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.
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JohanAnandtech - Friday, February 21, 2014 - link
I don't see the error. "Beckton" (Nehalem-EX, X7560) is at 2.4 GHzmslasm - Sunday, February 23, 2014 - link
> I don't see the error.The article says "The Opteron core is also better than most people think: at 2.4GHz it would deliver about 2481 MIPs." - but, according to the graph, Opteron already delivers 2723 @ 2.3Ghz. So it is puzzling to see that it "would" deliver less MIPS (2481 vs 2723) at higher frequency (2.4 vs 2.3 Ghz) (regardless of any Intel results/frequencies)
silverblue - Saturday, February 22, 2014 - link
It's entirely possible that the score is down to the 6376's 3.2GHz turbo mode.plext0r - Friday, February 21, 2014 - link
Would be nice to run benchmarks against a Quad E5-4650 system for comparison.blaktron - Friday, February 21, 2014 - link
... you know you can't, right?blaktron - Friday, February 21, 2014 - link
Nevermind, read v2 there where you didn't write it. Too much coffee....usernametaken76 - Friday, February 21, 2014 - link
For the more typo-sensitive reader (perhaps both technically astute and typo-senstive):"A question like "Does the SPARC T5 also support both single-threaded and multi-threaded applications?" must sound particularly hilarious to the our technically astute readers."
...to the our...
JohanAnandtech - Friday, February 21, 2014 - link
Fixed. Thx!TiGr1982 - Friday, February 21, 2014 - link
From the conclusion:"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."
I don't think it will be really "several" years - maybe 1-2 years later this Ivy Bridge-EX-based E7 v2 will probably be superseded by Haswell-EX-based E7 v3 with Haswell cores with AVX2/FMA, which should make a difference in pro floating point calculations and data processing, and working with DDR4.
Kevin G - Friday, February 21, 2014 - link
The Ivy Bridge-EX -> Haswell-EX transition will mimic the Nehalem-EX -> Westere-EX transition in that the core systems provided by the big OEM will stay the same. The OEM's offer Haswell-EX as a drop in replacement to their existing socket 2011v1 systems. Haswell-EX -> Broadwell-EX will again be using the same socket and follow a similarly quick transition. SkyLake-EX will bring a new socket design (perhaps with some optical interconnects?).At some point Intel will offer new memory buffer chips to support DDR4. This will likely require a system to swap out all the memory daughter cards but the motherboard from big OEM's shouldn't change. There may also be a period where these large systems can be initially configured with either DDR3 or DDR4 based upon customer requests.