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Intel Xeon E5-2600: Doing Damage With Two Eight-Core CPUs

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  • Core
  • Xeon
  • CPUs
  • Intel
Last response: in Reviews comments
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March 6, 2012 3:00:06 PM

Intel's vaunted Sandy Bridge architecture has finally made its way to the company's dual- and quad-socket-capable Xeon processors. We got our hands on a pair of eight-core Xeon E5-2687W CPUs to compare against the older Xeon 5600- and 5500-series chips.

Intel Xeon E5-2600: Doing Damage With Two Eight-Core CPUs : Read more

More about : intel xeon 2600 damage core cpus

a b à CPUs
March 6, 2012 4:36:44 PM

My brain cannot comprehend what CS5 would look like with this combined with a 1TB R4 drive, and the GTX680 version of the Quatro would look like... and I am sure my wallet cannot!

Great article! I was not expecting my mind to be blown away today, and it was :) 
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March 6, 2012 4:40:37 PM

No gaming benchmarks? I know this is a high workstation / mid server build, but you know some of the boutiques will make a gaming rig out of any platform. Just out of curiosity, I would have liked to see 2x7970 or 2x580 and a few gaming benchmarks thrown in. :) 
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March 6, 2012 4:54:15 PM

dalethepcmanNo gaming benchmarks? I know this is a high workstation / mid server build, but you know some of the boutiques will make a gaming rig out of any platform. Just out of curiosity, I would have liked to see 2x7970 or 2x580 and a few gaming benchmarks thrown in.

I'd be really surprised to see these in gaming machines, even in the high end boutiques. That's a $2k processor they reviewed, and basically all it offers over the $1k SB-E chip (for gamers) is an extra pair of cores, which games can't make use of.
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a b à CPUs
March 6, 2012 5:07:31 PM

I must say DROOL :o 

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9
a b à CPUs
March 6, 2012 5:19:13 PM

why aren't AMD cpus tested too? I wouldn't mind seeing how 2x interlagos stacks up.
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14
March 6, 2012 5:19:16 PM

I wonder how fast TempEncode would chew thru transcoding avi/wmv files to mp3/mp4
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March 6, 2012 5:25:04 PM

esreverwhy aren't AMD cpus tested too? I wouldn't mind seeing how 2x interlagos stacks up.

Mentioned on the test page--I've invited them to send hardware and they haven't moved on it yet.
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14
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March 6, 2012 5:32:21 PM

cangeliniMentioned on the test page--I've invited them to send hardware and they haven't moved on it yet.

I would guess that's because Interlagos is garbage compared to the new Xeons and they know it. I don't think they're terribly eager for the front page of Tom's Hardware to show the low end Xeon's beating the best Interlagos has to offer.
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a c 150 à CPUs
a b å Intel
March 6, 2012 5:41:59 PM

What, or who, was the target? Are there military applications for this weapon?

Sorry, vote me down all you like, but the title was just silly.
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March 6, 2012 5:47:56 PM

willardI would guess that's because Interlagos is garbage compared to the new Xeons and they know it. I don't think they're terribly eager for the front page of Tom's Hardware to show the low end Xeon's beating the best Interlagos has to offer.

Not really my place to speculate--only to point out that I similarly wanted to see AMD hardware included and explain why it isn't there :) 
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a b à CPUs
March 6, 2012 5:48:39 PM

jtt283What, or who, was the target? Are there military applications for this weapon?Sorry, vote me down all you like, but the title was just silly.

No, the title is a fairly common phrase in American English.

"Now that I've got X, I can really do some damage" would probably be the way I hear it used most often.
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a b à CPUs
March 6, 2012 5:49:47 PM

cangeliniNot really my place to speculate--only to point out that I similarly wanted to see AMD hardware included and explain why it isn't there

Yeah, I understand that you're in a sensitive position. But being a lowly commenter, I'm free to speculate all I want!

Muahahahaha!
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March 6, 2012 5:52:40 PM

willardYeah, I understand that you're in a sensitive position. But being a lowly commenter, I'm free to speculate all I want!Muahahahaha!

Precisely ;-)
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March 6, 2012 6:08:27 PM

Interesting results.

In my opinion, the SolidWorks test is also one of those not representative of typical SolidWorks tasks. PhotoView only renders realistic images of a SolidWorks model. Personally, I think the Specviewperf SolidWorks test would be significantly more representative of average SolidWorks use.

