The Intel Xeon E7 v2 Review: Quad Socket, Up to 60 Cores/120 Threads
by Johan De Gelas on February 21, 2014 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
- Intel
- Xeon
- Ivy Bridge EX
- server
- Brickland
Our Benchmark Choices
To make the comparison more interesting, we decided to include both the Quad Xeon "Westmere-EX" as well as the "Nehalem-EX". Remember these heavy duty, high RAS servers continue to be used for much longer in the data center than their dual socket counterparts. Many people considering the newest Xeon E7-4800 v2 probably still own a Xeon X7500.
Of course, the comparison would not be complete without the latest dual Xeon 2600 v2 server and at least one Opteron based server. Due to the large number of platforms and the fact that we developed a brand new HPC test (see further), we quickly ran out of time. These time constrains and the fact that we have neglected our Linux testing in recent reviews in favor of Windows 2012 and ESXi led to the decision to limit ourself to testing on top of Ubuntu Linux 13.10 (kernel 3.11). You'll see our typical ESXi and Windows benchmarks in a later review.
Benchmark Configuration
There are some differences in the RAM and SSD configurations. The use of different SSDs was due to time constraints as we wanted to test the servers as much as possible in parallel. The RAM configuration differences are a result of the platforms: for example, the quad Intel CPUs only perform at their best when each CPU gets eight DIMMs. The Opteron and Dual Xeon E5-2680 v2 server perform best with one DIMM per channel (1 DPC).
None of these differences have a tangible influence on the results of our benchmarks, as none of them were bottlenecked by the storage system or the amount of RAM that was used. The minimum amount of 64GB of RAM was more than enough for all benchmarks in this review.
We also did not attempt to do power measurements. We will try to do an apples-to-apples power comparison at a later time.
Intel S4TR1SY3Q "Brickland" IVT-EX 4U-server
The latest and greatest from Intel consists of the following components:
| CPU |
4x Xeon E7-4890 v2 (D1 stepping) 2.8GHz 15 cores, 37.5MB L3, 155W TDP |
| RAM |
256GB, 32x8GB Samsung 8GB DDR3 M393B1K70DH0-YK0 at 1333MHz |
| Motherboard | Intel CRB Baseboard "Thunder Ridge" |
| Chipset | Intel C602J |
| PSU | 2x1200W (2+0) |
Total amount of DIMM slots is 96. When using 64GB LRDIMMs, this server can offer up to 6TB of RAM! In some cases, we have tested the E7-4890 v2 at a lower maximum clock in order to do clock-for-clock comparisons with the previous generation, and in a few cases we have also disabled three of the cores in order to simulate performance of some of the 12-core Ivy Bridge EX parts. For example, a E7-4890 v2 at 2.8 GHz with 3 cores disabled (12 cores total) gives you a good idea how the much less expensive E7- 8857 v2 at 3 GHz would perform: it would perform about 7% higher than the 12-core E7-4890 v2.
Intel Quanta QSCC-4R Benchmark Configuration
The previous quad Xeon E7 server, as reviewed here.
| CPU |
4x Xeon X7560 at 2.26GHz or 4x Xeon E7-4870 at 2.4GHz |
| RAM |
16x8GB Samsung 8GB DDR3 M393B1K70DH0-YK0 at 1066MHz |
| Motherboard | QCI QSSC-S4R 31S4RMB00B0 |
| Chipset | Intel 7500 |
| BIOS version | QSSC-S4R.QCI.01.00.S012,031420111618 |
| PSU | 4x850W Delta DPS-850FB A S3F E62433-004 850W |
The server can accept up to 64 32GB Load Reduced DIMMs (LR-DIMMs) or 2TB.
Intel's Xeon E5 server R2208GZ4GSSPP (2U Chassis)
This is the server we used in our Xeon "Ivy bridge EP" review.
| CPU | 2x Xeon processor E5-2680 (2.8GHz, 10c, 25MB L3, 115W) |
| RAM |
128GB (8 x 16GB) Micron MT36JSF2G72PZ – BDDR3-1866 |
| Internal Disks | 2 x Intel MLC SSD710 200GB |
| Motherboard | Intel Server Board S2600GZ "Grizzly Pass" |
| Chipset | Intel C600 |
| BIOS version | SE5C600.86B (August the 6th, 2013) |
| PSU | Intel 750W DPS-750XB A (80+ Platinum) |
The Xeon E5 CPUs have four memory channels per CPU and support up to DDR3-1866, and thus our dual CPU configuration gets eight DIMMs for maximum bandwidth.
