Server CPUs overview

As the CPU is still one of the most important cost factors in a server, we want to give an overview of the currently available server CPUs. We'll start with the Intel CPUs.
The biggest advantage of Intel's newest Bensley platform is the longevity: the Dempsey, Woodcrest, and quad core Clovertown Xeon all use the same socket and "Bensley" platform. Even the successor of Clovertown, the 45nm Harpertown, is confirmed to be compatible with the Bensley platform.

Intel Xeon Overview
Intel CPU Clock Codename L2 L3 FSB Mem bandwidth TDP In test? Price
Xeon MP 7140M 3.4GHz Tulsa 2x1MB 16MB 200 MHz Quad 6.4 GB/s 150W No $1,980
Xeon MP 7130M 3.2GHz Tulsa 2x1MB 8MB 200 MHz Quad 6.4 GB/s 150W yes $1,391
Xeon MP 7120M 3GHz Tulsa 2x1MB 4MB 200 MHz Quad 6.4 GB/s 95W No $1,117
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Xeon DP 5160 3GHz Woodcrest 4MB - 333 MHz Quad 21 GB/s 80W Yes $851
Xeon DP 5150 2.66GHz Woodcrest 4MB - 333 MHz Quad 21 GB/s 65W No $690
Xeon DP 5148 2.33GHz Woodcrest 4MB - 333 MHz Quad 21 GB/s 40W No $519
Xeon DP 5140 2.33GHz Woodcrest 4MB - 333 MHz Quad 21 GB/s 65W No $455
Xeon DP 5130 2GHz Woodcrest 4MB - 333 MHz Quad 21 GB/s 65W No $316
Xeon DP 5120 1.86GHz Woodcrest 4MB - 266 MHz Quad 17 GB/s 65W No $256
.
Xeon DP 5080 3.73GHz Dempsey 2x2MB - 266 MHz Quad 8.5 GB/s 130W No $851
Xeon DP 5063 3.2GHz Dempsey 2x2MB - 266 MHz Quad 8.5 GB/s 95W No $369
Xeon DP 5060 3.2GHz Dempsey 2x2MB - 266 MHz Quad 8.5 GB/s 130W No $316

The Opteron CPU comes in two forms: one for DDR and one for DDR-2. The DDR-2 version uses 4 model numbers, the DDR version three.

AMD Opteron Overview
AMD CPU Clock Codename L2 L3 HT Mem bandwidth TDP In test? Price
Opteron 8220 SE 2.8GHz Santa Rosa 2x1MB - 1000 MHz DDR 8.5 GB/s 119W No $2,149
Opteron 8218 2.6GHz Santa Rosa 2x1MB - 1000 MHz DDR 8.5 GB/s 95W No $1,514
Opteron 8216 2.4GHz Santa Rosa 2x1MB - 1000 MHz DDR 8.5 GB/s 95W No $1,165
Opteron 8214 2.2GHz Santa Rosa 2x1MB - 1000 MHz DDR 8.5 GB/s 95W No $873
Opteron 8216 HE 2.4GHz Santa Rosa 2x1MB - 1000 MHz DDR 8.5 GB/s 68W No $1,340
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Opteron 885 2.6GHz Egypt 2x1MB - 1000 MHz DDR 6.4 GB/s 95W No $1,514
Opteron 880 2.4GHz Egypt 2x1MB - 1000 MHz DDR 6.4 GB/s 95W yes $1,165
Opteron 875 2.2GHz Egypt 2x1MB - 1000 MHz DDR 6.4 GB/s 95W No $873
Opteron 875 HE 2.2GHz Egypt 2x1MB - 1000 MHz DDR 6.4 GB/s 55W No $1,514
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Opteron 2220 SE 2.8GHz Santa Rosa 2x1MB - 1000 MHz DDR 8.5 GB/s 95W No $786
Opteron 2216 2.6GHz Santa Rosa 2x1MB - 1000 MHz DDR 8.5 GB/s 95W No $611
Opteron 2214 2.4GHz Santa Rosa 2x1MB - 1000 MHz DDR 8.5 GB/s 95W No $450
Opteron 2214 2.2GHz Santa Rosa 2x1MB - 1000 MHz DDR 8.5 GB/s 95W No $377
Opteron 2216HE 2.4GHz Santa Rosa 2x1MB - 1000 MHz DDR 8.5 GB/s 68W No $531
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Opteron 285 2.6GHz Italy 2x1MB - 1000 MHz DDR 6.4 GB/s 95W No $611
Opteron 280 2.4GHz Italy 2x1MB - 1000 MHz DDR 6.4 GB/s 95W No $450
Opteron 275 2.2GHz Italy 2x1MB - 1000 MHz DDR 6.4 GB/s 95W No $377
Opteron 275 HE 2.2GHz Italy 2x1MB - 1000 MHz DDR 6.4 GB/s 55W yes $611