Although I really hate to draw this comparison, PhotoView is more like using Power Point to organize a display of images created in Photoshop. In this comparison, most of the grunt work is done by Photoshop rather than Power Point, as is most of the grunt work done in SolidWorks then rendered in PhotoView. Performance differences revealed by the Specviewperf test are more informative, IMHO. See these.
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March 6, 2012 6:08:47 PM

great review.. i wonder myself how long we 'll have to wait to see 8 cores and 16 threads on desktop segment as a default pc.. (or less than 400 dolars)

we have to wait to long for that..
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Anonymous
a b à CPUs
March 6, 2012 6:37:49 PM

I would love one of those with a pair of FireGL cards and a mix of SCSI and SSD drives. I'm sure a dual core version of all of that will run me close to $8K though. Consider though how much Sun SPARC stations and SGI Workstations costed a decade or so ago? Workstations that were not nearly as capable went 20-25k. A dual core E5-2687 with FireGL cards and SSD drives is the fastest workstation you could put together on any platform and you can do it for far less than the 25k from years ago. Absolutely crazy to think about it in those terms.
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a b à CPUs
March 6, 2012 6:52:32 PM

I think you need to run some folding at home on that. I can't imagine what it would get in PPD, considering how well the old Intel 6 cores (Gulftown) do.
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March 6, 2012 7:11:34 PM

Great article and thanks! 16-cores/32-threads is nice! :) 

Reading this however, all I can do is think how PO'ed I am at Intel not enabling the 7th & 8th cores on the SB-E i7-3960X and i7-3930K.
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March 6, 2012 7:14:14 PM

jaquithGreat article and thanks! 16-cores/32-threads is nice! Reading this however, all I can do is think how PO'ed I am at Intel not enabling the 7th & 8th cores on the SB-E i7-3960X and i7-3930K.

I'm going to drop these into X79 and compare the numbers to see how power is affected. Maybe get a little overclocking out of them, just to check ;-)
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March 6, 2012 8:00:52 PM

no x264 benchmarks? :-(
x264 keeps my Core i7-3930K 100% loaded on all 12 logical cores, when converting uncompressed AVI to blu-ray compliant files.
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March 6, 2012 8:03:07 PM

dimarno x264 benchmarks? :-(x264 keeps my Core i7-3930K 100% loaded on all 12 logical cores, when converting uncompressed AVI to blu-ray compliant files.

Have run them before, but didn't here. I'll talk to our team about automating a good test for this.
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March 6, 2012 8:51:39 PM

esreverwhy aren't AMD cpus tested too? I wouldn't mind seeing how 2x interlagos stacks up.

willardAnandtech benched those next to the new Xeons. Went about as well as Bulldozer vs. Sandy Bridge.http://www.anandtech.com/show/5553 [...] -servers/6

Anandtech did a review of the Xeon E5. They had a 2x Opteron 6276 config for comparison, and well... I have to agree with willard's assessment. Interlagos seems to have trouble competing against the the Xeon X5600 series. It simply isn't a competition for the E5 2600's with their lower power consumption and significantly higher performance.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5553/the-xeon-e52600-dual-sandybridge-for-servers/1
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March 6, 2012 9:06:03 PM

willardI'd be really surprised to see these in gaming machines, even in the high end boutiques. That's a $2k processor they reviewed, and basically all it offers over the $1k SB-E chip (for gamers) is an extra pair of cores, which games can't make use of.

I hear what you are saying, but that doesnt mean there arent people out there that dont want one unit to do both. Personally I am same way so I can understand that someone be curious about it. Not like it would be hard to. Some people like myself work with huge amounts of data AND like to play games at home. I find myself having both hobbies of video/graphical manipulation AND gaming. I also find at times I have some money to burn, what is the problem with that?
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March 6, 2012 9:08:10 PM

mickey21I hear what you are saying, but that doesnt mean there arent people out there that dont want one unit to do both. Personally I am same way so I can understand that someone be curious about it. Not like it would be hard to. Some people like myself work with huge amounts of data AND like to play games at home. I find myself having both hobbies of video/graphical manipulation AND gaming. I also find at times I have some money to burn, what is the problem with that?

