Xeon Performance

[Homey]

I'm considering getting a machine with Xeon processors but am a little confused about the variations and their Passmark scores!
They're listed here in order of price but the 5130 cpu is listed as having the lowest Passmark score. I'm assuming that the score was for a single cpu machine but how much of a difference will 2 cpu's make? Will it be twice as fast?

They will be running 32 bit Win 7 (I think) but am being advised to use 74 bit instead. Just worried about CS3, office, 3DSMax etc not being 64 bit compatible! All have 4gb RAM large HD's etc.

Dell Precision 690 with 2 Xeon 5130 (2GHz) cpu
Dell Precision 690 with 2 Xeon 5050 (3GHz) cpu (can't find this one listed!)
MP25 Precision T7400 Dual Intel Xeon X5472 3.0GHz
Dell Precision T3500 workstation W3520 2.66GHz 4.8GT/s

Any thoughts would be really appreciated as I'm more than a little confused!

[David (PassMark)]

There is a chart here for multi-cpu systems.

The Xeon 5050 is an old CPU, released in 2005 I think that was never very popular. You'd be silly to buy one of these. They are simlliar in performance to the Pentium D CPUs.

but am being advised to use 74 bit instead

64bit I think you mean. And yes. It would be silly to use 32bit on a new workstation machine.

But why even buy a workstation. Why not get the cheaper i7 CPU?

[Homey]

LOL, yeah, I meant 64 bit, not 74 but!!
I'm getting these machine for less than the cost of an i7 so that's why I was asking!!
Does having two 'slower' xeon (like the 5050) cpu's make the machine faster than the 3520 though? 3Ghz + 3Ghz = 6Ghz. Sorry for teh stupid questions - I just don't know much about this stuff!

The twin 5050 machine is a lot cheaper than the 3520.

[David (PassMark)]

The W3520 is a much faster chip than the 5050. Without knowing the costs I would take the single W3520 over two 5050. The W3520 probalby also has a faster motherboard and RAM, being a newer generation of chip.

I would still take an i7 machine in preference to either of these however.

Two slow chips don't generally equal one fast chip becuase software often can't take advantage of more than 1 CPU core. But the real answer is that it depends on the software you use.