Intel Xeon E5-2680 and GIGABYTE X79S-UP5 Server Level Performance

windwithme · Oct 26, 2012

This year, Intel has 2 CPU sockets in DeskTop market.
As previous generation, Extreme was LGA 1366 and mainstream was LGA 1156.
The new generation Extreme is LGA 2011 and mainstream is LGA 1155.
X79 life cycle should be around 3 years which is same as X58.

LGA 2011 in consumer market only has X79 chipset.
Some MB makers launch new X79 series and even use Server level chipset to enhance spec.
GIGABYTE X79S-UP5-WiFi is the first model to use Intel C606 chipset.
I, windwithme, will share you the LGA 2011 Server CPU, 8C16T, performance.

Let’s look at the CPU backside first.
Left is most high-end CPU in consumer market, Intel Core i7-3960X.
Right is Intel Xeon E5-2680. Serve level CPU price and usage are different with our common views.
E5-2680 clock is 2.7GHz. It supports Turbo Boost 2.0 to 3.5GHz.
It’s physical 8 Cores and Hyper-Threading to reach 16 threads, called 8C16T.
It’s 32nm manufacturing, TDP 130W, and 20MB L3 Cache. It’s very high end CPU in E2600 series.

MB is GIGABYTE latest X79S-UP5-WiFi. It’s mid-end price in X79 MB segment.
X79S-UP5 is same as former X79-UD5 and G1.Assassin2 bundling BT4.0/Wi-Fi PCI-E card.

X79S-UP5 can be treat as enhance edition from former X79-UD5. The color tone is similar, but some specs are enhanced.
It’s E-ATX spec. Size is 30.5cm x 26.4cm. You can just use standard ATX case.

Lower-Left Corner
3 X PCI-E X16 support 3-Way AMD CrossFireX/nVIDIA SLI
The bandwidth is operating at X16 + X16 or X8 + X8 + X8.
1 X PCI-E X16 bandwidth is X4
1 X PCI-E X1
1 X PCI
Dual LAN chip design with Intel GbE LAN and Realtek GbE.
Audio chip is Realtek ALC898 supporting 7.1 channel and High Definition Audio
Design in Taipei

Lower-Right Corner
2 X White SATA, provided by C606 and support SATA3
4 X Black SATA, provided by C606 and support SATA2
It supports hybrid RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5 and RAID 10. The max performance is depending on installed SATA devices.
8 X Gray SAS SATA provided by C606 and support SAS or SATA2. It also supports RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 10.
2 X 64 Mbit flash with Dual BIO. It build-in RST_SW blue button.

Upper-Right Corner
X79S-UP5 CPU PWM is 8-phase digital and the cover is plating for better look.
Red button is Power for bare system.

Upper-Left Corner
There are 8 X DIMM DDR3, supporting 1066/1333/1600/1866/2133. DDR3 max capacity is 64GB.
It supports ECC memory, quad channel DDR3 and Extreme Memory Profile.

IO
1 X PS2 KB/MS
1 X O.C. button
1 X BIOS Switch button
1 X Clear CMOS button
5 X USB 2.0(Red/Black)
1 X eSATA/USB 2.0 Combo(Red)
1 X eSATA3 (Blue)
4 X USB 3.0(Blue)
2 X RJ-45 LAN
1 X S/PDIF Optical output
5 X Audio jacks

GIGABYTE displayed IR3550 PowlRstage in ComputeX 2012 as new PWM design for own high-end MB.
It delivers 60A per phase and lower temperature by single package design.

windwithme · Oct 26, 2012

Chipset heat sink is pretty big with good match colors.

GIGABYTE own UEFI DualBIOS Interface
Intel Xeon E5-2680 operating information shows physical 8 cores clock is around 2.7~3.1GHz.

M.I.T. Tuning Page
E5-2680 is 27x and supporting Turbo Boost. As core utilization, you can adjust between 31~35 ratio.
Enable X.M.P. to OC DDR3 1333 to 1866.

Advanced CPU Features Menu
You can adjust individual CPU Core ratio and choose how many cores to run.
C1E is power saving feature. Intel Turbo Boost is opposite with C1E. It will boost the CPU speed by loading.

