Anand Tech got a pre-prod IVY Bridge system and ran complete benchmarks on a high-end Ivy Bridge desktop SKU: Intel's Core i7 3770K with 8MB Cache http://www.anandtech.com/show/5626/ivy-bridge-preview-core-i7-3770k

 "The biggest advantages show up in either the lightly threaded tests or in the FP heavy benchmarks"

 The benchmarks indicate Ivy Bridge performance roughly equivalent to the Sandy Bridge i7-3960x hex core. As for DNS, in light office work loads I can't see any improvement in responsiveness of DNS on the i7-3960x over more typical i7-2600 series quad core with 8mb cache. Only with my workloads including heavy encrypt/decrypt plus development work can I see a significant DNS difference.

 

Phil Schaadt

 

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DNS12 Pro BM V Large Vocabulary plus KB or Voice Computer running Win7 64 bit machines with i7-2640M to i7-3960x and i7-3770K processors plus a Sony VAIO Windows 8 machine. DBX Audio Gate with Allen&Heath mixer/USB Audio; Andrea PureAudio USB  usually with Airline 77 or Audio-Technica but also Sennheiser MD431 II, theBoom, et. al.

Thanks for the update. I've been waiting several months on buying a couple of new computers until I see whether I ought to buy Ivy Bridge. I use in office work with a lot of applications open but rarely any resource intensive activities. Seems like Ivy Bridge might be overkill for me at the present... unless Nuance is going to change DNS in the future to take some kind of advantage of Ivy Bridge features.

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DNS Pro 12 (32-bit), KnowBrainer 2012, VoicePower, Intel i7-3770K (Ivy Bridge) 8MB L3 cache 3.5-3.9GHz, 16 GB RAM DDR3 1600MHz, 240 GB SSD and 1TB HD, Windows 7 (64-bit), Airline 77 mic (Laptop: Lenovo X61t, Intel L7700 @ 1.80 GHz 4 MB L2 cache, 3 GB RAM, Windows 7)

Phil,

Have you actually tested DNS on an Ivy Bridge system, or are you just trying to go by the benchmarks in the link that you presented? The reason that I ask is because if you haven't actually tested it yourself with DNS 11.5 and your only going by the benchmark testing in the link that you refer to, then you're comparing apples and oranges. That entire set of benchmark testing doesn't yield anything that would tell you how the Ivy Bridge processors would work with DNS 11.5. So attempting to draw any conclusions from that based on comparison between the Core™ i7 3960x and the Core™ i7 2600 wouldn't be valid. You would have to compare your top-of-the-line Sandy Bridge extreme with DNS to one of the Ivy Bridge processors with DNS in order to be able to draw any valid conclusions about performance. I gather from the way that you phrased your post that you haven't done this. If I'm wrong, correct me. If I'm right, the only valid conclusion that could be drawn would be a direct one-to-one comparison using DNS.

In addition, you would still need to control the number of variables in order to get a valid set of test results. One way of doing it would be to use a test parameter created by Rüdiger, which compares raw performance across processors with all the other possible variables absolutely controlled. Otherwise, any testing would be invalid. I haven't gotten my Ivy Bridge processor yet so I can't offer any comparative insights at this point.

Chuck Runquist
Technical Project Manager
VoiceTeach LLC
Home of VoicePower®: We don't make Dragon NaturallySpeaking, We make it better!

"The least questioned assumptions are often the most questionable." -- Paul Broca

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Chuck, I thought I was clear that I was comparing my direct personal experiences with DNS 11.5 between i7 3960xand the i7 2600 with DNS and not the high end Ivy Bridge. You the one who always cracks "you can't go faster than the speed of light" and for most personal workloads we seem to be there with this version of DNS as per folks reported experiences on this site.

I have several machines lined up for a build with the i7-3770k Ivy Bridge specifically for development as soon as the chips become available.

I will be happy to test all three chips in equivalent hardware configs but I still doubt that there will be any noticeable improvement on DNS 11.5 given equivalent work loads. We will see in a few weeks.

