The ever increasing flow of CPU's from Intel most certainly keeps us on our toes with the new mainboards that support the CPU's.   Servers are not often top of our list but we took a swift look into the new 3400 Series Xeon's as most certainly the new Core i7 and i5 CPU held our attention in their storming venture out into the wild.  Many have hailed the new line of CPU's as a great leap forward allowing many to gain what they could only dream upon.  Could the same be said for the new line of Xeon CPU's and Server Mainboards.   With our interest readily held from our last outing we decided just to see how good these new chips would perform within the server workplace.  Pricing on the CPU's and Mainboards have once more meant that a SoHo office and small business and readily afford a complete solution from an S.I. or VAR without over spending on the IT budget for the year.  More so for the new business making its way into the world they can obtain a whole unit  without breaking the bank.  

So lets first take a look into the new Xeon series, followed by the Mainboard and lastly the new supporting chassis

Intel® Xeon® Processor 3000 Sequence

The Intel® Xeon® processor 3000 series-based platforms unleash the computing power of Intel® Xeon® processors. Based on the next-generation Intel® microarchitecture, codenamed Nehalem, these processors provide your business with exceptional performance and power efficiency at a very affordable cost.

The Intel Xeon 3000 processor-based servers protect critical business information and offer the performance and headroom to make employees and businesses more productive, making them ideal for small and medium business owners looking for ways to support rapid business growth on small technology budgets.

Intel® Xeon® processor 3400 series

Designed for needs of entry-level servers, the Intel® Xeon® processor 3400 series adapts to application behavior by automatically adjusting processing power to deliver maximum performance, protecting valuable assets from data corruption and loss, improving productivity with business growth.

Memory Support for the 3400 Series - DDR3 memory support up to 1333 MHz
·       Supports up to thirty-two GB dual-channel DDR3 Error Correcting Code (ECC) memory which checks and corrects system 
        memory errors
·      Flexible memory configuration options with support for up to four non-ECC or ECC unregistered DIMMs or up to six ECC
       Registered DIMMs

Integrated PCI-Express* 2.0 I/O

·       Integrated serial I/O technology provides a direct connection between the processor and PCI Express* component/adapters with bandwidth up to 8 GB/s on PCI-Express 2.0 x16 interface.

·       The PCI-Express 2.0 x16 interface can be bifurcated to either two x8 PCI Express or four x4 PCI-Express interfaces for maximum design flexibility.

PCI-Express offers higher bandwidth, lower latency, and fewer I/O bottlenecks than PCI and PCI-X.

The Intel® Xeon® Processor 3400 Series

From the chart below we see 5 differing new Xeon processors that will give many readers plenty of options

Pricing the new Xeons range from $189 USD for the X3430 to $589 for the top bin X3470 Xeon  (subject to taxes and shipping).   Please check with your local supplier as these are subject to change and the listings we are showing are per 1K tray units.   More information can be seen here.

But wait we have more, there is one new low power Xeon from this series the L3426 (1.86GHz with 8MB) drawing a TDP of only 45Watts and pricing seen start from approximately $284 USD (subject to taxes and shipping)

With the run down on the new Xeon complete, lets now have a look at the new mainboard and chassis that can be purchased separately or as a complete bundle which most would do.

Page 1 - Intel® Xeon® processor 3400 series
Page 2 - Intel® Server Board S3420GP and Intel® Server Chassis SC5650
Page 3 - System Build Pictures
Page 4 - System Set-Up and Software Used
Page 5 - SiSoftware Sandra 2009 SP4 Part 1
Page 6 - SiSoftware Sandra 2009 SP4 Part 2 and Everest Ultimate 5.02 Cache and Memory Test
Page 7 - Hard Drive Test
Page 8 - PC Mark 2005 Advanced and Performance Mark Version 7
Page 9 - Rendering Tests
Page 10 - Stop. We Have More Money - Introducing the WD 2TB RE4 7200RPM Drive
Page 11 - 1 X WD 2TB RE4 7200RPM Drive Tests
Page 12 - 2 X WD 2TB RE4 7200RPM Configured into Raid 1 Drive Tests
Page 12a - Windows Shadow Back-Up and File Transfer Tests
Page 14 - Conclusions and Awards