Test notes
You can see our test system configurations and the like in the section below. Most of it is self-explanatory, but I should mention at least this. You'll notice that the Stoakley/Xeon 45nm system came with 16GB of RAM, while the rest of the systems had 8GB of RAM. I elected to retain the eight-DIMM, 16GB configuration for the majority of our tests, especially the power tests, since the rest of the test rigs had eight DIMMs each. The presence of additional RAM in the Stoakley box shouldn't affect the outcome of the vast majority of our tests, since they all fit comfortably into 8GB. The one potential exception is SPECjbb2005, which can use quite a bit of memory, so I tested the Stoakley/Xeon E5472 system with 8GB of RAM in SPECjbb2005.
On another note, we were unfortunately unable to include results from our Folding@Home benchmark in this review, because the bootable Linux CD's networking stack proved somehow incompatible with our Stoakley review system. We'll have to test that later.
Also, you'll see that we have an Opteron 2347 HE among the results, a new addition since our initial review of the quad-core Opterons. We're curious to see how this CPU matches up against the Xeon L5335 in performance and power use.
Our testing methods
As ever, we did our best to deliver clean benchmark numbers. Tests were run at least three times, and the results were averaged.
Our test systems were configured like so:
| Processors | Dual
Xeon L5335 2.0GHz Dual Xeon E5345 2.33GHz Dual Xeon X5365 3.0GHz |
Dual Xeon E5472 3.0GHz | Dual
Opteron
2218 HE 2.6GHz Dual Opteron 2220 2.8GHz |
Dual Opteron 2347 1.9GHz Dual Opteron 2350 2.0GHz Dual Opteron 2360 SE 2.5GHz |
| System bus | 1333MHz (333MHz quad-pumped) | 1600MHz (400MHz quad-pumped) | 1GHz HyperTransport | 1GHz HyperTransport |
| Motherboard | SuperMicro X7DB8+ | SuperMicro X7DWA | Tyan Tiger K8SSA (S3992) | SuperMicro H8DMU+ |
| BIOS revision | 8/13/2007 | 8/28/2007 | 5/29/2007 | 8/15/2007 |
| North bridge | Intel 5000P MCH | Intel Seaburg MCH | ServerWorks BCM 5780 | Nvidia nForce Pro 3600 |
| South bridge | Intel 6321 ESB ICH | Intel 6321 ESB ICH | ServerWorks BCM 5785 | Nvidia nForce Pro 3600 |
| Chipset drivers | INF Update 8.3.0.1013 | INF Update 8.5.0.1005 | - | SMBus driver 4.57 |
| Memory size | 8GB (8 DIMMs) | 16GB (8 DIMMs) | 8GB (8 DIMMs) | 8GB (8 DIMMs) |
| Memory type | 1024MB DDR2-667 FB-DIMMs at 667MHz | 2048MB DDR2-800 FB-DIMMs at 800MHz | 1024MB ECC reg. DDR2-667 DIMMs at 667MHz | 1024MB ECC reg. DDR2-667 DIMMs at 667MHz |
| CAS latency (CL) | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| RAS to CAS delay (tRCD) | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| RAS precharge (tRP) | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| Storage controller |
Intel
6321 ESB ICH with Intel Matrix Storage Manager 7.6 |
Intel
6321 ESB ICH with Intel Matrix Storage Manager 7.6 |
Broadcom
RAIDCore with 1.1.7057.1 drivers |
Nvidia
nForce Pro 3600 with 6.87 drivers |
| Hard drive | WD Caviar WD1600YD 160GB | |||
| Graphics | Integrated ATI ES1000 with 6.14.10.6553 drivers | |||
| OS | Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise x64 Edition with Service Pack 2 | |||
| Power supply | Ablecom PWS-702A-1R 700W | |||
We used the following versions of our test applications:
- SiSoft Sandra XI.SP4a 64-bit
- CPU-Z 1.40
- SPECjbb2005 with Sun Java 6 Update 2 Windows x64 edition
- Valve VRAD map build benchmark
- Cinebench R10 64-bit Edition
- POV-Ray for Windows 3.7 beta 22 64-bit
- CASE Lab Euler3d CFD benchmark multithreaded edition
- MyriMatch proteomics benchmark
- picCOLOR 4.0 build 598 64-bit
- The Panorama Factory 4.5 x64 Edition
- Windows Media Encoder 9 x64 Edition
The tests and methods we employ are usually publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.
