The old Xeon vs i7 question - has there been any update?

I’m tossing up a new system.

I’m currently running a 3 year old 3930k processor, which according to cpubenchmark.net still benchmarks at 12062. The most expensive i7, the $1700 (Australian dollars) 5960X only hits 15982, which would be nice, but hardly mindblowing, given the pricetag and 3 year interim.

Soooo, I’m once again eyeing those juicy Xeons. The Intel Xeon E5-2699 v4 @ 2.20GHz benches at 24481, and is also $1700 here. I’ve often heard Xeons offer no benefit over i7s for audio, but is that still the case? It seems to be a moving target with Cubase now allegedly making better use of multiple cores etc.

Any thoughts / experience would be appreciated.

This chart gives some more DAW specific figures.

http://www.scanproaudio.info/2015/03/05/scan-audio-workstation-pc-benchmarks-2015/

Your old processor isn’t on there but at stock should rate above the 2600 and below the 5820.

Thanks. I guess that pretty much answers that. There’s still no real advantage, and the $1700 i7 would seem to be the best there is.

Xeon processors support ECC ram, allow for more cores and have a bigger L3 cache preventing bottle necks.