At the end of last
month Supermicro announced nearly 30 new
platforms of various types to suit all
sorts of pockets which would support the
new Intel Dempsey CPU and Woodcrest
CPU’s. Today we have for you an
exclusive first of one of these new
platforms in the wild featuring the top
end Dempsey Xeon CPU’s and the Woodcrest
CPU’s. Supermicro are renown for
producing the most stable and reliable
platforms in the high end workstation
and enterprise solutions in the market
place. Normally on a platform launch of
this magnitude we tend to have the
latest graphic cards to show off the
superb performance of these mainboards.
Though in this instance both ATI and
NVIDIA have leapt forward early with
their new professional graphic cards. We
have already covered these cards in some
depth across the range on current AMD
solutions.
When the
call came from Boston that we have a
Dempsey platform fully ready for review,
we scoured both sides of the ponds
trying to pull in a favour from many an
OEM to get the illusive Woodcrest CPU’s.
After 2 weeks they arrived and with them
came 4 x 1GB sticks of the new ATP
Electronics 667MHz DDR2 ECC memory. So
with this in mind we have a multi
platform review which will keep you
going for some time today.
What do these new Intel Chipset
workstation platforms have to offer in
direct competition to AMD? Is the
performance in the professional
workstation as good as has been shown so
far by a few other sites covering the
Woodcrest and Dempsey CPU’s with DDR2
533 memory in the enterprise market? You
can bet your bottom dollar that they do
with what we have uncovered; the
professional graphic’s scene has just
taken a new turn for the better.
To logically cover this review in as
much depth as possible we firstly take a
look at the mainboard and what it really
does cover.
Mainboard Overview
The
X7DA8/X7DAE supports dual Intel dual
core processors with a front side bus
speed of 667 MHz/1.066 GHz/1.333GHz.
With dual 64-bit dual core processors
built-in, the X7DA8/X7DAE offers
substantial functionality enhancements
to the motherboards based on the Intel
Dual Core NetBurst microarchitecture
while remaining compatible with the
IA-32 software.
The features include the Intel
Hyper-Threading Technology,
VirtualizationTechnology, Hyper
Pipelined Technology, Execution Trace
Cache, Thermal Monitor 1/2 (TM1/TM2),
Enhanced Intel SpeedStep technology,
Advanced Dynamic Execution, Advanced
Transfer Cache, Streaming SIMD
Extensions 3 (SSE3) and Extended Memory
64 Technology (EM64T).
These features allow the motherboard to
operate at much higher speeds with
better power management in much safer
thermal environments than the
traditional motherboards. The
X7DA8/X7DAE is ideal for high
performance dual processor (DP)
workstation and enterprise server
environments.
Chipset Overview
Built upon
the functionality and the capability of
the 5000X (Greencreek) chipset, the
X7DA8/X7DAE motherboard provides the
performance and feature set required for
dual processor-based servers with
configuration options optimized for
communications, presentation, storage,
computation or database applications.
The 5000X (Greencreek) chipset supports
single or dual Xeon 64-bit dual core
processor with
front side bus speeds of up to 1.333
GHz. The chipset consists of the 5000X
(Greencreek) Memory Controller Hub
(MCH), the Enterprise South Bridge 2
(ESB2), and the I/O subsystem (PXH-V).
The 5000X (Greencreek) MCH chipset is
designed for symmetric multiprocessing
across two independent front side bus
interfaces. Each front side bus uses a
64-bit wide, 1.333 GHz data bus that
transfers data at 10.7 GB/sec. (for a
total bandwidth of 21.3 GB/sec.) The MCH
chipset connects up to 8 Fully Buffered
DIMM modules, providing a total of 32.0
GB/s for DDR2 667/533 memory. The MCH
chipset also provides three x8
PCI-Express and one x4 ESI interface to
the ESB2. In addition, the 5000X
(Greencreek) chipset offers a wide range
of RAS features, including memory
interface ECC, x4/x8 Single Device Data
Correction, CRC, parity protection,
memory mirroring and memory sparing.
Xeon
Dual Core Processor Features
Designed to be used with conjunction
of the 5000X (Greencreek) chipset, the
Xeon Dual Core Processors provide a
feature set as follows:
The Xeon Dual Core Processors
*L1 Cache Size: Instruction Cache
(32KB/16KB), Data Cache (32KB/24KB)
*L2 Cache Size: 4MB/2MB (per core)
Intel HostRAID
Intel ESB2
Serial RAID Controller Hub Located in
the South Bridge of the 5000X
(Greencreek) chipset, the I/O Controller
Hub (ESB2) provides the I/O subsystem
with access to the rest of the system.
It supports an 1-channel UltraATA/100
Bus Master IDE controller (PATA) and six
Serial ATA (SATA) ports. The ESB2
supports the following PATA and SATA
device configurations: Legacy mode and
Native mode.
The Intel Matrix Storage
The Intel Matrix Storage, supported by
the ESB2, allows the user to create RAID
0, RAID 1, RAID 10 and RAID 5 sets by
using only six identical hard disk
drives. The Intel Matrix
Storage Technology creates two
partitions on each hard disk drive and
generate a virtual RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID
10 and RAID 5 sets. It also allows you
the change the HDD partition size
without any data.
Adaptec Embedded Serial ATA with
HostRAID Controller Driver
The Adaptec Embedded Serial ATA RAID
Controller adds SATA/RAID functionality
and performance enhancements to a
motherboard supporting RAID 0, RAID 1
and RAID 10. A Stripe of Mirrors (RAID
10) multiple RAID 1 mirrors and a RAID 0
stripe, maximizing data security and
system efficiency. By incorporating the
Adaptec Embedded Serial ATA into the
motherboard design, Supermicro's
X7DA8/X7DAE offers the user the benefits
of SATARAID without the high costs
associated with hardware RAID
applications.
Note, the
benefit of the readers, we utilised
throughout the benchmarks/tests the
onboard Adaptec HostRAID Controller.
Memory Support
The
X7DA8/X7DAE supports up to 32 GB fully
buffered (FBD) ECC DDR2 533/667 in 8
DIMMs. Populating DIMM modules with a
pair (or pairs) of memory modules that
are of the same size and of the same
type in Bank 1, Bank 2, Bank 3 and Bank
4 will result in interleaving memory.
Note: Due to the OS limitations, some
operating systems may not show more than
4 GB of memory.
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