Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH

Zardon · Apr 6, 2009, 10:19 AM

Read The Review Here
__________________________

Today we look at Intel's new highest specification W5580 processors running on the new S5520SC motherboard. Just how smoking fast is this platform and are we about to break a bunch of records in our testing today?

lepel · Apr 6, 2009, 10:39 AM

Maaassive review. Good job,

Even though I didn't understand half of it, it was still a very enjoyable read. The system building part was really nice.

btw, how do I wish I could also ring up some manufacturers and let them send their latest crazy hardware to me. :O

clanman · Apr 6, 2009, 10:41 AM

Yeh I didnt really understand half of it either, but what I did understand was awesome. that was a hell of a review Zardon, very impressed.

Killer processors, wish they didn't cost more than my car though !

Alex · Apr 6, 2009, 10:45 AM

What incredible hardware, really stunned to see Intel getting so much clock per clock performance. Interesting to read that Skulltrail needed to be clocked to 4ghz to get the same performance in cinebench, thats 800mhz per core to match the throughput.

I would love to see these cpus in a motherboard capable of ordinary style overclocking because while I appreciate the turbo mode system in the professional industry I would love to see what these can produce at 4ghz per CPU.

That said, great job Z, as much information as any sane person could ask for.

brutusmaximus · Apr 6, 2009, 11:17 AM

wonderful performance from those processors. cost quite a bit of money mind you !

***craig5320*** · Apr 6, 2009, 11:57 AM

Very Nice Z, is this what caused the blackout across the UK last week?

Mac Daddy · Apr 6, 2009, 12:08 PM

Well you get what you pay for as they say. Great review Allan and I would recommend to anyone to set aside even 10 or 15 minutes and give this one a good read through ... I did

Cow_160483 · Apr 6, 2009, 12:57 PM

"Fantastical" that's all I could come up with to describe the system absolutely "Fantastical"
Now if i only had the deep pockets to actually get one

blibbax · Apr 6, 2009, 01:52 PM

Nice review. That's a truly epic system, but I guess you get what you pay for.

P.S. Is the 1366mhz DDR3 on page 4 intentional?

Tyrsonswood · Apr 6, 2009, 02:26 PM

Great review Z.......

System's way out of my league at the moment, but man! that's some processing power!

Zardon · Apr 6, 2009, 02:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by blibbax

P.S. Is the 1366mhz DDR3 on page 4 intentional?

Thats incorrect,thanks. fixed.

comp_ali · Apr 6, 2009, 02:38 PM

Very interesting review, the biggest I have ever read .

humonous · Apr 6, 2009, 03:52 PM

wow. just wow.

Hell of a review and what a product from Intel.

longhorn1000 · Apr 6, 2009, 04:05 PM

Incredible rendering times. particularly studiomax. Our business already have some of these systems on order but the 5580's are like gold dust, we might have to opt for the 5570s.

mike2h · Apr 6, 2009, 05:42 PM

tyvm! what is already an awsome setup is going to be even better down the road as more & more apps utilise all that lovely processing power.

macbiter · Apr 6, 2009, 05:48 PM

incredible performance and it shows how far ahead intel are when it comes to high end processing power.

Some of those benchmark results are mind blowing, I am not sure most people realise just how INCREDIBLE they are !

Great review DH, thanks.

IvanV · Apr 6, 2009, 11:10 PM

Fantastic review! It's amazing how the new system is sometimes almost twice faster than Skulltrail. Power consumption is also impressive, less than 10% increase under full load and far lower at idle. Probably a tad hot under load for blade servers (Xeons L5520 look perfect for that job, though), but they make for a fantastic workstation.

One slightly off topic question, though: You disabled hyper-threading for the Terragen 2 test, does that mean that Vista can't tell the difference between physical and logical processor cores?

Zardon · Apr 6, 2009, 11:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IvanV

One slightly off topic question, though: You disabled hyper-threading for the Terragen 2 test, does that mean that Vista can't tell the difference between physical and logical processor cores?

It appears in the case of Terragen 2 that Vista would send some threads to logical cores. This isn't really a fault of Vista however, Terragen code should be able to differentiate between physical and logical and instruct the OS. I am sure this will be fixed in a forthcoming patch.

Judas · Apr 7, 2009, 12:44 AM

i'm quite happy to see hyperthreading back in full swing reguardless....

after using 2 i7 setups for nearly 2 full months.... i can safely say they are astouding chips.... and presented in such a form as this..... it's unbeleiveable right now

Vikingod · Apr 7, 2009, 02:21 AM

Great review, and holy shit did you put a lot of work into it (but i bet it was pretty fun). I can't remember ever seeing any platform with such improvements over the prior generation. That, and it's power efficiency is impressive.

**kris23** · Apr 7, 2009, 05:33 AM

amazing review Z! now it looks like i have to update my systems thread for this....

