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I'm looking to maximize the performance for heavy parallel computing (realtime raytracing).

What setup would be good for this? (not supercomputer but more like pricy workstation).

I'm using the CPU for the calculations for now (perhaps together with the GPU as well later on).

The number of cores/threads is important and of what I can see Intel has a Xeon CPU with 10 cores (20 threads) -> Xeon E7-2870. The E3 model is newer and has 22 nm instead of 32 nm. But I can't see any version with more than 8 cores/16 threads in the E3-series. Which one would be better in this case?

Any other options I could look into? The Xeon Phi would be nice but I guess it's too expensive (haven't seen any price).

Which CPU:s are around the corner that I should be aware of? (for raytracing purpose)

Also, what GPU would be recommended for this purpose? GTX 680?

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Sorry, Andreas, but we don't do shopping recommendations as you can read in our FAQ. You may come to Super User Chat and ask for opinions there if you like! – slhck♦ Sep 24 '12 at 11:09

closed as off topic by Keltari, slhck♦ Sep 24 '12 at 11:09

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