LGA 2011 is exclusive quad channels structure. You can set up by Channel A/B/C/D.
For X.M.P. DDR3, it has original parameters. The picture shows CL9 10-9-27.

CPU Vcore 0.800~1.700V
CPU Vtt 0.715~1.610V
CPU PLL 1.195~1.985V
IMC 0.800~1.600V

DRAM Voltage 1.100~1.990V

PC Health Status

Xeon E5-2680 is for Server market. It’s more on multi-threads and reliability.
If you want to pull higher clock, you can adjust the CPU frequency. However, it’s limited.
If you are OC enthusiasts or looking for higher clock, Core i7 3930K or 3960X is more suitable.
The test below is based on E5-2680 8C16T structure.

Test Configuration
CPU: Intel Xeon E5-2680
MB: GIGABYTE X79S-UP5-WiFi
DRAM: CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT CMT32GX3M4X1866C9
VGA: PowerColor AX7970 3GBD5-2DHV3
HD: SanDisk Extreme 240GB
POWER: CORSAIR AX650W
Cooler: CORSAIR Hydro Series H100
OS: Windows7 Ultimate 64bit

CPU 100 X 27 => 2700MHz
Enable C1E and Turbo Boost, clock is around 1200~3500MHz by CPU utilization.
DDR3 1867 CL9 10-9-27 2T

Hyper PI 32M X4 => 17m 36.824s
CPUMARK 99 => 533

windwithme · Oct 26, 2012

CrystalMark 2004R3 => 351690

CINEBENCH R11.5
CPU => 11.96 pts
CPU(Single Core) => 1.41 pts

FRYRENDER
Running Time => 3m 6s
x264 FHD Benchmark => 31.2

PCMark Vantage => 16941

Windows Experience Index
Fritz Chess Benchmark => 43.47/20867

In E5-2680 8C16T structure, it has very good performance for multi-threading software, such like CINEBENCH R11.5 / FRYRENDER / x264 FHD Benchmark.
As overall system performance, some software seems no performance improved due to none multi-threading support, such like CrystalMark 2004R3 / PCMark Vantage.
Windows Experience Index cannot support 8C16T, so I just ignore it.
Xeon is great for multimedia or file converting, but not some regular software.
Besides you have specified software requirement, for general users, 4C6T or 6C12T CPU utilization rate will be higher.

LGA 2011 is the only quad channel DDR# platform in DeskTop market.
DDR3 is CORSAIR DOMINATOR-GT series, CMT32GX3M4X1866C9.
The packing clearly shows supporting Intel X.M.P. Certified QUAD CHANNEL.

The clock is 1866 and latency is CL9 10-9-27 with 1.50V.
DOMINATOR-GT uses exclusive DHX thermal technology. The heatsink and PCB designs are bigger than some high end DDR3.

DDR3 capacity is 4 X 8GB
As X79S-UP5 8DIMM design, it can support up to 64GB, 8G X 8, 64GB.

UEFI DualBIOS default is DDR3 1333.4 CL9 9-9-24 1T
ADIA64 Memory Read - 15203 MB/s
Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 33842 MB/s
MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 12531 MB/s

Enable X.M.P. => DDR3 1866.8 CL9 10-9-27 2T
ADIA64 Memory Read - 17100 MB/s
Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 44352 MB/s
MaXXMEM Memory - Copy - 13127 MB/s

The performance difference between DDR3 1333 1T to enable X.M.P. DDR3 1866 2T is as below.
ADIA64 increases 12.5%, Sandra increases 31% and MaXXMEM increases about 5%.
ADIA64 and MaXXMEM performance is not much for quad channel platform.
But you can see Sandra Memory bandwidth is almost double the LGA 1155 platform.
The quad channel support really impacts the DDR3 performance.

windwithme · Oct 26, 2012

Enable X.M.P. => DDR3 1866.8 CL9 10-9-27 and manual adjust to 1T.
ADIA64 Memory Read - 17252 MB/s
Sandra Memory Bandwidth - 45532 MB/s
MaXXMEM Memory-Copy - 13238 MB/s

There is only part of software supporting LGA 2011 exclusive quad channel.
You can see Sandra Memory Bandwidth supports quad chanel.
LGA 2011 DDR3 1333 quad channel bandwidth is only 10% more than LGA 1155 DDR 2600 dual channel.
CrystalMark reached multi-memory scoreand quad channel bandwidth.
ADIA64 Memory Read and MaXXMEM Memory don’t improve much.

