The Intel Xeon D Review: Performance Per Watt Server SoC Champion?
by Johan De Gelas on June 23, 2015 8:35 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Xeon-D
- Broadwell-DE
Supermicro's SuperServer 5028D-TN4T
Supermicro has always been one of the first server vendors that integrates new Intel technology. The Supermicro SYS-5028D-TN4T is a mini-tower, clearly targeted at Small Businesses that still want to keep their server close instead of in the cloud, which is still a strategy that makes sense in quite a few situations.
The system features four 3.5 inch hot swappable drive bays, which makes it easy to service the component that fails the most in a server system: the magnetic disks.
That being said, we feel that the system falls a bit short with regards to serviceability. For example replacing DIMMs or adding an SSD (in one of fixed 2.5 inch bays) requires you to remove some screws and to apply quite a bit of force to remove the cover of the chassis.
Tinkering with DIMMs under the storage bays is also a somewhat time consuming experience. You can slide out the motherboard, but that requires to remove almost all cabling. Granted, most system administrators will rarely replace SSDs or DIMMs. But the second most failing component is the PSU, which is not easy swappable either but attached with screws to chassis.
On the positive side, an AST2400 BMC is present and allows you to administer the system remotely via a dedicated Ethernet interface. Supermicro also added an Intel i350 dual gigabit LAN controller. So you have ample networking resources: one remote control ethernet port, two gigabit and two 10 gigabit (10GBase-T) ports, courtesy of the Xeon-D integrated 10 GbE Ethernet MAC.
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julianb - Saturday, October 31, 2015 - link
Thanks for the reply, man.And sorry for my late reply, totally forgot about this thread :)
eva2000 - Tuesday, June 23, 2015 - link
Nice... Xeon D-1540 is awesome, but I wish it was clocked 0.2Ghz higher across the board would be just enough to tip that scale versus E5. Did my own benchmarks at https://community.centminmod.com/threads/2864/ :)extide - Wednesday, June 24, 2015 - link
Thats probably exactly why it ISNT clocked 0.2Ghz higher across the board ;)I'm sure Intel wants to see some space between this and E5.
boogerlad - Tuesday, June 23, 2015 - link
If this was marketed for the consumer market with the ability to overclock, this would outsell everything completely. This is what the enthusiast needs!!!Refuge - Tuesday, June 23, 2015 - link
I don't think this is going to do much of anything for an enthusiast.Unless they are interested in building a server for some experiment or project.
JohanAnandtech - Wednesday, June 24, 2015 - link
I still think the i7 59xx series is a better match for consumers: higher clocks and thus ST performance. The Xeon D most interesting features such as integrated 10 GBe and low power don't interest most performance consumers. Most people will have a hard time saturating a 1 GBe line and power savings are not a priority.tspacie - Wednesday, June 24, 2015 - link
Seems to tick all the boxes for a software development machine. Very good at compilation. Reasonably priced for the performance. Low power. ECC memory. I'm temptedextide - Wednesday, June 24, 2015 - link
EXACTLY what I was thinking!MrSpadge - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
I would be very tempted by such a chip as well, using it for BOINC. However, Broadwell looses some of the power efficiency advantage if you push it harder, i.e. the largest gains are at low and moderate frequency. Perfect for such server chips and mobile ones, but not so much for people aiming for 4+ GHz.MaxKreimerman - Tuesday, June 23, 2015 - link
Sounds impresive in just 45w package, but imposible to find in the retail sites such as newegg or wiredzone