Does anyone have any thoughts on the suitability of Xeon CPUs for DAW use (specifically Sonar)?
I've been looking around for a new PC and have seen some particularly good deals on systems with Xeon E5-1650 v4 (6 Core, 3.6GHz, 15MB Cache) processors.  There doesn't seem to be much talk about Xeons here - the consensus seems to be that i7 is the way to go.  Is there a specific reason for this?
 
Any thoughts appreciated.
 
AMB
 

Managed to find this thread (didn't show up at first when I searched for xeon for some reason).
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Best-CPUs-for-Sonar-Xeons-or-i7s-m3410854.aspx
 
This answers some of my question, but the general feeling seems to be that it's not worth paying extra for a Xeon which will offer no real performance benefit (and may in fact be slightly slower).  In my case, the Xeon PC I am considering is significantly cheaper than a similar i7 PC so I am concerned more about potential downsides rather than lack of upsides.
 
AMB
 

Xeon CPUs bring zero advantage for use as a DAW.
The lower the clock-speed, the bigger the performance hit (compared to a standard i7 CPU).
 
The Xeon might be fast enough... but it's not the fastest option for DAW purposes.
 
In general, you don't want to sacrifice significant clock-speed for more CPU cores.
In a perfect situation, you want high clock-speed and more CPU cores.

I dont like this CPUs... ;d
 
 
 
___________________

Thanks for that.  You've convinced me to go the i7 route.  Sometimes less choice is a good thing when it comes to buying a PC :)
 
AMB
 

When someone is short on money but want a kind of monster:
http://www.techspot.com/review/1155-affordable-dual-xeon-pc/

While latency can be problematic (and the noise level is good audible, assuming the power consumption), multi-threaded power can be reasonable.