Nothing wrong with it, I just don't see the market being anywhere near big enough for retailers to cater to it. People with needs like yours are typically more than capable enough to just build the system themselves, cutting even deeper into the already small niche market.
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March 6, 2012 9:10:38 PM

-- How about info on its overclocking performance???

This review would be much informative if the reviewer included infos on how far can
these new E5 Xeons can go when heavily overclocked and this would give good insight
to people specially those who are into (including me) multi-threaded digital content
creation, editing, 3d animation and rendering where very fast processing power are
needed in order to get the job done in the soonest possible time where on-time project
deliverables is at most priority.

As far as rendering is concerned, rendering a basic single 1920x1080 image of a living
room interior with 1 ambient room light and 1 directional external light and with few
assorted furniture, flooring, wall and figurine textures using Arion Render or Vray
on a dual Xeon 5600 (westmere) processor server would take 20-40 mins alone and
the rendering would take much much longer (for hours) if the image is on a much higher
resolution (specially designed for large printing purposes) and uses more complex
lighting setup and textures for realistic rendering.

I hope these new E5 Xeon processor would provide much much needed processing
speed to aid Digital content creator and editor to make their job much faster and
more efficient.
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March 6, 2012 9:39:33 PM

Rock, what kind of server CPUs are you running now, and how much did you overclock them?

;) 
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a b à CPUs
a b å Intel
March 6, 2012 9:49:02 PM

nforce4maxI must say DROOL

+1
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March 6, 2012 10:21:40 PM

Wow, this benchmark will raise my optimism that AMD is no more in the second half 2012.
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a b à CPUs
a b å Intel
March 6, 2012 10:36:18 PM

cangeliniI'm going to drop these into X79 and compare the numbers to see how power is affected. Maybe get a little overclocking out of them, just to check ;-)

That would be an interesting comparison and to see how much strap they can take. A strap of 125MHz should be possible with 3.88GHz~4.75GHz, but on how many cores is the question, I don't know about much more. All I've seen is a 120MHz on an ASRock X79. So beyond that IDK. The 'problem' is what X79 has the CPUID (support) for the Xeon E5's?? Just looked and neither the ASUS P9X79 WS or ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Professional list any E5's.

All I've seen is this CPU-z http://www.abload.de/img/x79extreme9withxeonljox0.jpg and without proper CPU support the results are net really indicative of anything and 9/10 will be sub-par.
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March 6, 2012 10:39:04 PM

Gigabyte told me my -UD5 would work, but no such luck. Drop in the -2687W and it fires up/shuts down in a loop. Guess they were secretly hoping it'd work and counting on my processor not getting damaged? :-P
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March 6, 2012 10:42:59 PM

willardI would guess that's because Interlagos is garbage compared to the new Xeons and they know it. I don't think they're terribly eager for the front page of Tom's Hardware to show the low end Xeon's beating the best Interlagos has to offer.

Of course, AMD admits that Its own products are rubbish> Even, its engineers have been leaving from AMD because of shrinking AMD's cash due to AMD buyout of Seamicro.
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March 6, 2012 11:33:41 PM

Looking at all those threads was like looking at a porno mag for me..
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Anonymous
a b à CPUs
March 7, 2012 12:02:08 AM

wait, wtf, sounds like what AMD did when they put to use there hyper transport bus years ago, AMD's hyper transport bus can support up to 8 muticore cpu's each with its own memory bank and controller, and each cpu can directly communicate to any other cpu. ooohhh wait, I forgot, this is made by intel, so it is new and exciting, it dont matter that it was already done before, its intel, that's all that matters.

http://www.behardware.com/news/8193/amd-direct-connect-...
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Anonymous
a b à CPUs
March 7, 2012 12:26:51 AM

jmb, look up NUMA. I also don't believe AMD invented Hypertransport. It was a consortium of companies including IBM I believe. Please don't act like AMD invented a bunch of things. They have always been a user of technology and rarely an inventor. Even the memory controller on the CPU was done before AMD and was going to be adopted by Intel in the next P6 lineup before it was squashed for the PII. AMD did a good job on 64-bit extensions I suppose. Intel decided to go a different direction with i64 and gave way for AMD to develop 64-bit for x86. They are rarely the innovators in general though unless you like Lightning Bolt (golf clap) and 3DNow! .
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March 7, 2012 1:05:17 AM

Makes me want to get an SR-X...