Alex · Apr 7, 2009, 10:36 AM

I read bittech review today and I noticed the guy reviewing it was complaining about the power consumption, yet he didn't read it at idle? Thats poor technically as clearly the benefits are too be seen when the CPU's arent under full load and idling.

Zardon · Apr 7, 2009, 10:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex

I read bittech review today and I noticed the guy reviewing it was complaining about the power consumption, yet he didn't read it at idle? Thats poor technically as clearly the benefits are too be seen when the CPU's arent under full load and idling.

Thanks for pointing that out. yes he only tested under load and as you say the benefits of overall power consumption are not clearly taken from such a limited test. At idle we recorded less power drain than even the Opteron system in our compares.

Over the course of a year in a 24/7 environment the savings would be substantial.

Lawsonmh15 · Apr 20, 2009, 06:33 PM

We just built a couple of these workstations for a client, and I can tell you without a doubt, this is the fastest config we've ever done and the config we did only used E5520's with FX 1800's and by our own benching, and the client's account, this config both met, and exceeded, performance expectations. For ~$2500, you really can't touch it.

Either way, I'd like to see apples-apples benchmarks with a 965EE i7. For some reason, I can never get apples-apples from a top of the line workstation to a TOL Server. For one reason or another, the benches are always slightly different. I have to hope we've got time to get the production team to bench them (which they rarely have time for).

Nonetheless, thanks for the most comprehensive reviews on the net ;-)

kolotyluk · Apr 25, 2009, 08:10 PM

Great article - the first and only review I've seen on the S5520SC!

I've actually been considering building something around the S5520SC for a while now, but been cautious by the lack of real-world experience. I was actually waiting for Intel to release their rumored Skulltrail II, but so far as I can tell that's still rumor, and I have even seen one quote from Intel that there will not be a Skulltrail II - has anyone else heard about Skulltrail II?

One concern about the S5520SC is that there does not seem to be any overclocking options in the BIOS/EFI. I was hoping that CPU Tweaker could be used with this system, but I cannot get any real information on CPU Tweaker. Does anyone know if CPU Tweaker can be used with the S5520SC or Xeon 5500 series in general?

Does anyone know where you can get more information on CPU Tweaker. I tried joining the forum where CPU Tweaker is discussed, but they turned down my application saying I did not qualify. Pretty elitist bunch; first time I've ever been turned down to join an on-line forum.

So the bottom line is: is there any overclocking potential with the S5520SC?

Cheers, Eric

krogh8 · May 4, 2009, 10:16 AM

Great article!

I just have a quick question about the power supply.. why do you need two?

- peter

Zardon · May 4, 2009, 11:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by krogh8

Great article!

I just have a quick question about the power supply.. why do you need two?

- peter

I didn't need two. Enermax and Corsair supplied a unit each and they were split between the various review configurations during testing. The Enermax was mainly used on the Nehalem system. The Corsair HX1000 is perfectly capable of powering the Nehalem EP however. You can find reviews of both PSU's in our reviews section, both are gold award winners.

Zardon · May 4, 2009, 11:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kolotyluk

Great article - the first and only review I've seen on the S5520SC!

I've actually been considering building something around the S5520SC for a while now, but been cautious by the lack of real-world experience. I was actually waiting for Intel to release their rumored Skulltrail II, but so far as I can tell that's still rumor, and I have even seen one quote from Intel that there will not be a Skulltrail II - has anyone else heard about Skulltrail II?

Intel have not gave me any indication that Skulltrail II is even a concept under development. I am certainly not saying that it isn't coming but to be perfectly honest I would be doubtful.

Quote:

One concern about the S5520SC is that there does not seem to be any overclocking options in the BIOS/EFI. I was hoping that CPU Tweaker could be used with this system, but I cannot get any real information on CPU Tweaker. Does anyone know if CPU Tweaker can be used with the S5520SC or Xeon 5500 series in general?

You need to remember that the S5520SC is not meant to be a mainstream "enthusiast" board, and while I put it through its paces in gaming that the whole design ethos is for stability and professional application. The only overclocking the board is capable of achieving is via the turbo mode detailed in the review. I was speaking with my Asus contact recently and they have a version of this board available however from what he told me there is again no option for manual overclocking.

Quote:

Does anyone know where you can get more information on CPU Tweaker. I tried joining the forum where CPU Tweaker is discussed, but they turned down my application saying I did not qualify. Pretty elitist bunch; first time I've ever been turned down to join an on-line forum.

CPU tweaker has been around for years. Which version are you looking for specifically? There are several versions available via google...

Quote:

So the bottom line is: is there any overclocking potential with the S5520SC?

Cheers, Eric

Manually, no Eric, but the board does a lot of automatic overclocking of the CPU's depending on the thermal situation at the time. I have seen over 3,600mhz out of the 5580's in some instances.

