Xeon W question

[Zberg]

Hey all, you can probably answer this stupid question for me quick.

 

What's the deal with the Xeon CPU's?  The mac pro piqued my interest (that interest being: WhyTF is it so expensive>?!).  I mean ya I get the flagship 28 core deal; lots of cores, crushes tasks.  But what about the low end 6-8 core Xeons.  They still seem pricey, what is the point of them?  More Cache? More RAM capacity?  Why would I pay 2x the price of a 9900k for less base/boost clock and the same amount of cores.

 

Sorry if this is a very dumb question, I only have ever used for mainly gaming, light photo/video editing, so have never needed a legit workstation beast.  

 

Also, as an aside, it would seem you could easily build a decked out threadripper with an assload of cores, RAM, and 2 radeon VIIs for less than the 8-core, 256 gb SSD, radeon 580 intro version of the mac pro.  Those mac users must have money to buuuuuurn or like their shiny chassis

[Boinbo]

On 6/4/2019 at 4:27 PM, Zberg said:

Hey all, you can probably answer this stupid question for me quick.

 

What's the deal with the Xeon CPU's?  The mac pro piqued my interest (that interest being: WhyTF is it so expensive>?!).  I mean ya I get the flagship 28 core deal; lots of cores, crushes tasks.  But what about the low end 6-8 core Xeons.  They still seem pricey, what is the point of them?  More Cache? More RAM capacity?  Why would I pay 2x the price of a 9900k for less base/boost clock and the same amount of cores.

 

Sorry if this is a very dumb question, I only have ever used for mainly gaming, light photo/video editing, so have never needed a legit workstation beast.  

 

Also, as an aside, it would seem you could easily build a decked out threadripper with an assload of cores, RAM, and 2 radeon VIIs for less than the 8-core, 256 gb SSD, radeon 580 intro version of the mac pro.  Those mac users must have money to buuuuuurn or like their shiny chassis

A xeon CPU is meant for servers as it is a server CPU. The lower core count xeons are older, I think. Don't quote me on that, I'm not too experienced worth xeons. And for your second part, it's called apple tax my friend.

[TheGlenlivet]

ECC ram and multisocket support (not applicable in the MAC) are the biggest differences.  Apple is pushing this as a PROFESSIONAL works station item, where money is not as big a deal as an enthusiast part.

[GoldenLag]

11 minutes ago, Zberg said:

Those mac users must have money to buuuuuurn or like their shiny chassis

its for actaully pro users. as in the class of people who pay whatever to shorten rendering and other holdups. 

 

Pro users usually require ECC memmory for their workloads, hence the Xeon. Apple also dont buy AMD CPUs for whatever reason

[BrinkGG]

6 minutes ago, Zberg said:

Those mac users must have money to buuuuuurn or like their shiny chassis

It's a lot more then that, but I don't feel like starting a flame war so I'll just say "Personal expense vs Business expense" 

7 minutes ago, Zberg said:

Hey all, you can probably answer this stupid question for me quick.

 

What's the deal with the Xeon CPU's?  The mac pro piqued my interest (that interest being: WhyTF is it so expensive>?!).  I mean ya I get the flagship 28 core deal; lots of cores, crushes tasks.  But what about the low end 6-8 core Xeons.  They still seem pricey, what is the point of them?  More Cache? More RAM capacity?  Why would I pay 2x the price of a 9900k for less base/boost clock and the same amount of cores.

 

Sorry if this is a very dumb question, I only have ever used for mainly gaming, light photo/video editing, so have never needed a legit workstation beast.  

Eh, I honestly think they went with xeons on the low end so they didn't need to confirm another chipset to use i7s or i9s on the cheaper mac pros. Xeon W line lets them scale from 6 cores all the way up to 28 core, 56 thread chips without changing anything else in the system. 

Also makes upgrade path MUCH easier, which is important to people who will have the same chassis for 5-10 years.

There are some people to this day that are still using the macPro5,1 or 6,1 (Old school tower before trashcan) with dual xeons. Simply because the trashcan mac pro wasn't really an upgrade. 

[LukeSavenije]

if you don't know what xeon in general is, you probably don't need it

[Zberg]

21 minutes ago, LukeSavenije said:

if you don't know what xeon in general is, you probably don't need it

It seems that it shall not be in my future! 

1 hour ago, TheGlenlivet said:

ECC ram and multisocket support (not applicable in the MAC) are the biggest differences.  Apple is pushing this as a PROFESSIONAL works station item, where money is not as big a deal as an enthusiast part.

 

1 hour ago, Boinbo said:

A xeon CPU is meant for servers as it is a server CPU. The lower core count xeons are older, I think. Don't quote me on that, I'm not too experienced worth xeons. And for your second part, it's called apple tax my friend.

TY for the quick answers friends.