does anyone use a Xeon processor?
 

is there is anything better to it than P4 ?

hyperthreading is pretty neat. for raw integer math i've seen a 40-50% speed improvement by turning on hyperthreading - this was on a dual xeon.

i've heard that the bad thing about hyperthreading is the "context switching" that can end up happening with the L2 cache. i didn't see that in my test since it was small enough to fit into the large Xeon caches, but if you're doing a lot of very different things you might not see the same speed boost.

i'd expect that you'd get better performance if you're just serving webpages and using a DB backend or something, though.

We use them to some of the video editing systems we build, based in IBM Z-Pro's You have a higher level 2 and 2 cache = more and faster buffer for the CPU = more pover when MANY calculations is needed.

If you want a webserver (sql) I'll go with a Xeon if you have the bugs, but think about a dual AMD MP2200 as an alternative... Cost about $1000-$1500 less.. and you can almost match the preformance...

how does it cost that much less while you can get the Xeons for less than $300 ?

http://www.pricewatch.com/1/3/4918-1.htm

Cuz those don't have 2MB L2 Cache, but only 512KB ...

Equinox said it.. there is point in buying Xeon if you only buy the small version...