Results: Synthetics
We'll see a pattern emerge over the next few pages: mainly, Ivy Bridge improves over Sandy Bridge, and Haswell is faster still. No generation saw the big gains that were evident in the mobile segment, but performance is up even still.
3DMark 11
3DMark 11 is a gaming benchmark, and not a core area of focus for the Xeon E3-1275's more workstation-oriented HD Graphics component. Still, we do see performance improve from one generation to the next.
Arithmetic
A look at our Dhrystone and Whetstone benchmarks suggests what we can expect in many of the subsequent benchmarks. Floating-point and integer performance improves in small increments. The other thing we see is that the 100 MHz clock rate difference and memory speed enhancement moving from the original -1275 and -1275 v2 yield an outsized advantage for the v2 part.
Multimedia
Haswell's AVX2 support translates to big gains in the integer module. That's perhaps the largest theoretical boost we'll see in moving to the -1275 v3, though it necessitates properly optimized software.
Cryptography
Our cryptography benchmarks are relatively similar from one machine to the next. Of course, because all three setups support AES-NI, they are as fast as their memory subsystems allow them to be. Hashing performance scales more predictably according to the architectural speed-ups from one generation to the next.
Memory Bandwidth
In terms of memory bandwidth, there is a clear fall-off for the Sandy Bridge part. This can be explained simply. When the Sandy Bridge-based Xeon E3 series launched, Intel validated it with DDR3-1333 memory. The subsequent generations added DDR3-1600 to the mix, even with ECC support.
Cache Bandwidth Results
Predictably, Intel's Xeon E3-1275 v3 shows one of its most decisive benchmark victories. The L1D cache results are a direct consequence of a pathway widening to 64 bytes per cycle in Haswell, from 32 bytes per cycle previously.
