The core i series parts and the xeon parts start from the same basic designs but intel cripples them differently.
Desktop parts (core i series) don't support ECC ram and don't support multi-socket. They may or may not support overclocking.
Workstation/server parts (xeon) support ECC ram, often registered ECC which allows support for much large modules. They usually don't support overclocking. They usually cost more for a given clockspeed. They usually have more cache than desktop parts. They may or may not support multi-socket.
In general the xeons aren't much if at all better than the desktop parts in desktop workloads. Desktop workloads don't benefit that much from more cores, more cache, or crazy ammounts of ram they do best with a relatively small number of high-clocked cores.
As to why apple are putting xeons in their laptops I don't know. Maybe they are hoping that people with more money than sense will think xeons are cool. Maybe they think there are some pro workloads that will benefit from the extra cache.
3@MDMarra "If there weren't real benefits, wouldn't someone have figured that out by now?" -- You overestimate us. – Jason C – 2014-06-21T22:48:48.970
thanks , that is pretty much what I was thinking but I needed to hear ot from someone else. So if the money is there, it sounds like the xeons would work great for building the ultimate PC – JasonDavis – 2010-03-22T21:34:58.733
27@jasondavis - Yes, but that is money that is better spent on better/more video cards, RAM, SSDs, etc. In almost all cases, unless you're really spending an ass-load of money, you can spend those $$ elsewhere for better performance. – MDMarra – 2010-03-22T21:39:34.043
4The pipelines are the same, however the Xeons also tend to have more cache and more registers. This along with dual socket capablity is why they are used in high end workstations. More registers is very important with large numeric datasets. – spowers – 2010-03-22T22:37:05.207
1Nowadays Xeons can have 14 cores, i7 is currently capped at 10 I believe. – jiggunjer – 2016-06-23T01:57:08.527
Where the money is best spent really depends on what you need. There's no simple answer. @spowers Why do you say xeons have more registers? I don't understand how that makes sense, given that the instruction set and its available registers are really the same. But the additional cache on Xeons really does make quite an impact on performance, which must not be underestimated. – jlh – 2017-02-13T08:37:56.967
@MDMarra So in the case current gen of xeon i7 i5 i3, is it that all these chips went through the same process withe exact same design and components (caches, advanced features in xeon etc), and that after testing they were disabled (like gpu gets disabled in xeon)? I guess this mean the cost of those components are not that high (like GPU) – Rahul – 2017-08-03T14:24:25.320
1@Rahul - My answer was written 7 years ago. I have no idea if this is still true for the current gen chips. My career has shifted and now I focus on cloud transformation, so I don't know nearly as much about datacenter hardware as I used to. – MDMarra – 2017-08-03T17:17:31.963
@MDMarra Thank you. I did check out, it seems things are still the same. Until you said I always used to believe that you have different production design and lines for each. Now I understood that its just a function of wafer perfection along with disabling. – Rahul – 2017-08-04T03:51:08.130
3Is there any DATA to support XEON being more reliable, or is XEON just a brand name, and i7 another brand name, for members of an identical CPU family from Intel, offered at different price points? For example, is the multi-core feature just a matter of unlocking a chipset feature, or is there actual silicon gates involved in enabling multi-core? Are the multi-core and ECC DRAM features on the die of the i7 and just not connected to the relevant pins in the LGA 2011 socket? – Warren P – 2013-09-15T20:52:44.920
4
They're different chips made with similar technologies. Things like NUMA support and multi-socket support do not exist in the i7 line. I'm not sure what data you're after. Perhaps you're looking for something like the E7 family whitepaper from Intel? If you're doubting that Xeons are superior CPUs, you should ask yourself why an enormous amount of the server market share runs on them. If there weren't real benefits, wouldn't someone have figured that out by now?
– MDMarra – 2013-09-15T23:16:10.107