Where I would see improvement would be if Intel offered a 35 watt TDP quad core with 8mb of cache. That would be a big deal to me because then there could be a 2 pound small laptop refresh of the Panasonic 1Kg J10 Series replacing the i7- 2640m that would then have, practically, the desktop performance for office productivity workloads.

Phil Schaadt

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DNS12 Pro BM V Large Vocabulary plus KB or Voice Computer running Win7 64 bit machines with i7-2640M to i7-3960x and i7-3770K processors plus a Sony VAIO Windows 8 machine. DBX Audio Gate with Allen&Heath mixer/USB Audio; Andrea PureAudio USB  usually with Airline 77 or Audio-Technica but also Sennheiser MD431 II, theBoom, et. al.

Greetings to all and questions to the more experienced (Chucker, phils, and others) ...

I am a newbie who is looking into dragon medical.  I am also in dire need to upgrade my rather crippled WinXP desktop in the office.  I am thinking about sprucing up a relatively inexpensive ($800) Win7 machine with Xeon E3-1235 (3.2GHz 4C/8T, 8MB L3 cache) and 4GB of non-ECC RAM that I bought a year ago for use in a different location as my potential Dragon Medical workstation in the office.  I was going to double up the RAM and swap in an SSD.

But as you guys know, hardware upgrade is comparatively cheap while software updating and tuning are much more demanding time-wise.  My thinking is that if I am going to take a week out of my schedule to ensure software compatibility with an OS upgrade, fixing up new antivirus, and ironing out "quirks" of the new Dragon Medical, perhaps I owe it to myself to get a "cutting edge" workstation and leave the E30 (as is) for my secretary (right now we both used the same model of crippled Dell XP desktops).

I don't care so much about "future-proofing" as I have neither the time nor the intention to upgrade anything other than RAM, HDD, or video cards (and only when the need is compelling).

To Phil, sir: a mobile i7-2640m is a far cry from a desktop i7-2600k to begin with if I'm not mistaken, and no one would expect your i7-2640m laptop with lesser and slower RAM to hold a candle to your top-of-the-line SB-E desktop in a heavy workload environment.

A more relevant question for me to you is: what is your experience comparing an i7-2600k system with your i7-3960x machine - both with comparable spec of RAM and HDD in a heavy workload environment with DNS running?

 

Thanks. 

If you value your time I would just buy a new Win7 machine and not bother with the XP upgrade. If there is a local guy with a good reputation have a machine built (and software configured) exactly as you like. There are many legit reasons for a super workstation like heavy video work, enterprise IDE with test suites, crypto, extreme gaming (triple SLI) etc.

However, Dragon and office productivity workflow -are just fine with a an i7-2600 class quad core.

I switch every evening from my hex-core office workstation to my bedroom machine so I can lie down and finish email or documents. My bedroom machines vary (what ever is spare at the moment) but they all are Win7 64 8 meg cache with quad core 2600 variants and an SSD. There is a perceivable difference with DNS but no practical difference.

A high-end mic will make more difference for less money than moving to a hex core for normal workflows.

Hardware is cheap. We got 12 machines over year end to dump all our XP machines. I will probably get four additional Ivy bridge machines specifically for software development use when the chips are available.

Unfortunately the announced Ivy Bridge processors do not have any more on board cache at the 35 watt TDP level so I won't have a 2012 upgrade for my 2 lb. laptop.

 

Phil Schaadt

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DNS12 Pro BM V Large Vocabulary plus KB or Voice Computer running Win7 64 bit machines with i7-2640M to i7-3960x and i7-3770K processors plus a Sony VAIO Windows 8 machine. DBX Audio Gate with Allen&Heath mixer/USB Audio; Andrea PureAudio USB  usually with Airline 77 or Audio-Technica but also Sennheiser MD431 II, theBoom, et. al.

Thanks for the input Phil and Lunis.  Perhaps I didn't make myself clear: I have no intention whatsoever to upgrade my crippled XP machines component-wise.  What I meant by "upgrading" was to get brand new ones as my days of building systems were long gone.

Indeed time and warranty are the deciding factors these days.

