Intel® Workstation Board WX58BP (Banroof Point) and the Intel® Xeon® Processor 3570

System Configuration, Software and Benchmarks Used

Our array of "in house" test systems has now been fully completed as over the forth coming months, many exciting things will be happening here that will have you aghast with awe.  Intel certainly pulled out the stops with these excellent parts which in turn means we can now demonstrate with the newer peripherals coming online the best possible results.  This in turn will demonstrate to you the end user just what to fully expect when you purchase systems of the like we have here in situ.   With a rush to the call we requested - more chassis hardware.   Once more Scan pulled out the stops and dispatched a Coolermaster Cosmos 1000 V2 eATX Chassis.  So, a swift switch around of a few parts as we stipulated previously much is still underway here and we see below an awesome system that most certainly gives a professional graphic card of this magnitude the power within.   These 2 differing chassis from Coolermaster we have seen over the last few outings most certainly are exceptional pieces of equipment. They look good and have plenty of space inside for both eATX and ATX mainboards.  To boot, they certainly look very stylish, so whether in the home or the bleeding edge office as a piece of furniture (which they really are now) they add that subtle touch of class.  Most importantly noise - what noise.  The nosiest part now on the systems are actually the DVD rewriters spinning up and down whilst installing software.

Hardware Suppliers for the Review

Intel EU for the supply of the 3.2GHz Intel® Xeon® Processor W3570 and the Intel® Workstation Board X58BP

Crucial Memory  for the DDR3 1333MHz Unbuffered ECC Memory.   Thank you for pulling out the stops here, currently DDR3 ECC memory is a very limited supply option from most memory makers. Validated memory modules may be found on both respective companies websites that has been tested.  Our advice here is don't cut the corner on this important part of the system build as it could turn out to be a very costly mistake.  On going to print we have been advised by Micron/Crucial that their is a good supply of these memory modules.

ATI for the supply of the 2 FirePro V7750 professional graphics cards.

Akasa for the supply of the AK967 NERO Heatsink Fan and PowerMax 850W PSU

Western Digital for the ever so reliable 300GB 10K rpm VelociRaptor

Systems Integrators, OEM’s and VAR’s should contact all companies directly for pricing and availability of all components.    Members of the public should contact their respective suppliers requesting the parts directly.

With the support and help of all the companies involved.   It gives you the reader a new choice on upgrade paths that many of you look for here with the performance ratio’s each system has to provide.  One main e-tailer that can supply the EU reader readily all the parts listed you should pop over to SCAN and see what  todays best bottom dollar deal is on the parts listed.

Benchmarks and Software used in 64-bit Mode

The test system shown within will be readily found within many arena's soon, therefore those just wishing the simple upgrade of this new technology in combination with the ATI FirePro V7750 ran as a singular card within the synthetic benchmarks.  We then moved up a gear into CrossFire Pro Technology with SPEC 10 to readily see how much performance gain has been achieved

Microsoft Windows XP Professional 64-bit SP2
SiSoftware Sandra 2009 SP3 64-bit tests only
Everest Ultimate Ver. 5.02
POV-Ray Ver. 3.7 beta 33 64-bit
Cinebench 10 64-bit
Bentley MicroStation Benchmark
SPECapc for SolidWorks 2007™
SPECviewperf® 10.0 64-bit tests only.   Tests ran at 1280 X 1024 Resolution.

Each set of tests has been applied on the clean system hard drives shown above to ensure that no residue drivers were left installed with all updates/patches applied.   A test/render has been completed many times over different periods of the system uptime.   Maintaining the fair play rules of SPEC® and following the lead of recently submitted results - HyperThreading disabled and Turbo Boost enabled and the memory has been changed from Auto to 1333MHz.     Tests have been conducted at 1280 X 1024 @ 60Hz in 32 bit colour.   Results that have been shown within this article are from the application/benchmarks first run in accordance with the SPECviewperf® and SPECapc™ fair play rules.  Not an average of 3 runs as some places seem to think is right. 

Page 1 - Introduction
Page 2 - System Build Pictures
Page 3 - System Set-Up and Software Used
Page 4 - SiSoftware Sandra 2009 SP3 64-bit tests
Page 5 - Hard Disc Tests
Page 6 - Sandra 2009 Video Card Tests
Page 7 - Everest 5.02 Ultimate, POV-RAY and Cinebench 10
Page 8 - SPECviewperf® 10.0 64-bit and SPECapc for SolidWorks 2007™
Page 9 - Conclusions and Award