My problem is I cant get a straight answer on a processor for a system we are going to spec up. Its is going to have a Quadro 4200 graphics card, SSD's, 64GB of Ram and the last thing to spec is the processor... my IT guy has taken advice and says dual xeon E 2560@2.0ghz (cpu mark of15462 on cpubenchmark.net) is the way to go.

I am a little confused as our current processor is an i7-3770@3.4ghz which we have been using for about 2 years yet the i7, although it gets a much lower cpu mark of 9374 (cpubenchmark.net), gets a single thread rating of 2069 which is greater than the xeon's single thread rating of 1774 (I know there are two xeons in the spec but presumably a single processor can only be used at one time for the single thread processing?). This makes me think is there a new multicore i7 that would be better than our current one or the dual xeons or is the dual xeons the way to go? How mush sway should the single thread rating hold over the main cpu score if any? Does SW2015 utilise dual processors and multicores more effectively now and will I see huge benefit in dual processors or is it the speed of a single processor and its high single thread rating that I want? Which will be the best or is there a better one out there for the same sort of money?

The kind of work we do is mainly part and assembly modelling and manipulation (rebuilding and resizing assemblies) and we also use multi sheet drawings quite a lot...we occasionally render phtotoworks images. I would love to get some clarity on the matter as no one seems to know outright? We are looking around a similar price of the dual xeons so around £1000 a processor for dual or around £2000 if a single multicore processor like an i7.

Hope someone can help because I'm at tearing out hair stage!?

All the best,

Simon