Asus Z9 PE-D8 WS / Dual Xeon E5 2687W / 64GB Kingston DDR3 Review

1. Introduction2. Intel Xeon E5 2687W3. Asus Z9 PE-D8 WS Motherboard4. Asus Z9 PE-D8 WS (Super High Res Gallery)5. Kingston HyperX Predator 2,133mhz (64GB)6. Kingston HyperX Predator 2,133mhz (64GB) (Super High Res Gallery)7. Asus Z9 PE-D8 WS (The Bios)8. Testing Methodology9. Synthetic: PCMark 710. Synthetic: 3DMark Vantage11. Synthetic: 3DMark 1112. Synthetic: Unigine Heaven Benchmark13. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra14. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit15. Synthetic: W Prime Benchmark16. Synthetic: SSD Testing17. Image Quality: HQV Benchmark 2.018. Real World: 3D Rendering19. Real World: MainConcept 2.220. Real World: BluRay Playback21. Real World: Flash HD Playback22. Real World: HandBrake 9.523. Real World: SolidWorks 201324. Gaming: Dirt Showdown (5760x1080)25. Gaming: Battlefield 3 (5760x1080)26. Gaming: Max Payne 3: DX 11 (5760x1080)27. Thermal Performance28. Power Consumption29. Closing Thoughts30. View All Pages

Today we are looking at the Asus Z9 PE-D8 Workstation motherboard. This dual LGA 2011 socket board is based around Intel's C602 chipset with support for quad channel 8 DIMM memory, effectively targeting the high end audience.

We pair the Z9 PE-D8 up with two flagship Intel 8 Core Xeon E5 2687W processors, two Corsair H80 liquid coolers, a Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition graphics card, Seasonic Platinum 1000W power supply and 64GB of Kingston Predator 2,133mhz memory. Is this the ultimate Workstation?

This system will hammer your credit card into submission. Xeon E5 prices are generally set between the £800 and £1,500 mark and this system today will easily cost around the £5,000 mark.

If gaming is your only requirement then it goes without saying that this is completely overkill.

Initially we wanted to use the EVGA Classified SR-X motherboard, but I experienced quite a few issues and decided to bin the review, while I still had some hair left. We really don't recommend anyone purchase this motherboard as the bios seems totally unfinished and unstable.

Asus kindly supplied their Z9 PE-D8 Workstation board, which is £105 cheaper, faster, smaller and infinitely more reliable. The Xeon E5 processors can't be overclocked therefore stability and performance at default speeds are the primary focus for this review.

Today we have built a very high end system with 32 threads and we put it through its paces when editing images, working with high definition video and rendering 3D scenes. Additionally, can it be used as a gaming machine when you have some downtime? It is good enough for playing games at 5760×1080 across three monitors? We answer all these questions today.

Special thanks to Intel, Kingston, Corsair, Lian Li, Sapphire, Seasonic and ASUS for supplying this high end hardware for our review today.

We didn't receive these processors with any retail packaging as they arrived straight from the Intel factory.

The Xeon E5 is one of the most complex processors that Intel have designed to date. The E5 2687W has 8 physical cores, each of which have hyperthreading support to offer a total of 16 threads. Therefore in a dual CPU configuration there are 16 physical cores with a total of 32 threads.

The E5 2687w has a massive 20MB Level 3 cache onboard, even more than the Core i7 3960K Extreme Edition. Officially it has support for memory rated to 1,600mhz in a Quad Channel configuration. There are 40 PCIe plus 4 V2 lanes and two high speed QPI links.

The Xeon E7 range of processors are designed for use in 4 socket and higher servers, so the E5 has to cover a wider gamut of deployment situations.

The Xeon E5 2600 is the first CPU to truly integrate the IOH functionality for 40 lanes of PCIe Gen3.

The E5 2687W slots into the top of the E5 range – clocked at 3.1ghz and with a TDP rating of 150W. Confusingly the ‘higher named' E5-2690 is clocked at a slower 2.9ghz but with the same turbo frequency of 3.8ghz. It consumes less power (135W) and is therefore better suited for 24/7 server use. The ‘W' moniker of the 2687W indicates the suitability for a Workstation environment.

Both processors should be very closely matched, but the 2687W has a higher standard clock speed, so will have a slight edge depending on the given situation.

The Quad channel IMC in the Xeon E5 also supports DDR3 LRDIMM to allow for densities up to 768GB – 24 x 32GB modules. Intel Turbo Boost 2.0 is incorporated which helps improve performance while maintaining a dynamic, efficient power curve.

The Asus Z9 PE-D8 WS motherboard arrives in a large, attractively designed, heavy box with no images of the product on the front. There is a list of key specifications along the bottom.

The bundle is extremely impressive – Asus certainly haven't skimped on supplying a full wealth of peripherals.

They include:

• User's manual
• I/O Shield
• 2 x COM port cable(s)
• 8 x SATA 3Gb/s cable(s)
• 6 x SATA 6Gb/s cable(s)
• 1 x 3-Way SLI bridge(s)
• 1 x 4-Way SLI bridge(s)
• 1 x SLI bridge(s)
• 1 x 2-port USB2.0 + 1394 bracket(s)

The Asus Z9 PE-D8 WS is built around a black PCB and isn't one of the most attractive boards we have seen. That said, this is a Workstation board, so the emphasis on wacky and wonderful eye catching designs isn't important – either for ASUS or the people buying it.

