ServeTheHome – Intel Xeon AMD Opteron RAID Controller Reviews

The Intel Xeon E3-1240 is the second step up in the Sandy Bridge Xeon E3 series when looking at processors that include Hyper-Threading. As the Xeon E3-1220 (no HT), Xeon E3-1230 and Xeon E3-1280 have been reviewed previously, this review will be mostly performance based. For more information on the Sandy Bridge Xeon E3 series and Bromolow platform including C202, C204, and C206 chipsets see the introductory article. Read the full story

Today Intel is launching the Xeon E3 series CPU line as part of the Bromolow platform alongside the C202, C204 and C206 chipsets. This is a much anticipated release where Intel’s Sandy Bridge architecture moves to dominate the UP market for the near future. When Intel delayed the Bromolow platform launch due to the Cougar Point flaw, users were left wondering when the next generation UP Xeons would arrive. About a month and a half behind schedule, the Xeon E3 is here, and is the new UP market leader. Read the full story

Today it is time to look at a twelve core, twenty-four thread powerhouse of a system. After looking at the low-cost Westmere-EP based dual Intel Xeon E5606 configuration and finding it to be a power sipping dual-CPU setup, I noted that the E5606 is essentially a six core die with two cores that likely did not pass Intel internal testing and were therefore disabled. Intel also produces another low-power option, this time with the full six cores enabled, with Turbo Boost and Hyper Threading. With a street price close to $1,000, the Xeon L5640 is in a different league compared to the Xeon E5606 (approximately $240 at the time of this writing), but it offers a 60w TDP and many more cores. Given the price tag and speed of these CPUs, I plan on only testing a dual-Xeon L5640 configuration. Read the full story

As part of its Q1’11 CPU roll-out, Sandy Bridge was perhaps Intel’s biggest announcement. Intel also released the E5603, E5606, and E5607 CPUs which are quad core, non-Hyper-Threading parts meant for dual processor (DP) servers. I decided to look at the E5606 CPU as a successor to the E5506 previous generation (45nm) CPU and was very surprised with the results. Read the full story

Up for benchmarking today is the Intel Xeon E3-1280 Sandy Bridge based Xeon processor. Interestingly enough, this is the highest stock clocked Sandy Bridge CPU available today. After looking at both the Xeon E3-1220 and Xeon E3-1230 recently I decided to purchase a Xeon E3-1280, the fastest Sandy Bridge CPU (Xeon or otherwise) available to date, just out of curiosity. My hypothesis, largely supported by numbers, was that the E3-1280 would perform similarly but better to the E3-1230 and Core i7-2600K at stock speeds. Read the full story

On tap for today is benchmarking the Xeon W3550 LGA 1366 UP server CPU. Recently I have been looking at the new Sandy Bridge Xeon E3-1220 and Xeon E3-1230 CPUs. Most comparisons have come in the form of the new Sandy Bridge Xeons to the Lynnfield based Xeon X3440 and Xeon X3460 CPUs. I have received numerous comments requesting a low-cost LGA 1366 alternative to be reviewed as an alternative or baseline. I chose the W3550 for two reasons. First, I use one in the Big WHS so I had it available. Second, price wise it is in the same price range as the Sandy Bridge Xeons. Read the full story

After publishing the first Sandy Bridge Xeon review of the E3-1220 a big question remained, what would the performance of hyper-threaded versions of the new Intel Xeon E3 series be like, including the Intel Xeon E3-1230? Today, we look at the next step faster Intel Xeon E3 CPU. The basic enhancements are the addition of Hyper-Threading and a 100MHz increase (3.2%) in base clock speed and a 200MHz increase (5.9%) in Turbo clocks over the Xeon E3-1230. Like the E3-1220, the E3-1230 has an 80w TDP, AES-NI, ECC support, VT-x and VT-d support and a host of other desirable features for the server market. Read the full story

Building a dual processor (DP) server is not a tough task, but it does have a few considerations for anyone looking to build one from scratch. I was building a DP platform for a few reviews and decided to take the opportunity to take some pictures. This is a quick build guide to a dual Xeon system with three add-in 10Gb NICs and three (additional) eight port controllers. Read the full story

The much anticipated and already announced Sandy Bridge Xeons were supposed to follow desktop and notebook counterparts in short order, however it seems like everything Sandy Bridge is on hold while Intel rectifies Cougar Point. However, the new Sandy Bridge Xeons are here! Today attention is on the Xeon E3-1220 which is a 3.1ghz quad core without Hyper-Threading or on-board graphics. It does have an 80w TDP, AES-NI, ECC support, VT-x and VT-d support and a host of other desirable features for the server market. Read the full story

Intel’s 3400 chipset for its socket 1156 platform accepts CPU’s from the cheap Intel Pentium G6950 and Core i3-530 to the higher end Xeon X3430 to X3470 CPUs. Both Clarkdale and Lynnfield based CPU’s offer outstanding power consumption (for early 2010) at relatively low costs. After reviewing the Supermicro X8SIL-F, I purchased a competing (price wise) Intel motherboard to review, the Intel S3420GPLC. As I soon found, Intel also makes a good board, however it lacks some of the Supermicro’s features.

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