Supermicro A+ Opteron server 1022G-URG (1U Chassis)
This Opteron server is not comparable in any way with the featured Intel systems as it is not targeted at the same market and costs a fraction of the other machines. Nevertheless, here's our test configuration.
| CPU | 2x Opteron "Abu Dhabi" 6376 at 2.3GHz |
| RAM | 64GB (8x8GB) DDR3-1600 Samsung M393B1K70DH0-CK0 |
| Motherboard | SuperMicro H8DGU-F |
| Internal Disks | 2 x Intel MLC SSD710 200GB |
| Chipset | AMD Chipset SR5670 + SP5100 |
| BIOS version | R3.5 |
| PSU | SuperMicro PWS-704P-1R 750Watt |
The Opteron server in this review is only here to satisfy curiosity. We want to see how well the Opteron fares in our new Linux benchmarks.
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TiGr1982 - Friday, February 21, 2014 - link
I think, 6 cores on desktop for $300 will NOT happen this year.Because if it will, then you'll get $300 4 core i7 on mainstream 1150 & $300 6 core i7 on new 2011 simultaneously on the market.
To adjust this, they'll have to sell 1150 4 core i7 for $200-$220, like Core i5 now.
This is not realistic, because that's Intel we're talking about, right?...
dragonsqrrl - Friday, February 21, 2014 - link
That's actually the plan, except it won't be $300. I think the latest leaks suggest that the lowest end Haswell-E SKU will be a 6-core K series at ~$400. The other two price points remain about the same, $600 and $1000 for the 8-core SKU's.TiGr1982 - Saturday, February 22, 2014 - link
To me, seems too good to be true. Will require a major change of mindset inside Intel to start selling 6 core for $400 and lower 8 core for $600 :)(while 8 core XE for $1000 is not surprising at all)
Harry Lloyd - Saturday, February 22, 2014 - link
The thing is LGA2011 mobos are really expensive, so the CPU price does not have to be that high. You can get a good B85 mobo even for less than 100 $, and an LGA2011 mobos start at 250 or even 300 $.I would not pay 300 $ for a mobo, and 400 $ for a 6-core CPU, that would still be ridiculous. I hate this stagnation. The transision from 1-core to 4-core happend really quickly.
MrSpadge - Saturday, February 22, 2014 - link
The smallest 6-core K model has been around 500$ for quite some time, so I see no problem going to 400$ this time. 8 cores for 600$ would indeed be a significant step for some, though.psyq321 - Monday, March 10, 2014 - link
Well, if Intel manages to castrate the HEDT "E" version enough so that it does not pose any threat to their Xeon revenue, price drop might happen.However, one factor not to be underestimated is total available market and how much are target consumers for this kind of hardware willing to pay. I have no data, but for some reason I think only small % of "power users" (>very< power users) need 8 cores today and they would probably be willing to shell out $1000.
Thing is, if you are Intel, you will probably making the calculation: what if we drop the price to, say, $600? Is this going to bring us more customers? Is this going to cannibalize some of, more lucrative, Xeon market?
I suppose if Intel fuses out TSX, VT-D, ECC memory support and, of course, QPI (which is what they do anyway with Sandy-E and Ivy-E HEDT CPUs) the chip would practically be next to useless to most Xeon customers. So the remaining issue is the market.
f0d - Friday, February 21, 2014 - link
i agreei was hoping for 8 core ivy bridge-e chips but had to settle for 6 cores which i can easily use all of
i do a LOT of video encoding using handbrake and that program just loves cores, i easily saturate all 12 threads with my settings in handbrake so i do believe it could use a single socket 8 core well (i have read tests that show handbrake not liking dual/quad socket systems for more cores - but does improve when using lots of cores on a single socket)
MT007 - Friday, February 21, 2014 - link
You have a error on page 8, in your fourth paragraph you have the opteron as 2.4ghz and only with a score of 2481. From your graph it should have been 2.3ghz and 2723?webmastir - Friday, February 21, 2014 - link
They don't tend to fix errors/read comments I don't think.JohanAnandtech - Friday, February 21, 2014 - link
Sure we do :-)