|
This has
without a doubt been a huge success from
this location. The new Nehalem EP
workstation mainboard and Xeon Nehalem's
are remarkably resilient - the more we
threw at it - the more it wanted.
Spectacular to say the least. For the
pessimists who are sitting saying yes
but at what cost. It has to be
reiterated once more, today's modern
studio's, Soho's and general users want
fast, they need fast. So fast is what
they get and to get fast and we have to
pay a premium for it. Production output
is of a paramont today and therefore,
clever I.T. managers will carefully
budget the costs over term utilising the
initial dominance for their schedules
then reuse as we have covered earlier.
This in turn means the deadlines are met
with time to spare and gaining as it
should be with more repeated business.
Yes a substantial investment some would
once more argue, but if we look at the
current costs of today's Xeons ,
Mainboards and supporting peripherals,
its not. There will be many analysis’s
who claim all to be much too expensive.
This won't be the case and will not stop
the consumers purchasing them. Too many
Studio's cannot be seen to have the
latest and greatest in their array of
show pieces to pull in those all
important customers.
Previous outings with any new generation
of Xeon® has seen very good uptakes
indeed, and they always have one sitting
back in awe at the raw processing power
hidden under the hood, today we have
just scratched the surface of a massive
task ahead.
Intel's offering of the S5520SC
Workstation/Server board. The designed
upgrade paths are very good indeed,
feature rich in every aspect giving
end-users a whole host of scenario's
that they can easily deploy it into. SAS
and server modules will enhance the
board to a completely wicked overall
component.
Within the results we have seen great
leaps forward from the respective
professional graphics cards and the
short burst from 3D Studio Max 2009
showed that real world applications are
hugely going to benefit from this whole
new architecture. The time frames of
each test just eaten away from previous
outings, once more this absolutely
demonstrates the processing power from
within. Normally the complete Underwater
scene takes in excess an hour and 15
minutes to fully complete. To entirely
demolish some 40 minutes off the fastest
time we have seen, words cannot
describe. Seeing is actually believing.
Here doth lay the proof of today's real
processing power and look out Ray
Tracing here it comes.
SPECviewperf 64-bit results have shown
great leaps forward by both companies,
which is a key to many buyers as this
does give them an expected idea of what
to actually expect next within their
chosen applications. These 64 bit
results are not often shown, the vogue
currently is to maintain 32 bit results.
Today we have seen the brute force of
the Xeon Nehalem-EP Processor in
conjunction with the S5520SC mainboard
force the 64 bit results on par with the
32 bit results, a magnificent
achievement. Time is marching onwards
and the new SPECviewperf 11 will soon be
with us by the Fall we hope. This new
test has been designed in conjunction
with the EPA which will completely
stress the full system returning a
completely new set of results, answering
many of those all important questions
some spend so much time looking for.
Though on a side note we hope to see new
SPECapc tests winging their way out soon, so
please watch these spaces for this all
important information
Cinebench certainly gave us an utter
surprise with the 30K barrier being
broken in the Multi CPU Test. We thought
we would see high numbers but not of
this magnitude. Within the OpenGL test
once more the great 10K barrier was well
and truly utterly smashed. Its
absolutely mind boggling at what can be
delivered next this beast. We have also
to consider carefully what a pair of
SSD's configured into Raid 0 would
deliver as the costs are now in the
downward trend as predicted and getting
faster. Though the solitary WD
VelociRaptor has held its ground today
performing explicitly. Until SSD's
become equal on the cost performance
ratio then this has to be the boot disc
of choice.
With all above covered, developers and
programmers now will be having many
thoughts on the actual way ahead. Taking
into careful consideration the new
ratified standard of OpenCL . We briefly
mentioned earlier Ray Tracing, this does
take a huge amount of processing power
to complete some of the most simplest
scenes, today it's just gotten a whole
lot easier.
The supplied manual we received whilst
in a near production print was an
exceptional piece of literature. Precise
in every area giving you, the end user a
detailed breakdown of every functional
part of the mainboard. One of the best
seen for a long time. It has to be noted
once more for the basic end user that
they will not have difficulties in
getting the answers they sometimes might
require. Again great thought has gone
into producing an "out the door complete
solution". The bios we must add is still
an early pre-production version and as
always improvements are made upon the
finally release. With this we would see
noticeable improvements across the board
from all sectors, therefore todays
results will be noticeably faster and
better with that final release.
Like all new ventures we have some
niggling teething issues which means the
call of support and the unsung hero's of
new major outing of this magnitude.
Rapid it was and you know who you all
are, we thank you all.
What of availability and pricing, there
are on going to print some prices
floating around now from some e-tailers.
However, it is best that you contact
your suppliers directly as they will
have in place pricing structures and due
delivery dates of all components. This
will be your best port of call, but do
expect a rush so get your cheque books
primed and that vital order in very
quickly indeed.
Penultimately and deviated ever so
slightly from todays magnificent
performance we learned that very soon a
workstation variant of Intel's X58
Smackover is about to land giving the
S.I.'s et al another optional
performance platform. When we have more
details you will all know very soon.
Finally.
The technology shown at present is one
of the most momentous advancements
achieved within a short timescale. The
introduction of Seaburg's 5400 chipset
was hailed as the new unsung hero within
the workstation environment. Now we
seem a new stallion gallop forth from
Intel's pedigree stable
with impeccable breeding.
The key words are "blisteringly
fast". Move over Harpertown and
Woodcrest: The Intel® Nehalem-EP
Processor is here to stay. |
