Intel's Xeon Shows Its Stuff in 7 Motherboards : Introduction

06:00 - Thursday 11 November 2004 by Patrick Schmid
Source: Tom's Hardware – Keywords: intel

Table of content:
1 – Introduction
  1. 1 – Introduction
  2. 2 – Xeon Chipsets Intel E7525 And Intel 875P
  3. 3 – Nocona Platform Features
  4. 4 – Cooler Installation Is Simple Now, Continued
  5. 5 – DDR2 Support With E7525
  6. 6 – Demand Based Switching
  7. 7 – Asus NCT-D (E7525) - It's Overkill, But It's Fast
  8. 8 – Asus NCT-D (E7525), Continued
  9. 9 – Asus NCT-D (E7525), Continued
  10. 10 – Asus NCT-D (E7525), Continued
  11. 11 – Asus NCT-D (E7525), Continued
  12. 12 – Asus NCCH-DL (875P)
  13. 13 – Asus NCCH-DL (875P), Continued
  14. 14 – Asus NCCH-DL (875P), Continued
  15. 15 – Asus NCCH-DL (875P), Continued
  16. 16 – Gigabyte GA-9ITDW (E7525)
  17. 17 – Gigabyte GA-9ITDW (E7525), Continued
  18. 18 – Gigabyte GA-9ITDW (E7525), Continued
  19. 19 – Intel SE7525GP2 (I7525)
  20. 20 – Intel SE7525GP2 (I7525), Continued
  21. 21 – Intel SE7525GP2 (I7525), Continued
  22. 22 – Intel SE7525GP2 (I7525), Continued
  23. 23 – IWill DH800 (I875P) - Fast And Cheap
  24. 24 – IWill DH800 (I875P), Continued
  25. 25 – IWill DH800 (I875P), Continued
  26. 26 – SuperMicro X6DA8-G2 (I7525)
  27. 27 – SuperMicro X6DA8-G2 (I7525), Continued
  28. 28 – SuperMicro X6DA8-G2 (I7525), Continued
  29. 29 – SuperMicro X6DA8-G2 (I7525), Continued
  30. 30 – SuperMicro X6DA8-G2 (I7525), Continued
  31. 31 – Tyan Thunder S2676 (i7525)
  32. 32 – Tyan Thunder S2676 (i7525), Continued
  33. 33 – Tyan Thunder S2676 (i7525), Continued
  34. 34 – Test Setup
  35. 35 – Test Setup, Continued
  36. 36 – Benchmarks And Settings
  37. 37 – Benchmark Results
  38. 38 – SPECapc, Continued
  39. 39 – SPECapc, Continued
  40. 40 – SPECapc, Continued
  41. 41 – Video
  42. 42 – Applications
  43. 43 – Synthetic
  44. 44 – Audio
  45. 45 – Conclusion
  46. 46 – Feature Table
  47. 47 – Features, Continued

Introduction

Ad

Opteron-based systems, without the added boost of expensive DDR2 memory, have slowly begun to erode the Xeon architecture's hegemony in the workstation market. In AMD's Opteron 250 vs. Intel's Xeon 3.6 GHz in a Workstation Duel of the Elite , we detailed how the Opteron's performance championed that of the Xeon. But that was in September.

Meanwhile, Intel hasn't remained sitting still, and has skillfully revamped its Xeon architecture. As a result, the current chipset called E7525 has no problem outclassing the current Opteron chipsets VIA K8T800 Pro and AMD 8000. While the PCI Express enabled versions from NVIDIA and VIA will help to bring Opteron systems back into the premier league, they will not see launch before next year.

Concerning Xeon, ambitious users still today can pick motherboards based on Intel's 875P chipset. This device still is able to profit from its fast Dual DDR400 memory interface, while the E7525 usually needs to live with Dual DDR2-400. The latter may be faster at higher memory clock speeds, but loses ground at conventional speeds due to unfavorable latencies. Also, E7525 requires registered memory, while 875P can be equipped with unbuffered DIMMs, but up to a maximum of 4 GB only.

The Asus NCCH-DL and IWill's DH800 represent the 875P class in this review. The ambassadors of Intel's E7525 chipsets are the Asus NCT-D, Gigabyte's GA-9ITDW, the Intel SE7525GP2, the X6DA8-G2 by Supermicro and Tyan's S2676.


  • Print
  • Send to a friend
  • Comment
  • Content also available in:
Ad
Talkback
Google Ads
Ad
The Motherboards Articles and reviews
News
Reviews
Forum
See all Topics
Videos