Intel Xeon E5-2687W v3 and E5-2650 v3 Review: Haswell-EP with 10 Cores
by Ian Cutress on October 13, 2014 10:00 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- IT Computing
- Intel
- Xeon
- Enterprise
- Enterprise CPUs
Intel Xeon E5-26xx v3 10 Cores Conclusion
Intel’s product stack for 2P capable CPUs is somewhat frustrating. The lower cost models always offer the best value for money, but getting a more expensive and faster CPU means that you end up with a faster unit. So if a user is buying purely on bang-for-buck, they might end up with a quad core.
The essence of the workstation is always centered on compute-limited throughput. I have mentioned this in a previous review – almost all computer usage can be split into idea-limited throughput or compute-limited. For the former, the user needs a faster brain, but for the latter a super-fast CPU is needed. Being able to get through a compute task even faster means the user is able to complete contracts quicker enabling more work and more money. Ultimately this means that if it can be justified in getting a higher core count processor, even at the expense of 100-200 MHz per thread, it might be worth investing in another $500.
In my previous existence requiring workstation CPUs, I was naïve and assumed that a 2P rig was the way to go – I even convinced my boss to invest in three for our simulation team. Our basic C++ simulations used threads, but no-one in the team understood about thread and cache management, let alone NUMA programming, because we were more chemists than computer scientists. I always encourage users to test their software on 1P and 2P workstations before convincing the people with the money to buy a machine – depending on the software, a big 1P system might have fewer cores but the cache management might increase throughput even more.
With this in mind, the Xeon E5 v3 workstation focused CPUs like the W range now sit in a more generalized form. Other CPUs, with more cores for 25% more in cost on paper might offer a 40% potential increase in throughput for less power. The E5-2687W v3 is a similar price to its last generation brethren, but the landscape around it has changed in favor of other processors – 160W is still a lot to take in, especially when 145W processors seem to offer more. As a 10-core processor, the E5-2687W v3 still represents the best 10-core you can buy. But we have preliminary numbers in house for 12 core and 14 core CPUs, showing that a small increase in cost results in a better-than-cost increase in performance with lower power consumption.
The Xeon E5-2650 v3 represents part of the E5-2687W v3 problem. For just over half the price ($2057 vs. $1166), this CPU has two thirds of the TDP while only losing 500-600 MHz frequency across the power range. When paired up in a 2P system, two E5-2650 v3 CPUs against one E5-2687W v3 CPU will offer almost double the threads for only 13% extra CPU cost. For users that have software to take advantage of this, it makes a lot more sense while offering double the DRAM capabilities.
Over the coming weeks we hope to also supply reviews of 12 core and 14 core Xeon E5 v3 CPUs. Stay tuned for those! All our results will also be included in our CPU comparison section, Bench.
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TiGr1982 - Wednesday, October 15, 2014 - link
This new workstation CPU, Xeon E5-2687W v3, as we see, is intended for multithreaded software.There are actually workstation CPUs better fitting for singlethreaded software: these are Xeon E3, e.g., Xeon E3-1286 v3 (3.7/4.1 GHz) and slower and cheaper models below it.
These are essentially "professionalized" Core i7s for LGA1150.
Being the same silicon as Core i7s for LGA1150, these E3s have their own downsides, however: only 32 GB of RAM and only 8 MB of L3 cache.
And the really fastest in single threaded tasks is Core i7-4790K at 4.0/4.4 GHz, but it lacks ECC memory support.
hrrmph - Tuesday, October 14, 2014 - link
I would like to encourage Ian and AT in general to continue to split the coverage (as they have been doing recently) for dual-socketed platforms into the "low-end" enthusiast / workstation segment, and the "high-end" more heavy-duty server / enterprise segment.Ian's recent articles hitting this from the "low-end" enthusiast / workstation angle have been really helpful to me, even though I've already been part-time "playing" with dual-socketed systems for some time, both as an educational exercise and a personal curiosity endeavor.
In particular, the effects of NUMA aware software on dual-socketed system performance are of great interest.
I've also noticed a lot of negative feedback to Ian's articles that I think is unwarranted. It's mostly from folks who want Ian to do more complex testing of more complex tasks that are primarily enterprise related. That's all well and good, but as I understand it, that is the job of the "other half" of AT to do.
Ian and AT doing dual-socketed articles on "low-end" Windows builds is exactly what we need to help people know whether or not they would like to "step-up" from X99-E. It also is helpful so that folks know what they are really getting into if they go the dual-socketed route. As Ian pointed out in recent articles there are still some things that X99-E will do better and going into dual-socketed computing all "starry-eyed" isn't necessarily the best way to approach it.
If there is anything that AT could use, it's actually even more comparative testing of X99 Haswell-E versus the C6xx Haswell-EP from a Windows workstation user's perspective. It would be great to see which taskings favored which platform in actual testing.
Everyone has an opinion, but actually doing it is the best way to demonstrate what works and what doesn't.
mapesdhs - Thursday, October 16, 2014 - link
Entirely agree! Good summary.
Btw, disappointing to see the threaded CB R15 result for the 2687W is only 30% better
than an oc'd 3930K (mine @ 4.7 gives 1221). Does confirm that to really best a 1-socket
oc'd i7, one really has to move to a multi-socket platform, and then of course it boils down
to whether the sw is written to match (eg. is Handbrake written as well as it could?)
Ian.
PS. I hasten to add, I'm a different Ian. :D
SanX - Tuesday, October 14, 2014 - link
"And remember this rule Pinnochio for the rest of your life -- two processors with the factor of 1.5 difference are equal"colonelclaw - Wednesday, October 15, 2014 - link
Any chance you could include V-Ray in future benchmarks? It's multi-application and multi-platform and very popular in the CGI world.mapesdhs - Thursday, October 16, 2014 - link
And of course c-ray, which scales extremely well with multiple cores.Ian.
otherwise - Monday, November 17, 2014 - link
In the future, is there any chance you can add a benchmark that stresses single-threaded integer performance? I'd love to see how much Int performance has changed from generation to generation, but most sites (including this one) seem to focus on FP performance.