High Speed Octa-Core : Intel’s Xeon X5355 Processors
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Author : Chris Connolly
| Date : 1/5/2007 |
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Just a few weeks back, we took our first look at Intel's quad-core Xeon processor, codenamed "Cloverton", here at GamePC. **************************** Intel's "Cloverton" Xeon quad-core processors are architecturally identical to Intel's Core 2 Extreme quad-core chips on the desktop, but with one major benefit, the ability to run in multi-processor configurations. Thus, this new line of Xeon processors can easily be tossed into dual-processor motherboards to support a total of eight processor cores (two processors, four cores per processor), while running with run of the mill tower cases and power supplies. We're talking super-computer level processing power here, for a fraction of the cost and headache, and our initial benchmarks looked quite good. ***************************************************
At the time of our first report, Intel had only started shipments of their low-end quad-core Xeon processors, running at 1.6 GHz (Xeon E5310) and 1.8 GHz (E5320). Even with these fairly low clock speeds, these new quad-core processors could outperform the fastest dual-core Xeon processors at 3.0 GHz, but only in applications which could make use of all eight cores available. The majority of real-world applications on the market, however, struggle to make use of all of the cores available to it, showing performance levels not on par with what one would expect from systems with this much computing power under the hood.
Now in early 2007, Intel has now begun full-scale shipments of their entire line of quad-core Xeon processors, including their high-end 2.33 GHz and 2.66 GHz models. As many of you are no doubt aware, the 2.66 GHz quad-core Xeon (dubbed X5355) has the same features and clock speeds of Intel's top of the line desktop chip, the Core 2 Extreme QX6700. The Xeon X5355 model, however, costs about 25% more but supports multi-processing. Now we can see how a pair of 2.66 GHz quad-core chips can perform in today's high-end workstation application. We've also done some revisions for our octa-core testing suite in order to more efficiently utilize all of this computing power. Let's get started, shall we?