The Opteron's TDP numbers are the maximum power consumption numbers, while Intel's numbers are "thermal solution design targets". In practice, this means that you should subtract about 5% from AMD's TDP numbers to compare the two brands. AMD is not doing too well in the dual CPU arena: it needs about 30W more power per dual core CPU and CPU clock speed has hardly increased the past two years. Luckily for AMD, the power disadvantage is negated by the use of FB-DIMMs instead of DDR2 on the Intel platform.

Intel SR6850HW4 Server Thanks and Server Configurations
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  • Niv KA - Saturday, November 11, 2006 - link

    quote:

    Those benchmarks will be presented in our Clovertown - Intel's new quad core server CPU - review.


    I belive Clovertown is going to be announced somethime in the next week or two. On thursday I went to the "Microsoft: Ready for a New Day" here in Belgium (where Bill gates made an appearance of about half an hour, although not related!) and at the Intel booth they were showing off 4 servers which where running an "unannounced platform"! One of the technical guys at the booth let me in on a little "secret"! The Supermicro Systems were running "two sockets each box, each socket 4 cores! Eight cores each box! And the best part is its woodcrest arch!". I asked him if it was clovertown and he sayed that he "is just a technical assistant, not alowed to say anything" but he made the answer clear on his face! Clovertown is ready to go, and its FAST! They were running benchmarks all the time! I will post pictures on the fourms if I have enough time, but I have a HUGE project I need to hand in by tuesday so I might forget!

    ---Niv K Aharonovich

    PS: About the "outdated" system comments above, I am fully on Anandtechs side, it is impossible for an online newspaper company to make enough money to BUY everything, esp. in the $15,000 area! The only way is to ask for it from the vendors, and the vendors decide what to provide! Good job anandtech and continue the good work!!!!!!!
  • Dennis Travis - Saturday, November 11, 2006 - link

    Great job as usuall. Keep up the excellent work.
  • AnandThenMan - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link

    Another bullshit "comparison" nice job guys. You are comparing an AMD system that has been out for over 2 years. Useless review as usual. Why are you not comparing new with new? Why don't you use a Xeon box that was out 2 years ago?

    Anandtech's reviews have become more and more worthless.
  • JohanAnandtech - Saturday, November 11, 2006 - link

    1. AMD has confirmed that they feel the HP DL585 with 4x 880 is a worthy competitor for our Tulsa machine.
    2. This server is 5 months old, not 2 years. As I made clear in the article, this is the 2006 revision.

    As we invest a lot of time of effort to convince OEMs and others to send us extremely expensive hardware for review, spend weeks tweaking benchmarks and OS to give you benchmarks, we hope we may expect some useful feedback from our readers.

    Just writing "useless" with little or no explanation why you feel it is worthless is not helping anyone.
  • AnandThenMan - Sunday, November 12, 2006 - link

    I was going to post an explanation as to why the "review" is very poorly done. But Scientia over at AMDz did a far better explanation then I could come up with.

    http://www.amdzone.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&...">http://www.amdzone.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&...

    Either the review is intentionally authored to show Intel in as best light as possible, or the author is incompetent and should not be doing reviews at all. I stand by what I originally posted, the review is bullshit.
  • primer - Saturday, November 11, 2006 - link

    Agreed.
  • goldfish2 - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link

    Can I just quickly mention how nice it is to read an article where the author has managed to present all the relevant informatiom in as concise a manner as is possible, good job.
  • JohanAnandtech - Saturday, November 11, 2006 - link

    Thanks!

    Server reviews are extremely time consuming so most publications are not interested in it, so I am glad AT allows me to do this kind of reviews.

  • AllYourBaseAreBelong2Us - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link

    Can you guys get a new DL585 G2 and do benchmarks with this new model instead?
  • Viditor - Friday, November 10, 2006 - link

    I thought this too...the G2 has 7 PCIe slots (3 x8, 4 x4), is $800 less expensive, and offers newer SCSI controllers.

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