Quad Core Intel Xeon 53xx Clovertown
by Johan De Gelas on December 27, 2006 5:00 AM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
Server CPUs Overview
As the CPU is still one of the most important cost factors in a server, we want to give an overview of the currently available server CPUs. We'll start with the Intel processors.
The Opteron CPU comes in two forms: one for DDR and one for DDR2. The DDR2 version uses four digit model numbers and the DDR version uses three digits. You can find an overview of the older 940-pin versions with DDR in our review of the Xeon MP.
There are a few things that you should notice. First of all, the current dual core Opterons that are capable of quad socket operation (8xxx) are very expensive. It will be interesting to see whether or not the Xeon "Clovertown" E5345 can attack the best Opterons as Intel's latest CPU is very aggressively priced. Eight 2.33GHz Xeon cores cost about $1700, whereas eight Opteron cores at 2.4GHz cost no less than $4500. Something else to consider is that right now there are few Xeon 53xx based systems. At the time of this writing, we could only find one HP server with the new Xeon quad core: the HP ProLiant BL20p G4 server, which is a blade server. So apart from the blade server market, the Xeon 53xx is not an immediate threat to the quad socket Opteron systems. However, AMD might have to adapt its prices quickly as Clovertown starts to pop up in rack servers, so we think it is very interesting to compare the quad socket dual core Opterons to the dual socket quad core Xeons. Also note that there is a Xeon E5355 CPU which runs at 2.66GHz, but has a 120W TDP. This CPU will probably find a home in some fast workstations and servers where performance matters the most.
As the CPU is still one of the most important cost factors in a server, we want to give an overview of the currently available server CPUs. We'll start with the Intel processors.
| Intel Server CPU Overview | |||||||||
| Intel CPU | Clock | Codename | L2 | L3 | FSB | Mem bandwidth | TDP | In test? | Price |
| Xeon MP 7140M | 3.4 GHz | Tulsa | 2x 1MB | 16 MB | 200 MHz Quad | 6.4 GB/s | 150 W | no | $1980 |
| Xeon MP 7130M | 3.2 GHz | Tulsa | 2x 1MB | 8 MB | 200 MHz Quad | 6.4 GB/s | 150 W | yes | $1391 |
| Xeon MP 7120M | 3 GHz | Tulsa | 2x 1MB | 4 MB | 200 MHz Quad | 6.4 GB/s | 95 W | no | $1117 |
| . | |||||||||
| Xeon MP 7041 | 3 GHz | Paxville | 2x 2MB | - | 200 MHz Quad | 6.4 GB/s | 165 W | no | $3157 |
| Xeon MP 7030 | 2.8 GHz | Paxville | 2 x 1MB | - | 200 MHz Quad | 6.4 GB/s | 165 W | no | $1980 |
| . | |||||||||
| Xeon E5355 | 2.66 GHz | Clovertown | 2x 4 MB | - | 333 MHz Quad | 21 GB/s | 120 W | No | $1172 |
| Xeon E5345 | 2.33 GHz | Clovertown | 2x 4 MB | - | 333 MHz Quad | 21 GB/s | 80 W | Yes | $851 |
| Xeon E5320 | 1.86 GHz | Clovertown | 2x 4 MB | - | 266 MHz Quad | 17 GB/s | 80 W | No | $690 |
| Xeon E5310 | 1.6 GHz | Clovertown | 2x 4 MB | - | 266 MHz Quad | 17 GB/s | 80 W | No | $455 |
| . | |||||||||
| Xeon DP 5160 | 3 GHz | Woodcrest | 4 MB | - | 333 MHz Quad | 21 GB/s | 80 W | Yes | $851 |
| Xeon DP 5150 | 2.66 GHz | Woodcrest | 4 MB | - | 333 MHz Quad | 21 GB/s | 65 W | No | $690 |
| Xeon DP 5148 | 2.33 GHz | Woodcrest | 4 MB | - | 333 MHz Quad | 21 GB/s | 40 W | No | $519 |
| Xeon DP 5140 | 2.33 GHz | Woodcrest | 4 MB | - | 333 MHz Quad | 21 GB/s | 65 W | No | $455 |
| Xeon DP 5130 | 2 GHz | Woodcrest | 4 MB | - | 333 MHz Quad | 21 GB/s | 65 W | No | $316 |
| Xeon DP 5120 | 1.86 GHz | Woodcrest | 4 MB | - | 266 MHz Quad | 17 GB/s | 65 W | No | $256 |
| . | |||||||||
| Xeon DP 5080 | 3.73 GHz | Dempsey | 2x 2MB | - | 266 MHz Quad | 8.5 GB/s | 130 W | Yes | $851 |
| Xeon DP 5063 | 3.2 GHz | Dempsey | 2x 2MB | - | 266 MHz Quad | 8.5 GB/s | 95 W | No | $369 |
| Xeon DP 5060 | 3.2 GHz | Dempsey | 2x 2MB | - | 266 MHz Quad | 8.5 GB/s | 130 W | No | $316 |
| . | |||||||||
| 3.60 GHz | 3.6 GHz | Irwindale | 2 MB | - | 200 MHz Quad | 6.4 GB/s | 130 W | No | n/a |
The Opteron CPU comes in two forms: one for DDR and one for DDR2. The DDR2 version uses four digit model numbers and the DDR version uses three digits. You can find an overview of the older 940-pin versions with DDR in our review of the Xeon MP.
