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. Both Supermicro and 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. These are very reliable and sound workstation platforms which have an abundance of scope for upgrading, which we have voiced on many occasion.
With an exclusive outing of this magnitude we had to sit back very carefully and decide what to use. After much deliberation we decided to move forward with our ultimate workstation builds we completed some time back with the first viewing of Crucial’s new C300 RealSSD and Supermicro’s X8Dai Rev 2 mainboard which has still many reeling from the results it obtained. Of course last but not least the superb Intel Westmere 3.33GHz CPU’s which are without doubt superb in performance and therefore we have to show the best on an exclusive like this. As previously we utilised Supermicro’s X8SAX Rev 2 mainboard that support Intel’s X5677 (3.46GHz) CPU’s for workstations. These formulised builds used will mean that the results shown within will be extremely clear to the reader.
Component | Test System 1 | Test System 2 |
Mainboard | ||
CPU | 1 X 3.46GHz Intel® Xeon® X5677 Nehalem EP®, 12MB Shared Cache, 6.4GB/s QPI | 2 X 3.33GHz Intel® Xeon® X5680 Nehalem EP®, 12MB Shared Cache, 6.4GB/s QPI |
HSF Coolers | Intel’s Socket 1366 Stock Cooler | 2 X Noctua NH-U9DX 1366 |
Memory | 6 X 2GB Crucial DDR3 (12GB Total) 1333MHz | 12 X 2GB Crucial DDR3 (24GB Total) 1333MHz |
Hard Drive | 256GB Crucial C300 RealSSD | 256GB Crucial C300 RealSSD |
PCI Ex Video Card | NVIDIA® Quadro® 6000 | NVIDIA® Quadro® 6000 |
Hardware Suppliers for the Review
Intel EU for the supply of the 3.33GHz Intel® Xeon® X5680 and 3.46GHz Intel® Xeon® X5677 Nehalem EP® CPU’s
Supermicro for the supply of the X8DAi and X8SAX Rev 2 Mainboards shown within the Test Systems
Crucial Memory for the C300 RealSSD and the DDR3 1333MHz Unbuffered ECC Memory, thank you for pulling out the stops here.
NVIDIA® for the supply of the Quadro® 6000 professional graphic card.
Noctua for the supply of the Heatsink Fans critical to the high end Xeon systems
Akasa for the Supply of the Omega Chassis and Nero HSF
With the support and help of all the companies involved. It gives you the reader a choice on upgrade paths that many of you look for here with the performance ratio’s the system has to provide and notwithstanding the Quadro® 6000 professional graphic card from NVIDIA.
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. 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 main parts listed.
Benchmarks and Software Used 64-bit Mode
Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
SPECapc for SolidWorks 2007™
SPECviewperf® 10.0 64-bit. Tests ran at 1600 X 1200 Resolution
SPECviewperf® 11.0 64-bit. Tests ran at 1920 X 1080 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. Whilst maintaining the fair play rules of SPEC® HyperThreading and Turbo Boost have been enabled, with the memory being left in its default status of Auto. Tests have been conducted in accordance with the resolutions detailed above @ 59Hz / 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 seem prudent to think that this is correct.
Page 1 – Quadro® 6000 Introduction
Page 2 – Quadro® 6000 Pictures
Page 3 – Quadro® 6000 Board Features
Page 4 – System Set-up and Software Used
Page 5 – SPECviewperf® 11.0 64-bit and SPECapc for SolidWorks 2007™on a Single Socket 3.46GHz Intel® Xeon® X5677
Page 6 – SPECviewperf® 11.0 and SPECviewperf® 10.0 64-bit Tests on Dual Intel® Xeon® X5680 3.33GHz Westmere
Page 7 – Conclusions and Award