Westmere-EP to Sandy Bridge-EP: The Scientist Potential Upgrade
by Ian Cutress on March 4, 2013 9:30 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Xeon
- Westmere-EP
- Sandy Bridge-EP
For completeness, we run our normal motherboard benchmarks.
WinRAR x64 3.93 - link
With 64-bit WinRAR, we compress the set of files used in the USB speed tests. WinRAR x64 3.93 attempts to use multithreading when possible, and provides as a good test for when a system has variable threaded load. If a system has multiple speeds to invoke at different loading, the switching between those speeds will determine how well the system will do.
Despite the slight memory difference between the two platforms, using E5-2690s with HT off has a significant 29% advantage over HT being on or the X5690 results.
FastStone Image Viewer 4.2 - link
FastStone Image Viewer is a free piece of software I have been using for quite a few years now. It allows quick viewing of flat images, as well as resizing, changing color depth, adding simple text or simple filters. It also has a bulk image conversion tool, which we use here. The software currently operates only in single-thread mode, which should change in later versions of the software. For this test, we convert a series of 170 files, of various resolutions, dimensions and types (of a total size of 163MB), all to the .gif format of 640x480 dimensions.
With the single thread speeds being similar, the only separation between our systems should be IPC – and thus as expected the Sandy Bridge-EP system is ahead, but only by 3-6%.
Xilisoft Video Converter
With XVC, users can convert any type of normal video to any compatible format for smartphones, tablets and other devices. By default, it uses all available threads on the system, and in the presence of appropriate graphics cards, can utilize CUDA for NVIDIA GPUs as well as AMD APP for AMD GPUs. For this test, we use a set of 32 HD videos, each lasting 30 seconds, and convert them from 1080p to an iPod H.264 video format using just the CPU. The time taken to convert these videos gives us our result.
With XVC having many threads is what counts, meaning that 24 threads on a full X5690 system will equal our small video conversion test. At this level, we would need more content to see significant difference. With HT off however, the Westmere-EP result is nearer that of a single 3960X than the E5-2690s.
x264 HD Benchmark
The x264 HD Benchmark uses a common HD encoding tool to process an HD MPEG2 source at 1280x720 at 3963 Kbps. This test represents a standardized result which can be compared across other reviews, and is dependant on both CPU power and memory speed. The benchmark performs a 2-pass encode, and the results shown are the average of each pass performed four times.
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Kevin G - Monday, March 4, 2013 - link
Ivy Bridge-E is a drop in replacement so that investment into RAM, storage, motherboard, chassis would be identical to today. The transition between Sandy Bridge-E and Ivy Bridge-E will mirror the transition between Nehalem and Westmere: socket compatible drop-in replacements in most cases.colonelpepper - Monday, March 4, 2013 - link
yeah, what i was thinking might be a decent route to take is to build out a workstation with 2 of the lower end more moderately priced Xeon 2600's... save the big $$ for the new chips.Shadowmage - Monday, March 4, 2013 - link
Your current suite of benchmarks is extremely limited for you to be able to call this a review for "scientists". For example, I'm interested in how these processors perform in Xilinx XST/MAP/PAR and simulation (e.g. Gem5) benchmarks.IanCutress - Tuesday, March 5, 2013 - link
Of course - any review aimed at scientists is going to be extremely limited. Forgive me when I can only represent where I have come from - I haven't done research in every field.Ian
Simen1 - Tuesday, March 5, 2013 - link
Wouldnt it be fair to compare the Dual Xeon systems to a similar priced dual Opteron system?Simen1 - Tuesday, March 5, 2013 - link
And the mentioning of the 3 year old Opteron 6100 and 1,5 year old 6100 on the first page is irellevant now in 2013. Todays models are in the 6300 series.IanCutress - Thursday, March 7, 2013 - link
If we get a dual Opteron 6300 system in, we will compare.plext0r - Tuesday, March 5, 2013 - link
Would have been nice to throw in some bigadv work units from the Folding@Home project to see how the systems compare.Michael REMY - Wednesday, March 6, 2013 - link
hi !i really thought it is unfair and un-objectif to not include one of the E3-1290V2 or xeon E5-1620 in your test. Why (the hell) the i7-3770 do in you "profesional server" comparaison test ?
E3-1290V2 and E5-1620 are the higher clock and newer xeon ! you should put them in the race !
best regard
IanCutress - Thursday, March 7, 2013 - link
It's all about the equipment we have to hand. We don't have every CPU ever created. Plus, putting in consumer CPUs lets everyone know the playing field.Ian