Intel releases Woodcrest benchmark results, claims series of records

Santa Clara (CA) - Intel today released official server benchmark results, providing a first glimpse of the real-world capability of the company's Core architecture. According to Intel, the server derivate "Woodcrest" is 125% faster than the current Xeon processor generation - and outpaces AMD's Opteron by about 60%.

Intel said that Woodcrest, to be introduced as Xeon 5100 series in the third quarter of this year, set new records in 20 key dual-processor (DP) server and workstation benchmarks. "The performance and system-level power consumption we're seeing from our platforms built around the new Core microarchitecture has exceeded even our expectations," said Kirk Skaugen, vice president and general manager of Intel's Server Platforms Group.

Specifically, Woodcrest servers built by Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens, Hewlett-Packard and IBM now have taken the lead in the SPECint_rate_base2000, SPECjbb2005, TPC-C and SPECWeb2005 benchmarks, which are generally considered the performance markers for server and workstation performance.

The tests were based on varying version of the current "Bensley" and upcoming "Glidewell" platform. The systems used varying capacities of FB-DIMM memory as well as Xeon 5160 processors (Core architecture, 3.0 GHz, 4 MB L2 cache, dual 1333 MHz system bus).

Woodcrest will be shipping to system builders in June and will be the first Core-architecture CPU to become available on the market. The new Xeon 5100 series will debut with clock speeds ranging from 1.6 to 3.0 GHz and a standard shared L2 cache of 4 MB. The CPU is expected to launch in this lineup:

• Xeon DP 5110: 1.60 GHz, FSB1066, 4 MB L2 cache, $209 at launch
• Xeon DP 5120: 1.86 GHz, FSB1066, 4 MB L2 cache, $256 at launch
• Xeon DP 5130: 2.00 GHz, FSB1333, 4 MB L2 cache, $316 at launch
• Xeon DP 5140: 2.33 GHz, FSB1333, 4 MB L2 cache, $455 at launch
• Xeon DP 5150: 2.66 GHz, FSB1333, 4 MB L2 cache, $690 at launch
• Xeon DP 5160: 3.00 GHz, FSB1333, 4 MB L2 cache, $851 at launch

The thermal design power (TDP) of the processors will be 80 watts on the high end, while low power versions will be designed for a TDP of as low as 40 watts.

Related article:
Intel to ship Woodcrest processor in June