Intel Xeon E5 Version 3: Up to 18 Haswell EP Cores

Limitations

Where are the virtualization benchmarks? We only got ESXi running a few days before the launch, after performing a necessary BIOS update. A little bit later, disaster struck: our iSCSI target was gone as some of the disks in the RAID-array failed. Unfortunately that means we will have to post our virtualization findings in a later article.

The other main limitation of this review is that we did not have sufficient time to experiment with different servers to measure power consumption. We have started asking around to get different kinds of servers in the lab, and we will be updating our tools to measure power draw of the different components inside the servers soon.

Conclusions so Far...

This has been a massive review and there's a lot of information to digest. However, if there is one thing you should remember it's that there is not one SKU that is the best in every situation. The results vary enormously depending on the workload. Some workloads like our kernel compilation test prefer the higher clocked SKUs, and those who thought the 14-core and 18-core processors at 2.3GHz would only excel in easy scaling software are wrong. Turbo Boost has improved vastly, and the massive core monsters can deftly wield this weapon when few threads are running.

The Xeon E5-2695 v3 is an interesting SKU for those searching for high performance in integer workloads. It is also relatively power efficient, never asking for too many amps, and it performs very well in alomst every (integer!) application. Of course the price tag is heavy, and it only makes sense if you can use all that processing power.

It is clear that server buyers could really benefit from some serious competition in the market, but you can hardly blame Intel at this stage. We hope that AMD can make a comeback in 2015. If not, it does not look like Intel will have any real competition in the midrange server market.

The Xeon E5-2650L v3 however is the true star of this review. It is power efficient (obviously) and contrary to previous low power offerings it still offers a good response time. Perhaps more surprising is that it even performs well in our FP intensive applications.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Xeon E5-2699 v3 is much more power hungry than we are used to from a high end part. It shines in SAP where hardware costs are dwarfed by the consulting invoices and delivers maximum performance in HPC. However, the peak power draw of this CPU is nothing to laugh about. Of course, the HPC crowd are used to powerhogs (e.g. GPGPU), but there's a reason Intel doesn't usually offer >130W TDP processors.

Considering the new Haswell EP processors will require a completely new platform – motherboards, memory, and processors all need to be upgraded – at least initially the parts will mostly be of interest to new server buyers. There are also businesses that demand the absolute fastest servers available and they'll be willing to upgrade, but for many the improvements with Haswell EP may not be sufficient to entice them into upgrading. The 14 nm Broadwell EP will likely be a better time to update servers, but that's still a year or so away.