by Anton Shilov
07/15/2003 | 01:04 AM
As expected, Intel unveiled yesterday its Xeon processors for 2-way servers and workstations with 1MB of Level 3 cache. The chips are drop-in compatible with existing infrastructure for Xeon processors, including E7501 (for servers) and E7505 (for workstations) platforms.
<%BANNER[article]%>According to Intel, 2P systems based on the new Xeon processor at 3.06GHz with 1MB of L3 cache improve performance by about 15% in SPECjbb2000 over the 2P systems based on the previous top-of-the-line Xeon chip at 3.06GHz with 512KB of L2 cache. All processors use the same 533MHz Quad Pumped Bus, hence, 15% speed boost was achieved only by larger cache.
In fact, the new Xeon processors 3.06GHz with 1MB L3 are even faster than AMD Opteron 244 in certain Spec benchmarks. The new Dell PowerEdge 1750 with two Intel Xeon processors at 3.06GHz, each with 1MB L3 cache, 2GB RAM, running Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server (SP3) with BEA WebLogic JRockit 32-bit JVM (Build 1.4.1-300903-win-ia32) produced a SPECjbb2000 score of 57 653ops/s. According to Spec.org, Atipa Technologies’ Nascom Series 400 server based on two AMD Opteron 244 processors at 1.80GHz, each with 1MB L2 cache, 4GB RAM, running RedHat Advanced Server 2.1 (2.4.9-e.5 enterprise) with J2RE 1.4.0 IBM build cxia32140-20020917a (JIT enabled: jitc) scored of 50 001ops/s.
The test measures server-side Java performance and takes advantage of large on-chip caches. Additionally, higher core-clock gives a serious speed boost necessary to outperform a competitor by about 15%.
Unfortunately, there are no more benchmarks of the new Xeon processor with 1MB of L3 cache submitted; that is why we cannot compare its performance to that of AMD Opteron 244 CPU in other tests.
The Intel Xeon processor at 3.06 GHz with 1MB of L3 cache is now available worldwide for Intel’s suggested list price of $690 in 1000-unit quantities. Later this year Intel will release Xeon 3.20GHz chip with 1MB of L3. The CPU will debut at $851.