Wait, no!!! Makes me want to rob a bank, get two SR-X boards and put them in a Magnum TX10 with dual phase change on the processors and water-cooled quad-SLI.

It's the end of the world this year anyhow - might as well go big before I die :sol: 
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March 7, 2012 1:36:14 AM

You guys should consider using X-Plane 10 as a benchmark.

Quote:
X-Plane will take advantage of as many cores or distinct processors as you can afford. Having 16 cores split among 4 CPUs is not required by any means, but Version 10 would be able to use every one. No more than 4 GB of RAM is necessary, but the more VRAM you have, the better–X-Plane 10 can easily use 1.5 GB of VRAM at the maximum settings.
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March 7, 2012 1:38:01 AM

Forgot to say: I think a lot of your readers could relate to X-Plane as a benchmark. It is sort of a game but more like a simulation that would be best run on a workstation.
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March 7, 2012 1:41:48 AM

IA64Guyjmb, look up NUMA. I also don't believe AMD invented Hypertransport. It was a consortium of companies including IBM I believe. Please don't act like AMD invented a bunch of things. They have always been a user of technology and rarely an inventor. Even the memory controller on the CPU was done before AMD and was going to be adopted by Intel in the next P6 lineup before it was squashed for the PII. AMD did a good job on 64-bit extensions I suppose. Intel decided to go a different direction with i64 and gave way for AMD to develop 64-bit for x86. They are rarely the innovators in general though unless you like Lightning Bolt (golf clap) and 3DNow! .


3DNow was bad a55 in it's day. That is all.
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March 7, 2012 2:11:34 AM

willardI'd be really surprised to see these in gaming machines, even in the high end boutiques. That's a $2k processor they reviewed, and basically all it offers over the $1k SB-E chip (for gamers) is an extra pair of cores, which games can't make use of.


Well, you could run multiple games and tons of other stuff if you could get multiple OSes running at the same time on the CPU...
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a b à CPUs
March 7, 2012 3:37:41 AM

Always nice to see how the server/workstation stuff holds up, even if it's completely irrelevant for me unless I'm recommending solutions to people on the forums and they need a workstation/server build. Now I want to see some eight socket benches.
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March 7, 2012 3:48:25 AM

This is what the 3960x should be for the extra 400USD over 3930K.
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March 7, 2012 4:20:28 AM

Thank you for including and updating the Visual Studio benchmark.
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a b à CPUs
March 7, 2012 4:27:42 AM

See that Mobo?
It's got 4 PCIe x16 slots in it...

=D
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March 7, 2012 4:38:47 AM

willardI would guess that's because Interlagos is garbage compared to the new Xeons and they know it. I don't think they're terribly eager for the front page of Tom's Hardware to show the low end Xeon's beating the best Interlagos has to offer.

for Data mining CPu cores matter, if interlarlgos has 40 core they would kill the Xeon
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a b à CPUs
March 7, 2012 4:42:14 AM

Oh, hey tom's, be careful with them processors...

They go for $1885 a pop...

=O
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March 7, 2012 6:02:29 AM

Marcus52Rock, what kind of server CPUs are you running now, and how much did you overclock them?


At work, im running a single custom built dual Xeon 5670 2.93ghz (stock) server
overclocked @ 4.0 ghz in a hi end desktop well ventilated case. I must say those
Westemere 5600 series Xeons generates a lot of heat when overclocked but they
are well cooled by two Antec h20 920 liquid cpu cooler.

Why did you ask? Are you running a similar server spec and planning to overclock it?
I suggest before you do any heavy overclocking with your 5600 series westmere Xeons
you must cool them with hi end water cooling system or else you gonna end up in
a not very helpful clock speed because the heat will hamper your overclocking and make
sure you have a very well ventilated.
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March 7, 2012 8:25:43 AM

What about using Interlagos 16 cores dual CPU at 2.2GHz? Would that be better in 3d rendering and CS5?
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March 7, 2012 8:35:05 AM

graphicsgriffinWhat about using Interlagos 16 cores dual CPU at 2.2GHz? Would that be better in 3d rendering and CS5?

Certainly possible, though no matter what, the best approach to CS5 is going to be GPU-acceleration, rather than allowing CPUs to shoulder the entire workload.
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