other recommendations. I do plan on using solid state drives on these, I've noticed that SATA 3 is out but I haven't seen any dramatic difference in performance, do you think it's worth using at this point?

[AJLynn]

For SSDs... yeah, I'd use SATA 3 if available. It makes no sense for magnetic hard disks, since SATA 2 is already faster than hard disk is. SATA 3 is a bit more future proof as well. My motherboard has it but I don't have it turned on (no SSD). Many MBs make you choose whether to turn on SATA 3 or USB 3 - can't handle both at the same time.