If we compare three clock and parameters to see the bandwidth, and using Sandra Memory Bandwidth as base, DDR3 1333 1T is 0.4% higher than 1866 2T.
You can see 1T or 2T is not the key factor. Pulling high DDR3 clock is more helpful for DDR3 bandwidth.

Temperature(Room is 30˚C)
Enter to OS Desktop – 32~35

CPU full speed by LinX – 38~50

Even the threading is 8C16T, due to CPU clock is not too high and H100 water cooler performance, the temperature is very good.
It seems Intel original cooler is enough for Xeon CPU.

Power Consumption (Enter to OS Desktop)
Enable C1E - 65W

Disable C1E - 107W

CPU full speed by LinX - 205W

The power consumption is using AMD Radeon HD 7970 as well.
New LGA 2011 and former LGA 1366 CPU are both 32nm. The power consumption is big different.
You can see LGA2011 is lower 50~70W than LGA 1366 CPU.
Besides CPU power consumption is lower, new C606 or X79 is also saving more power than X58.

3D Performance - PowerColor AX7970 3GBD5-2DHV3
3DMark Vantage => P32516

StreetFighter IV Benchmark
1920 X 1080 => 369.88 FPS

FINAL FANTASY XIV
1920 X 1080 => 5996

Redaon HD 7970 is current AMD most high end single GPU VGA. All tests have very high 3D performance.
Of course, AMD also has Redaon HD 7990 with two7970 GP.
You can choose your own VGA by budget or requirements. This is for simple share.

As room is 30 degree C, I use tool to test MOSFET temperature.
When entering to OS desktop and enable C1E, the max temperature is 40.5 and 51.6 in burning CPU.
As my own experience in several X79 boards, X79S-UP5 MOSFET is quite low in CPU default mode.
My every LGA 2011 articles all have these numbers for reference.

GIGABYTE X79S-UP5-WIFI
Pros
1. First C606 Server Chipset in DeskTop market
2. UEFI BIOS provides two BIOS interfaces
3. DDR3 supports 8 DIMM and ECC. It supports up to 14 SATA devices.
4. First IR3550 PowlRstage PWM design to lower the MOSFET temperature.
5. Exclusive BT4.0/Wi – Fi card to support all mobile devices.

Cons
1. CPU voltage drift between standby and OC is too big.
2. OC ability is lower than X79
3. Intel C606 SAS only supports SATA2

Performance ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 82/100
Components ★★★★★★★★★☆ 91/100
Specifications ★★★★★★★★★☆ 93/100
Appearance ★★★★★★★★★☆ 86/100
C/P Value ★★★★★★★★☆☆ 82/100

I used to share Core i7-3930K / 3960X default and OC performance.
These two CPUs are most high end in consumer PC which is 6C12T.
This Intel Xeon E5-2000 series CPU only use in high end Server.
E5-2680 is 8C16T. Some general software doesn’t support it, but it still improves some software performance.
If you are OC enthusiasts, 3930K and 3960X adjustable ratio is a better choice.

X79S-UP5 price segment is same as former X79-UD5. The main difference is X79S-UP5 using Intel C606 chipset.
It adds dual LAN, 14 SATA devices, supporting ECC and new IR3550 PowlRstage PWM design.
Unfortunately, Intel C606 only supports two SATA3 devices. Otherwise, X79S-UP5 spec will be even better.
X79S-UP5in mid-end X79 market is quite competitive in specs and components.
Currently, X79 MB is still in high end market. However, LGA2011 life cycle is longer than mainstream LGA 1155 platform.
It’s all depending on your budget and needs. This is just a reference guide for who is considering LGA 2011 platform.

This article is also post in my blog - WIND3C, All comments are welcome.