**Mousey** · May 4, 2009, 01:46 PM

I think i creamed it when i saw those benchmarks.
One hell of a review, i envy you just being able to snap your fingers and hardware show
up at your door lol.

One helluva review Z, great job

Zardon · May 4, 2009, 04:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lawsonmh15

We just built a couple of these workstations for a client, and I can tell you without a doubt, this is the fastest config we've ever done and the config we did only used E5520's with FX 1800's and by our own benching, and the client's account, this config both met, and exceeded, performance expectations. For ~$2500, you really can't touch it.

For that price it is a great system for sure. Those models are great value for money.

Quote:

For one reason or another, the benches are always slightly different. I have to hope we've got time to get the production team to bench them (which they rarely have time for).

If you have any results of your own, please share, would be great to get more input.

Quote:

Nonetheless, thanks for the most comprehensive reviews on the net ;-)

Glad it was useful !

Apr 6, 2009, 10:19 AM	#1
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 179	Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH Read The Review Here __________________________ Today we look at Intel's new highest specification W5580 processors running on the new S5520SC motherboard. Just how smoking fast is this platform and are we about to break a bunch of records in our testing today?

Apr 6, 2009, 10:39 AM	#2
lepel HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Belgium Posts: 552 Rep Power: 41 System Specs	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH Maaassive review. Good job, Even though I didn't understand half of it, it was still a very enjoyable read. The system building part was really nice. btw, how do I wish I could also ring up some manufacturers and let them send their latest crazy hardware to me. :O

Apr 6, 2009, 10:41 AM	#3
clanman DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 152 Rep Power: 33	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH Yeh I didnt really understand half of it either, but what I did understand was awesome. that was a hell of a review Zardon, very impressed. Killer processors, wish they didn't cost more than my car though !

Apr 6, 2009, 10:45 AM	#4
Alex Driverheaven Lover Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 260 Rep Power: 45	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH What incredible hardware, really stunned to see Intel getting so much clock per clock performance. Interesting to read that Skulltrail needed to be clocked to 4ghz to get the same performance in cinebench, thats 800mhz per core to match the throughput. I would love to see these cpus in a motherboard capable of ordinary style overclocking because while I appreciate the turbo mode system in the professional industry I would love to see what these can produce at 4ghz per CPU. That said, great job Z, as much information as any sane person could ask for.

Apr 6, 2009, 11:17 AM	#5
brutusmaximus DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 520 Rep Power: 76	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH wonderful performance from those processors. cost quite a bit of money mind you ! __________________

Apr 6, 2009, 11:57 AM	#6
*craig5320* HH Administrator Join Date: May 2002 Location: Manchester, UK Posts: 8,565 Rep Power: 445 System Specs	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH Very Nice Z, is this what caused the blackout across the UK last week? __________________ HardwareHeaven on Facebook

Apr 6, 2009, 12:08 PM	#7
Mac Daddy DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 7,950 Rep Power: 79 System Specs	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH Well you get what you pay for as they say. Great review Allan and I would recommend to anyone to set aside even 10 or 15 minutes and give this one a good read through ... I did __________________ "My mom said the only reason men are alive is for lawn care and vehicle maintenance." - Tim Allen

Apr 6, 2009, 12:57 PM	#8
Cow_160483 HH's only cow moooooo... Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: BOTSWANA Posts: 6,813 Rep Power: 299 System Specs	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH "Fantastical" that's all I could come up with to describe the system absolutely "Fantastical" Now if i only had the deep pockets to actually get one __________________ Decode! Muhahahahah!

Apr 6, 2009, 01:52 PM	#9
blibbax What does this do? Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Oxford, UK Posts: 4,215 Rep Power: 251 System Specs	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH Nice review. That's a truly epic system, but I guess you get what you pay for. P.S. Is the 1366mhz DDR3 on page 4 intentional? __________________ Donate the spare computing power of your PC to help to cure Alzheimer's, ALS, Huntington's, Parkinson's disease and cancer: Fold for HH!

Apr 6, 2009, 02:38 PM	#12
comp_ali Sniper Join Date: Aug 2008 Location: Egypt Posts: 10,469 Rep Power: 339 System Specs	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH Very interesting review, the biggest I have ever read . __________________

Apr 6, 2009, 03:52 PM	#13
humonous DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 164 Rep Power: 0	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH wow. just wow. Hell of a review and what a product from Intel.

Apr 6, 2009, 04:05 PM	#14
longhorn1000 DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 70 Rep Power: 0	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH Incredible rendering times. particularly studiomax. Our business already have some of these systems on order but the 5580's are like gold dust, we might have to opt for the 5570s.

