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
Benchmark Configuration
All tests were done on Ubuntu Server 14.04 LTS (soon to be upgraded to 15.04). Aside from the SuperMicro Xeon-D system, we also have the ASRock Rack C2750D4I (eight core Silvermont), a Xeon E3-1200 v3 system, a Xeon E3-1200 v2 system, a 1P Xeon E5-2600L v3 and a HP Moonshot cartridge based system. We tested the HP Moonshot cartridges remotely.
Supermicro's 5028D-TN4T
| CPU | Xeon D-1540 2.0 GHz |
| RAM | 4x16GB DDR4-2133 |
| Internal Disks | Samsung 850 Pro 128 GB |
| Motherboard | SuperMicro X10SLD-F |
| PSU | FSP250-50LC (250 W, 80+ Bronze) |
Below you can find most of the CPU settings in the BIOS:
ASRock's C2750D4I
| CPU | Intel Atom C2750 2.4 GHz |
| RAM | 4x8GB DDR3-1600 |
| Internal Disks | Samsung 850 Pro 128 GB |
| Motherboard | ASRock C2750D4I |
| PSU | Supermicro PWS-502 (80+) |
The Xeon D is not a replacement for the Atom C2000. Although the Xeon D is also a SoC, the Atom C2000 remains Intel low power options for microservers. Of course, we want to know how much power you save, and how large the performance trade-off is.
Intel's Xeon E3-1200 v3 – ASUS P9D-MH
| CPU | Intel Xeon processor E3-1240 v3 3.4 GHz Intel Xeon processor E3-1230L v3 1.8 GHz |
| RAM | 4x8GB DDR3-1600 |
| Internal Disks | 1x Samsung 850 Pro 128 GB |
| Motherboard | ASUS P9D-MH |
| PSU | Supermicro PWS-502 (80+) |
As the Xeon D is limited to 2 GHz (2.6 GHz turboboost), higher clocked Xeon E3s might still make sense where single threaded performance is a major concern. The Xeon E3-1230L was included as a low power alternative, although we wonder it still make sense, considering that the Xeon E3 needs a separate 1-4W chipset (C220).
Intel's Xeon E3-1200 v2
| CPU | Intel Xeon processor E3-1265L v2 |
| RAM | 4x8GB DDR3-1600 |
| Internal Disks | 1x Intel MLC SSD710 200GB |
| Motherboard | Intel S1200BTL |
| PSU | Supermicro PWS-502 (80+) |
The previous generation low power Xeon E3.
Intel's Xeon E5 Server – "Wildcat Pass" (2U Chassis)
| CPU | One Intel Xeon processor E5-2650L v3 (1.8GHz, 12c, 30MB L3, 65W) |
| RAM | 128GB (8x16GB) Samsung M393A2G40DB0 (RDIMM) |
| Internal Disks | 2x Intel MLC SSD710 200GB |
| Motherboard | Intel Server Board Wildcat Pass |
| PSU | Delta Electronics 750W DPS-750XB A (80+ Platinum) |
Although our E5 server is not comparable to the other systems, it important to gauge where a low power E5 model would land. We like to understand when it make sense to invest more money in an Xeon E5 system, and here we only use one Xeon. Note that this system also requires power from a separate PCH.
HP Moonshot
More info about this configuration can be found in our previous article about micro server SoCs.
We tested two different cartridges: the m400 and the m300. Below you can find the specs of the m400:
| CPU/SoC | AppliedMicro X-Gene 2.4 |
| RAM | 8x 8GB DDR3 @ 1600 |
| Internal Disks | M.2 2280 Solid State 120GB |
| Cartridge | m400 |
And the m300:
| CPU/SoC | Atom C2750 2.4 |
| RAM | 8x 8GB DDR3 @ 1600 |
| Internal Disks | M.2 2280 Solid State 120GB |
| Cartridge | m300 |
Other Notes
Both servers are fed by a standard European 230V (16 Amps max.) power line. The room temperature is monitored and kept at 23°C by our Airwell CRACs. We use the Racktivity ES1008 Energy Switch PDU to measure power consumption in our lab. We used the HP Moonshot ILO to measure the power consumption of the cartridges.
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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