We lightly praised Intel a few weeks back when they launched their Xeon 5000-series processors, as they delivered better performance and lower power consumption levels compared to Intel’s first (terrible) dual-core Xeon products. While AMD’s Opteronwas still delivering better performance and lower power consumption figured, it appeared as if Intel was on the right track. If we would have only known how good Intel’s “Woodcrest” based Xeons would be, we would haven’t have likely been so forthcoming with praise for the 5000-series. The new Xeon 5100-series processors are superior to the 5000-series in every way, delivering far more performance per clock, consuming half the power and generating far less heat. The question now is, why did Intel even bother launching the 5000-series if they would be obsolete in a month?
We heard several rumors that “Woodcrest” Xeons were pulled into launching much, much quicker than was originally expected. It appears as if Intel was hoping to ride on the Xeon 5000-series processor for a few months at a minimum before we saw the 5100-series ready to ship to market. It could certainly be that these new “Woodcrest” cores were testing far better than expected, and Intel wanted to get their “Opteron-killer” out on the market sooner due to OEM demands. Perhaps it’s simply cheaper to make the Xeon 5100-series processors, or that Intel wanted to move their production lines to Core based products as soon as possible. We may never know the answer why. Whatever the case may be, we won’t complain. The Xeon 5100-series is the first Xeon-related release in the past several years which truly has us excited.
We’re only seeing a first glimpse here, too. The Xeon 5140 and 5130 processors we tested are the mid-range $300-$500 Xeon variants, whereas Intel will be rolling out the big-gun 5150 (2.66 GHz / $850) and 5160 (3.0 GHz / $1,000+) models in the next few weeks. From the numbers we’ve seen thus far, these high-end models should be able to re-capture the workstation/server performance crown for Intel, and will put AMD’s Opteron on the defensive in a major way.
The Opteron has been fairly stagnant for the past few months, which has allowed Intel to now catch up, and now seemingly surpass them in both raw performance and performance per watt. AMD will, however, be launching their next-generation Opteron processors with DDR2 memory interfaces in the next few weeks. Whether this change and new socket will be enough to take away Intel’s momentum their “Woodcrest” Xeon lineup remains to be seen. For the time being, it appears that Intel has a winner on their hands, as this is the first Xeon processor in quite some time which we can recommend without hesitation. We’re greatly looking forward to Intel shipping these chips so we can start seeing what the high-end models will be capable of.
A New Perspective : Intel’s “Woodcrest” Xeon Previewed
Originally Posted by StyM
opterons are now consuming a lot of power...
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