| AMD Server CPU Overview | |||||||||
| AMD CPU | Clock | Codename | L2 | L3 | HT | Mem bandwidth | TDP | In test? | Price |
| Opteron 8220 SE | 2.8 GHz | Santa Rosa | 2x 1 MB | - | 1000 MHz DDR | 10.6 GB/s | 119 W | No | $2149 |
| Opteron 8218 | 2.6 GHz | Santa Rosa | 2x 1 MB | - | 1000 MHz DDR | 10.6 GB/s | 95 W | No | $1514 |
| Opteron 8216 | 2.4 GHz | Santa Rosa | 2x 1 MB | - | 1000 MHz DDR | 10.6 GB/s | 95 W | No | $1165 |
| Opteron 8214 | 2.2 GHz | Santa Rosa | 2x 1 MB | - | 1000 MHz DDR | 10.6 GB/s | 95 W | No | $873 |
| Opteron 8216 HE | 2.4 GHz | Santa Rosa | 2x 1 MB | - | 1000 MHz DDR | 10.6 GB/s | 68 W | No | $1340 |
| . | |||||||||
| Opteron 2220 SE | 2.8 GHz | Santa Rosa | 2x 1 MB | - | 1000 MHz DDR | 10.6 GB/s | 95 W | No | $786 |
| Opteron 2216 | 2.6 GHz | Santa Rosa | 2x 1 MB | - | 1000 MHz DDR | 10.6 GB/s | 95 W | No | $611 |
| Opteron 2214 | 2.4 GHz | Santa Rosa | 2x 1 MB | - | 1000 MHz DDR | 10.6 GB/s | 95 W | No | $450 |
| Opteron 2214 | 2.2 GHz | Santa Rosa | 2x 1 MB | - | 1000 MHz DDR | 10.6 GB/s | 95 W | No | $377 |
| Opteron 2216HE | 2.4 GHz | Santa Rosa | 2x 1 MB | - | 1000 MHz DDR | 10.6 GB/s | 68 W | No | $531 |
There are a few things that you should notice. First of all, the current dual core Opterons that are capable of quad socket operation (8xxx) are very expensive. It will be interesting to see whether or not the Xeon "Clovertown" E5345 can attack the best Opterons as Intel's latest CPU is very aggressively priced. Eight 2.33GHz Xeon cores cost about $1700, whereas eight Opteron cores at 2.4GHz cost no less than $4500. Something else to consider is that right now there are few Xeon 53xx based systems. At the time of this writing, we could only find one HP server with the new Xeon quad core: the HP ProLiant BL20p G4 server, which is a blade server. So apart from the blade server market, the Xeon 53xx is not an immediate threat to the quad socket Opteron systems. However, AMD might have to adapt its prices quickly as Clovertown starts to pop up in rack servers, so we think it is very interesting to compare the quad socket dual core Opterons to the dual socket quad core Xeons. Also note that there is a Xeon E5355 CPU which runs at 2.66GHz, but has a 120W TDP. This CPU will probably find a home in some fast workstations and servers where performance matters the most.
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zsdersw - Friday, December 29, 2006 - link
Smithfield/Paxville is a MCM chip (two pieces of silicon in one package), as well.
Khato - Wednesday, December 27, 2006 - link
Agreed on it being quite the good review, save for the lack of power consumption numbers/analysis. Form factor and power consumption can be just as important as the performance when the application can be spread across multiple machines, now can't it? At the very least, it would be nice to link to the power consumption numbers for the opteron platform in the first review it showed up in (which puts the dual clovertown at 365W load, while the quad 880 is supposedly 657W load.)rowcroft - Wednesday, December 27, 2006 - link
Loved the article, great job.I'm in the process of purchasing two dual quad core servers for VMWare use. Looking at the cost to performance analysis, it would be worth mentioning that many of the high end applications are licensed on a per socket basis. This alone is saving us $20,000 on our VMWare license and making it a compelling solution.
I would love to see more of this type of article as well- very interesting and not something you can easily find elsewhere on the net. (Tom's hardware reviewed the chip running XP Pro!)
duploxxx - Friday, December 29, 2006 - link
If you think that reading this review will help you to decide what to buy as VMWARE base you are going the wrong way! Yes these small tests are in favor for the new MCW architecture as we saw before and since haevy workload seems hard to test for some sites like anand! keep in mind that VMWARE is heavy workload, you combine the cpu and ram to whatever you want, guess what the fsb can't be combined like you wish!thinking that a 2x quad will outperform the 4p opteron is a big laugh! the fsb will kill youre whole ESX instantly from 4+ os on your system with normal load.
the money you save is indeed for sure, the power you loose is an other thing!
friendly info from a certified esx 3.0 beta tester :)
Viditor - Wednesday, December 27, 2006 - link
Probably one of your most thorough and well-rounded articles Johan...many thanks!It was nice to see you working with large (16GB) memory.
If you do get a Socket F system, will you be updating the article?