Intel's Xeon 3500, 5500 series officially unveiled for servers and workstations
By Ross Miller 
posted March 30th 2009 8:44PM
posted March 30th 2009 8:44PM
posted March 30th 2009 8:44PM
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Thats good news.
Still the sweet spot is on a single quad i7 for the best bang for the bucks. 2 i7 quad computers are cheaper and render faster than a single 8 cores Xeon machine anyway.
I'd like to know how you came to that conclusion given that the i7, a desktop CPU, cannot be used in Dual Socket Workstaion/Server Motherboards because one of the QPI Links is disabled (by intel themselves.)
He said that two separate computers are faster than one dual socket one in this situation. Not that two i7s can be used on one board
Agreed.
My i7 still runs circles around these chips.
Yeah? Well my Celeron runs universes around your chip.
I don't mean to sound like a n00b, but can someone kindly explain the difference between the Core i7 920 (my rig) and the Xeon X5550 besides a bump in QPI speed?
Intel competes with itself to get better and better, which can't be said of many organizations out there.
That's why I love their products, and their company.
One word: Netburst.
This is not sustainable without competition.
@Mark: Two words: Grow up
I'm with you Mark. Every time Intel gets a sustained lead they do something stupid like sign an exclusivity with Rambus or create a hare-brained architecture like Netburst (or their i960 IO subsystem).
All this Intel dominance has me scared that it's time for Intel to get stupid again.
Sisyphus,
Weren't around in the mid 90's, eh?
Why, you still living in the past?
"price ranging from $188 to $1,600 for the Xeon 5500 and $284 to $999 for the 3500" -- why is the cheapest dual socket cpu less expensive than the cheapest single socket cpu?
because it's a "throw away" part so OEMS can sell a low-end server with one "temp" processor to expect people to upgrade. The dual socket Xeon chipsets motherboards are outrageously priced anyway, making up whatever savings it looks like.
Will these run Crysis ?
Only with two GTX 295s :)
does ANYTHING actually run Crysis well... it's like a white whale of PC perfection.
It sure would be nice to have money
Nehalem
Gesundheit. http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/2049/davidhasselhoffoutoffuc.jpg
"Intel's announced this week its latest batch of Nehalem-based Xeon processors, the single-socket 3500 and dual-socket 5500 series for servers and workstations. Both models boast speeds up to 3.2 GHz and feature Intel's turbo boost, hyper-threading, and virtualization technologies, as well as integrated power gates. If you've got the newest Mac Pro, however, then you're already using the new quad-core CPUs,, but for everyone else, they're now being sold en masse to manufacturers at a price ranging from $188 to $1,600 for the Xeon 5500 and $284 to $999 for the 3500. We've already heard about 5500 / 3500-equipped Lenovo and Dell workstations, but if that doesn't suit you, Intel promises over 230 systems are in the pipeline from companies such as Cisco, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, among others."
Wait, Cisco makes servers now?
Did you need to quote the entire paragraph to make your point?
http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=216401876
Great these have come out. Core i7 has been the coolest thing to happen it the industry for a while.
Slightly OT, but can anyone tell me why the new Mac Pro has options for 8, 16, and 32 GB?
The Nehalem arcitechture supports triple-channel memory and I'd be very surprised to know that Apple chose not to use it. If they did what I think they should be doing, we would be seeing options for 6, 12, and 24 GB.
Supermicro has boards available that can support 144GB. That's 18 slots, 8GB DIMMS. The X8DA3 I will likely use can accept 96GB. 12 slots / 8GB DIMMS. With 4GB DIMMS, you get 48GB. A compatible 2GB DIMM with ECC, 1066 MHz, is $50 from Crucial. That's an great price. I used to pay so friggin much for memory. That price is so cheap it's amazing.
Just realized what you meant. I think it's preferred but not required. The Mac Pro has 8 slots. 4GB per slot. 32GB max.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/14/apple-nehalem-based-mac-pro-unboxing-and-hands-on/
Look at Intel's Core i7 mobo called "Smackover" or DX58SO
http://www.intel.com/products/desktop/motherboards/DX58SO/DX58SO-overview.htm
The Mac Pro uses the same memory layout, but since you have 2 processors, you get 8 DIMM slots instead of 4.