Apr 6, 2009, 05:42 PM	#15
mike2h DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: norcal Posts: 6,483 Rep Power: 91 System Specs	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH tyvm! what is already an awsome setup is going to be even better down the road as more & more apps utilise all that lovely processing power. __________________

Apr 6, 2009, 05:48 PM	#16
macbiter DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 81 Rep Power: 0	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH incredible performance and it shows how far ahead intel are when it comes to high end processing power. Some of those benchmark results are mind blowing, I am not sure most people realise just how INCREDIBLE they are ! Great review DH, thanks.

Apr 6, 2009, 11:10 PM	#17
IvanV HH Assassin Guild Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 5,908 Rep Power: 333 System Specs	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH Fantastic review! It's amazing how the new system is sometimes almost twice faster than Skulltrail. Power consumption is also impressive, less than 10% increase under full load and far lower at idle. Probably a tad hot under load for blade servers (Xeons L5520 look perfect for that job, though), but they make for a fantastic workstation. One slightly off topic question, though: You disabled hyper-threading for the Terragen 2 test, does that mean that Vista can't tell the difference between physical and logical processor cores? __________________ If anyone has Portal 2 and hasn't played the co-op and wants to do me a favour, let me know (PM me or whatever).

Apr 7, 2009, 02:21 AM	#20
Vikingod Int'l Fish Liaison Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: By the light of lamp I sit and type... Posts: 16,197 Rep Power: 112 System Specs	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH Great review, and holy shit did you put a lot of work into it (but i bet it was pretty fun). I can't remember ever seeing any platform with such improvements over the prior generation. That, and it's power efficiency is impressive.

Apr 7, 2009, 05:33 AM	#21
kris23 Going Insane..... Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 6,017 Rep Power: 131 System Specs	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH amazing review Z! now it looks like i have to update my systems thread for this.... __________________ Hardwareheaven Super-Moderator Building a new computer system and not sure where to start? Click Here! last updated (5/18/11) Rosewill FUTURE case replaces CM 690 II with its greater interior length. Building a PC: Step by Step Guide Written by Kristopher Pedemonte and Nathan Marks-Forder Edited by Allan Campbell Questions or Comments? feel free to post them in the forums!

Apr 7, 2009, 10:36 AM	#22
Alex Driverheaven Lover Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 260 Rep Power: 45	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH I read bittech review today and I noticed the guy reviewing it was complaining about the power consumption, yet he didn't read it at idle? Thats poor technically as clearly the benefits are too be seen when the CPU's arent under full load and idling.

Apr 20, 2009, 06:33 PM	#24
Lawsonmh15 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 2 Rep Power: 0	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH We just built a couple of these workstations for a client, and I can tell you without a doubt, this is the fastest config we've ever done and the config we did only used E5520's with FX 1800's and by our own benching, and the client's account, this config both met, and exceeded, performance expectations. For ~$2500, you really can't touch it. Either way, I'd like to see apples-apples benchmarks with a 965EE i7. For some reason, I can never get apples-apples from a top of the line workstation to a TOL Server. For one reason or another, the benches are always slightly different. I have to hope we've got time to get the production team to bench them (which they rarely have time for). Nonetheless, thanks for the most comprehensive reviews on the net ;-) Last edited by Lawsonmh15; Apr 20, 2009 at 07:04 PM.

Apr 25, 2009, 08:10 PM	#25
kolotyluk DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Vancouver, Canada Posts: 23 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH Great article - the first and only review I've seen on the S5520SC! I've actually been considering building something around the S5520SC for a while now, but been cautious by the lack of real-world experience. I was actually waiting for Intel to release their rumored Skulltrail II, but so far as I can tell that's still rumor, and I have even seen one quote from Intel that there will not be a Skulltrail II - has anyone else heard about Skulltrail II? One concern about the S5520SC is that there does not seem to be any overclocking options in the BIOS/EFI. I was hoping that CPU Tweaker could be used with this system, but I cannot get any real information on CPU Tweaker. Does anyone know if CPU Tweaker can be used with the S5520SC or Xeon 5500 series in general? Does anyone know where you can get more information on CPU Tweaker. I tried joining the forum where CPU Tweaker is discussed, but they turned down my application saying I did not qualify. Pretty elitist bunch; first time I've ever been turned down to join an on-line forum. So the bottom line is: is there any overclocking potential with the S5520SC? Cheers, Eric

May 4, 2009, 10:16 AM	#26
krogh8 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH Great article! I just have a quick question about the power supply.. why do you need two? - peter

May 4, 2009, 01:46 PM	#29
Mousey Synth's Long Lost Bro Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Web Design Hell Posts: 7,185 Rep Power: 245 System Specs	Re: Intel Xeon W5580 Cpus & S5520SC Motherboard Review @ DH I think i creamed it when i saw those benchmarks. One hell of a review, i envy you just being able to snap your fingers and hardware show up at your door lol. One helluva review Z, great job __________________