Hi , I 'm thinking upgrading my pc and i have a few options for second hand ( pretty good deal ) : First option is Broadwell Xeon , 12 cores( 24) CPU or 22 cores (44) cpu , freq is almost the same . Second option is mini pc AMD Zen2, 4 cores (8) cpu . Third option is Comet Lake Xeon 6 core (12) .cpu I 'm tempted to Broadwell but i want to hear some opinions about these 2 options . Thanks . Last edited: Jan 22, 2026 at 2:08 PM
Comet Lake Xeon 6 core (12) seems the best solution, because xeons are too SLOW on each core (base frequency). So running some aggressive plugins will glitch on ONE single core easily. And Zen2 has less cores, whatever frequency. If it is your only criteria, it is an easy choice.
depends on so many more things than just cpu: what connectivity (pcie lanes, ports, networking etc..) ? what ram and disk ? is it some HP/DELL/Lenovo shit with nonstandard everything ?
See this: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark.html Under the scalable processor lists, look for those with a minimum of 8 cores & a 3.20GHz base speed (3.40GHz is the ideal minimum base). This will help with selecting the correct workstation/CPU combination.
I have an older Lenovo S30 That has served me well. Thinking about turning it into a DSP server. Also have a HP Z6 G4 that chews through everything thrown at it.
I looked it up and I agree. Unless you need many cores (unlikely), Comet Lake Xeons are way faster (2016 vs 2020). They both support avx2, which is more required by the month. Kind of surprised the older Xeons already supported it.