I was wondering if I should "spruce up" my existing Lenovo Win7 workstation with a mediocre SB Xeon processor which I currently use somewhere else with more RAM and an SSD, or exercise one of the two options below:

1. Buy a forthcoming Lenovo S30 (or it HP equivalent) with Xeon E5-1620 (just an i7-3820 that supports ECC) - 10MB L3 and 4C/8T at 3.6GHz
2. Wait three months or more for an Ivy Bridge version of my current Lenovo E30 with something like a Xeon E3 v2-1275 (3.5GHz and 8MB L3 and 4C/8T).

I don't plan on getting a hexcore anything - you are quite right to point that out.  I rather have higher clock speed per core than extra core counts above and beyond 4 given my intended usage at a price point I consider reasonable.

Basically what I want to know is whether an SB-E setup offers any advantage to a similarly clocked vanilla SB / IB processor with comparably speced RAM, gratuitous PCIe 3.0 lanes and "quad-channel memory" hype notwithstanding since I wouldn't dream of "SLIing" anything ... but otherwise in a relatively heavy workload environment running DNS.

I thought Phil might be in a unique position to comment since you have the top-of-the-line SBE hexcore as your daily workhorse.

I should clarify my intended "heavy" use:

1. Some file encryption/decryption
2. EMR access from a file server
3. Running five or more remote applications through Citrix (depends more on internet speed than on processing, which I understand)
4. Running Acrobat for commenting and editing.
5. Running Word
6. Running some accounting software (infrequently)
   
7. Running a fax modem constantly (don't laugh ... your local MDs may even be more "backward" as being tethered to a physical fax machine)
8. Obligatory multiple browser windows.
9. Dragon Medical
   

I realize that 2-8 combined probably chew up less resource than a single piece of developmental work you do on your hex-core.

But I just thought I'd ask. 

I haven't worked with Citrix directly for a decade but one of the main claims was moving load to the server and then using a lightweight client. Your described workload is not going to be processor intensive, especially if all the DNS recognition is actually happening on the server. So the amount of local workstation cache is not the critical performance factor as Rudiger's tool demonstrated.

I very much doubt you will see real-world differences between your choices 1 and 2. Since memory is cheap just max out on the memory. For me personally scheduling a machine upgrade is more dictated by fitting it into my schedule.

Phil Schaadt

 

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DNS12 Pro BM V Large Vocabulary plus KB or Voice Computer running Win7 64 bit machines with i7-2640M to i7-3960x and i7-3770K processors plus a Sony VAIO Windows 8 machine. DBX Audio Gate with Allen&Heath mixer/USB Audio; Andrea PureAudio USB  usually with Airline 77 or Audio-Technica but also Sennheiser MD431 II, theBoom, et. al.

Yeah thanks for your thoughts.  Just to clarify that the Dragon Medical is going to be running from the workstation exclusively and not the server (my server is just a file server for the EMR and intentionally nothing else).  The Citrix applications are running from a hospital server outside the office.  

Part of the value of this exercise of posing questions is in fact in helping myself sort out my actual "needs" vs "wants".  Now to be fair it's not all about "what the heart wants".  I know I won't stick to Dragon Medical if it "lags" ...

I think my option 2 with an IB-based Xeon E3-1275 v2 (with its onboard HD4000) is a much more economical way of getting the job done with Dragon Medical at the same level of effectiveness as an SB-E based Xeon E5-1620 under my definition of an, "ahem", heavy workload ...

I hope Intel doesn't push back the IB launch by another 2 months.

Having said that, if as you implied, you might conduct some form of "shoot-out" in terms of responsiveness and what not between your hexcore i7-3960X and a quadcore i7-3770K upon its release I would be interested in the results. 

 

Cheers. 

                        Welcome to the World’s Most Popular Speech Recognition Forum

About the only thing we have to add would be to make sure your computer is up to your expectations and you are comfortable using it before purchasing the Dragon Medical Practice Edition (w/New Ver. 11 Speech Engine) so that you don't have to experience 2 major changes simultaneously.

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