What happens is the "first" 3 slots use Triple Channel like you were expecting, and then the 4th slot overlaps onto 1 of the existing 3 channels. You don't technically lose the advantage of triple channel when doing this, because it runs in asynch mode. So if you had 4 x 2GB DIMMs, then the first 6GB of your memory is running triple channel and only the last 2GB is running single channel.
Just priced out a system now that parts are finally available
2x e5520 = 850
1 x X8DA3 = 500
1 x 4870x2 2GB = 450
4 x 2GB 1066 RAM = 200
I have a 850W PSU and I have plenty of hard drives SCSI and SATA, so I'll wait or just grab 1 WD drive for now.
I have tons of cooling fans around here. May need cables. Need a case.
Not bad though for 2000 for the primary parts I priced.
Integrated Power Gates.
Just what we need.
Our Power Gates are now Integrated and I can relax.
And there you have it Apple fanboys (you know who you are).
I said give it months, but availability took even less than that -- for PC's to have Xeon based Nehalems at frequencies which surpass their Mac based counterparts.
Now you guys can sit back and watch the technology pass you by while you wait another 18 months for a refresh whereas the PC side of things becomes faster and faster month by month.
To be fair to them, the Mac Pro is a decent price for those looking to enter into the 8 core market, without actually buying anything from Apple to upgrade it with. Base price, no extras.
For a quad core desktop, its a devastating rip off.
But you are right. The Mac Pro is already out of date. Dells server machines with SLI capability and room for unreal amounts of memory, not to mention more internal space for hard drives assure the Mac Pro is for the power user who cares too much about their desks presentation.
Who cares? If it doesn't have an Apple logo on the outside, it really doesn't matter what else it's got on the inside.
Bend over, Lauren. You're in my sights. I must re-educate the "uncool".
And like I told Hamidxa and other logic-impaired Apple-haters, The Mac Pro is reasonably priced due to the chips it's using. Hamidxa, despite all your idiot blather about how the i7s are faster than the Xeon 5500s, they're not. Not even close. Isn't that kind of the point? Do you really think Apple chose to use 5500s instead of i7s for no good reason? Do you think 5500s cost more than i7s for no good reason?
Oh wait, of course you do. You're a moron. Up to $1600 per chip for the 5500s, and the Mac Pro uses two of them. With that in mind, I dare anybody to show me how the Mac Pros are overpriced, when the cost of the processors ALONE is $3200. Oh and please feel free to build a PC using dual 5500s at half the cost of a Mac Pro, like all the PC kiddies are so fond of always saying they can do. I look forward to watching you try to change the rules of math.
@Zak
Nehalem E5520 - the processor in the mac pro octacore - $373 x2 = $746
I'm not going to argue that the mac is overpriced, but don't bs.
http://ark.intel.com/ProductCollection.aspx?codeName=33163
Zak, reading comprehension or a memory that goes back beyond 2 days are not your strong suites are they?
I clearly stated that MY i7 nehalem processor will wipe the floor with any current xeon nehalem processor, bar none.
I have MINE overclocked to 4.1 GHz, and I guarantee you that it will not lose out to any xeon based iteration at that speed.
Because you know, we have choice over here on this side, and we have enthusiast parts that we can use, right down to water cooling blocks and things of that nature.
You know choice, something you are totally devoid of if you purchase an Apple.
Oh, and wiimypi covered it.
i think this chip resembles an iPhone
No, surely Intel's latest server chips allow copy'n'paste.
"...feature Intel's turbo boost..." *case with turbo button required.
I hope people know that the real things don't come with those fancy stickers on them.
I'm currently benchmarking an HP DL380 G6 with the quad-core 2.4GHz CPU's installed running a vanilla RHEL4 U7 build. Its as fast as a four socket quad-core DL580 G5 at the same speed. Though the GeekBench scores are well below those of the new Mac Pro's (9800 vs 17800). Not sure why the difference is so great, though it is a pre-production model with Beta BIOS and firmware.
What are those pads on top of the substrate for?
"Still the sweet spot is on a single quad i7 for the best bang for the bucks. 2 i7 quad computers are cheaper and render faster than a single 8 cores Xeon machine anyway."
True but this is great for work with running VM servers.
VMware basically charges per CPU and not per core.
So I wonder what they are going to do, now that Intel will basically half their price offereing for VM servers?!?
They might do nothing, as THIS might be a huge push to run to virtual servers.