Where to start - Dual Xeons?!

[Roodogg]

Hi. I am doing a little more 3d work lately and have decided to get a proper system!

 

Unfortunately I know nothing about hardware and don't want to get stung.

 

Could do with some help sourcing the best possible processor for the money so any pointers would be great!

 

Current is a Intel Core2 Quad Q6600

8GB DDR2 RAM

2x 150gb SATA HDDs

 

I only need a Tower, so am speccing one up to about �1500 (I think that's around $2360).

 

I had a quote from 'CRYOPC' offering (2x) Xeon E5502 (overclocked to 2.6Ghz) on an Intel LGA 1366 with 12Gb DDR3 Ram, AMD Firepro Graphics for �1600.

 

My concern is, (and I'm using cpubenchmark.net) as a guide) is that this processor is quite slow!??

 

I'm not sure if I 'm going about this the right way but according to that same site, the Intel Xeon E31245 @ 3.30GHz is fairly fast and at �150 seems a no-brainer (and if I overclock it, it will be even faster... Have I got this right!???)

 

Or is this processor not compatible with dual sockets?

 

Any help to get me to the next stage would be massively appreciated.

 

Thanks for reading.

[ihabkal]

my opinion is get an i7 2600 for about $1000 and save the rest of the money for a rainy day. Ever since the recession this line of work has been not worth spending on it.

[AJLynn]

I would do what Ihab says. A dual-quad Xeon is 8 cores, which is nice, but it doesn't really make economic sense until you go to dual-six-core and that's expensive. OTOH if you buy lower on the price curve you get a lot of value for your money. I don't think there's such a thing as a Xeon E31245, but if you mean E3120 that's a dual core based on the older Core 2 microarchitecture that's two generations old. The E5500 series is a Gainestown chip, which is a bit dated compared to Sandy Bridge, which is what the i7-2600 is.

 

Have a look at the link in my sig - the Budget system is what I'd recommend as a starting point, only you might make it an i7-2600 and you might take or leave the SSD. If you're serious about a $2300 system, forget the dual overclocked quad core Xeon concept, and look at the High End in my link, only make it less expensive by using a cheaper SSD, video card and hard drive.