The Intel Xeon 5670: Six Improved Cores
by Johan De Gelas on March 16, 2010 3:39 PM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
SAP Sales and Distribution 2-tier
The SAP SD (sales and distribution, 2-tier internet configuration) benchmark is an interesting benchmark as it is a real world client-server application. We decided to take a look at SAP's benchmark database. The results below all run on Windows 2003 Enterprise Edition and MS SQL Server 2005 database (both 64-bit). Every 2-tier Sales & Distribution benchmark was performed with SAP's latest ERP 6 enhancement package 4. These results are NOT comparable with any benchmark performed before 2009. The new 2009 version of the benchmark produces scores that are 25% lower. We analyzed the SAP Benchmark in-depth in one of our earlier articles. The profile of the benchmark has remained the same:
| SAP S&D 2-Tier | |
| Operating System | Windows 2008 Enterprise Edition |
| Software | SAP ERP 6.0 Enhancement package 4 |
| Benchmark software | Industry Standard benchmark version 2009 |
| Typical error margin | Very low |
No results were available for the Xeon X5670, so we estimated the expected performance of the Xeon X5670 based on the X5680 result that Fujitsu published and on some preliminary industry reports.
(*) Estimated result
The six-core Xeon is no less than twice (!) as fast as the six-core Opteron in a similar configuration. Pretty dramatic results, but not unexpected of course as the six-core Opteron could never come close to the quadcore Xeons in the first place, let alone an improved six-core version of the latter. The reasons are many-fold, but one of the important ones is the fact that Hyperthreading boosts performance by at least 30%.
Even worse, 12 Westmere cores are enough to come very close to the performance of a 24-core Opteron machine. This is does not bode well for the newest octal and twelve-core Opterons (Magny-cours). To be really frank, we think the SAP market is Intel owned until AMD launches the multi-threaded Bulldozer CPU. Most of the SAP server market is not very sensitive to pricing, let alone CPU pricing. SAP projects, which need expensive licenses and many consulting hours are typically in the $100K to $100M range and x86 hardware costs are most of the time only a small percentage of the total project costs. The final blow is the appearance of the Nehalem EX at the end of this month.
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DigitalFreak - Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - link
Are you seriously going to buy a dual socket server (or workstation at a minimum) to play games? I'd rather see them take the time to do more enterprise benchmarking than waste it on what 0.00001% of the market wants.Starglider - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - link
No but some HPC / CAD / scientific computing benchmarks would be good. Presumably we'll get the full suite when Nehalem EX and Magny Cours turn up.vitchilo - Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - link
I want to encode video, I mean a s***load of video + play games from time to time.rajod1 - Monday, February 1, 2016 - link
You see you are writing server cpu reviews to punk kids that somehow only think of playing a game on a server. They just do not get it. Babies with computers, maybe this could play mario. These are good for boring server work, database, HyperV, etc. ECC ram. And they are still the best bang for the buck in a used server in 2016.Starglider - Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - link
> You can now use up to two DIMMs at 1333MHz,> while the Xeon 5500 would throttle back to
> 1066MHz if you did this.
Presumably you mean 'up to two DIMMs per channel'?
DigitalFreak - Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - link
Not sure about the 2 DIMMs per channel forcing 1066Mhz. We've been ordering Dell R710s with the X5570 and 12x4GB of memory, which runs at 1333Mhz.TurboMax3 - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - link
You are right. I work for Dell, since a couple of months after the launch of the 5500 Xeons we could do 2 DIMM per Channel (DPC) at 1333 MHz. It is a property of the chipset, rather than the CPU.Also, going to 3 DPC will clock the memory down to 800 MHz, and this has been available in R710 (and similar products from others) for some time now.
The 8GB DIMM is getting cheap enough to be quoted without shame. 16 GB DIMMS still cost as much as my car.
Navier - Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - link
Do you have information on Nehalem-EX and how that is going to fit in the updated road map with the latest 6 core systems?DigitalFreak - Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - link
The Nehalem-EX (probably called the Xeon 7500 series) are for quad socket boxes. From what I've been hearing, they should be released on 3/30. Not sure when the Poweredge R910 and Proliant DL580 G7 will show up though.duploxxx - Wednesday, March 17, 2010 - link
it is launched on 30/3 but actually only available mid june, call it a paper launch or whatever you want.