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
Conclusion
It has been more than three years since the previous generation Xeon E7 hit the market. IBM and Oracle have overtaken the old Xeon E7 since then and an update was long overdue. Since then, Intel has launched two new architectures in the dual socket server CPU market: the Intel E5-2600, based on the "Sandy Bridge" architecture, and the Intel E5-2600 v2 ("Ivy Bridge").
The new Xeon core has already shown its worth in the dual socket Xeon E5-2600 v2 based servers. It is interesting to note that both architecture updates, Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge, although relatively subtle on their own, have increased the integer performance of each individual core by 30%. The many subtle changes also increase the performance/watt, and the excellent 22nm process technology enables a 50% higher core count. The end result is that the general computing performance has doubled in scalable integer applications (SAP) and tripled in floating point applications. There is more.
We are entering the big data era, and the result is a strong and renewed interest in (almost) real-time data mining. One of the prime examples is SAP with the in memory and compressed database platform SAP HANA. Both Microsoft with SQL Server 2014 and IBM with DB2 10.5—with the so called BLU acceleration—are following suit. Therefore, it is likely that there will be a strong demand for a server platform with massive RAM capacity. The new quad socket Xeon servers can offer up to 3TB of RAM with relatively affordable 32GB DIMM technology and no less than 6TB with the ultra-expensive 64GB LR-DIMMs. That is another reason why the Intel Xeon E7 v2 platform will be more attractive than much more expensive RISC servers that are typically limited to 1-2TB.
Overall, Intel's launch of the tried and proven Ivy Bridge cores looks ready to set a new level of performance expectations. Ivy Bridge EX may seem awfully late compared to the IVB and IVB EP releases, but that's typical of this server segment. The Xeon E7 v2 chips are slated to remain in data centers for the next several years as the most robust—and most expensive—offerings from Intel. If you can use more smaller servers instead of a few large servers, that will certainly be more cost effective, but the types of applications typically run on these servers and the demands of the software can frequently make the hardware costs a secondary consideration.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
125 Comments
View All Comments
JohanAnandtech - Saturday, February 22, 2014 - link
I meant, I have never seen an independent review of high-end IBM or SUN systems. We did one back in the T1 days, but the product performed only well in a very small niche.Phil_Oracle - Monday, February 24, 2014 - link
Contact your Oracle rep and I am sure we'd be glad to loan you a SPARC T5 server, which we have in our loaner pool for analysts and press. Would be nice if you had a more objective view on comparisons.Phil_Oracle - Monday, February 24, 2014 - link
If you look at Oracles Performance/Benchmark blog, we have comparisons between Xeon, Power and SPARC based on all publicly available benchmarks. As Oracle sells both x86 as well as SPARC, we sometimes have benchmarks available on both platforms to compare.https://blogs.oracle.com/BestPerf/
Will Robinson - Saturday, February 22, 2014 - link
Intel and their CPU technology continues to impress.Those kind of performance increase numbers must leave their competitors gasping on the mat.
Props for the smart new chip. +1
Nogoodnms - Saturday, February 22, 2014 - link
But can it run Crysis?errorr - Saturday, February 22, 2014 - link
My wife would now the answer to this considering she works for ibm but considering software costs far exceed hardware costs on a life cycle basis does anyone know what the licensing costs are between the different platforms.She once had me sit down to explain to her how CPU upgrades would effect db2 licenses. The system is more arcane and I'm not sure what the cost of each core is.
For an ERP each chip type has a rated pvu metric from IBM which determines the cost of the license. Are RISC cores priced differently than x86 cores enough to partially make up the hardware costs?
JohanAnandtech - Sunday, February 23, 2014 - link
I know Oracle does that (risc core <> x86 core when it comes to licensing), but I must admit, Licensing is extremely boring for a technical motivated person :-).Phil_Oracle - Monday, February 24, 2014 - link
In total cost of ownership calculations, where both HW and SW as well as maintenance costs are calculated, the majority of the costs (upwards of 90%) are associated with software licensing and maintenance/administration- so although HW costs matter, it’s the performance of the HW that drives the TCO. For Oracle, both Xeon and SPARC have a per core license factor of .5x, meaning 1 x license for every two cores, while Itanium and Power have a 1x multiplier, so therefore Itanium/Power must have a 2x performance/core advantage to have equivalent SW licensing costs. IBM has a PVU scale for SW licensing, which essentially is similar to Oracle but more granular in details. Microsofts latest SQL licensing follows similarly. So clearly, performance/CPU and especially per core matters in driving down licensing costs.Michael REMY - Sunday, February 23, 2014 - link
that would have be very good to test this cpu on 3D rendering benchmark.i can imagine the gain of time in a workstation...even the cost will be nearest a renderfarm...
but comparing this xeon to other one in that situation should have bring a view point.
JohanAnandtech - Sunday, February 23, 2014 - link
What rendering engine are you thinking about? Most engines scale badly beyond 16-32 threads