Technically, the engineering quality is beautiful – with a fantastic layout and two effective heatsinks close to each CPU socket. This board is passively cooled.

Asus have opted for the EEB form factor (30.5cm x 33 cm), which means it isn't a dramatic size increase over a standard ATX board design (30.5cm x 26.4cm), fitting into most of the larger (super) tower cases available on the market today. We used the fantastic Lian Li X2000FN, and you can read our full review over here.

Asus recommend you use the following operating systems with this board:

• CentOS 5.7/6.1 32/64-bit
• Windows Server 2008 R2
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise
• Windows Server 2008 Enterprise 32/64-bit
• Windows 7 (Ultimate SP1) 32/64-bit
• RedHat Enterprise Linux Desktop WS 6.0 32/64-bit
• RedHat Enterprise Linux AS5.7/6.2 32/64-bit
• SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 11.2 32/64-bit
• SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11.1 32/64-bit
• VMWare ESX4.1/ESXi4.1

As you can see, the board is extremely well laid out with all the memory slot pairing uniform in position next to each CPU socket. The motherboard supports the latest Intel Xeon E5-2600 processor family with dual LGA 2011 sockets. Memory and PCI Express controllers are integrated alongside quad-channel 8-DIMM DDR3 memory and 80 PCI Express 3.0 lanes.

This board supports 8 DIMM's, up to 64GB with 1066, 1333, 1600, 1866, 2133mhz speeds in a Quad channel architecture. It supports non ECC, unbuffered memory. Additionally it also supports registered memory up to 256GB in 800, 1066, 1333 and 1600mhz configurations.

The Asus Z9 PE-D8 WS supports both Nvidia 4 way SLI and AMD 4 way CrossfireX configurations. The four PCIE slots operate in the following configurations:

4 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (dual x16 or quad x8)
2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16
1 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (x8 mode)

Users can count on up to four Tesla cards with dual Intel Xeon E5-2600 processors for intensive parallel computing and massive data handling capabilities, delivering nearly 4 teraflops of performance. This offers an excellent desktop replacement for cluster computing.

This motherboard has no less than 8 Fan headers scattered in all positions – ideal for controlling a large chassis with multiple fans. There are also two 8 Pin CPU power connectors – to offer enough power to both XEON processors. You will need to ensure you are using a capable power supply for this system build.

A list of internal I/O ports are:

• 1 x USB 3.0 connector(s) support(s) additional 2 USB 3.0 port(s) (19-pin)
• 2 x USB 2.0 connector(s) support(s) additional 4 USB 2.0 port(s)
• 2 x Vertical USB 2.0 port(s)
• 2 x COM port(s) connector(s)
• 6 x SATA 6Gb/s connector(s)
• 8 x SATA 3Gb/s connector(s)
• 2 x IEEE 1394a connector(s)
• 2 x CPU Fan connector(s) (4 -pin)
• 6 x Chassis Fan connector(s) (4 -pin)
• 1 x S/PDIF out header(s)
• 1 x 24-pin EATX Power connector(s)
• 2 x 8-pin ATX 12V Power connector(s)
• 1 x 4-pin EZ_PLUG Power connector(s)
• 1 x RAID key header(s)
• 1 x ASMB6-iKVM connector(s)
• 1 x VGA connector(s)
• 1 x Front panel audio connector(s) (AAFP)
• 1 x AUX panel header(s)
• 1 x SMBus header(s)
• 1 x System panel(s)
• 1 x Power-on button(s)
• 1 x Reset button(s)
• 1 x Clear CMOS jumper(s)

We opted for a Seasonic 1000W Platinum modular unit – possibly the finest power supply on the market today. You can read our indepth review of this power supply over here.

The Intel C602 chipset is extremely capable and ASUS have included extra SATA 6GB/s ports with this particular board.

Intel C602 chipset :

• 2 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), blue
• 8 x SATA 3Gb/s port(s), black

Support Raid 0, 1, 5, 10

Marvell PCIe 9230 controller :

• 4 x SATA 6Gb/s port(s), gray

Support Raid 0, 1, 10

Yes, thats a total of 14 SATA ports on this board. More than enough for any situation.

The back I/O panel offers:

• 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse combo port(s)
• 2 x LAN (RJ45) port(s)
• 2 x USB 3.0
• 6 x USB 2.0
• 1 x Optical S/PDIF out
• 6 x Audio jack(s)

On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. You can right click and ‘save as’ to your computer to view later.

Kingston very kindly supplied 64Gb of their Predator 2,133mhz memory for this review. They supplied four 16GB kits, with pairs of 8GB memory sticks in each. We looked at the Predator memory in September – and you can read our full review of the 2,666mhz HyperX Predator over here.

Kingston include a little pamphlet with the memory which explains the installation procedure.

The Kingston Predator memory ships with dramatic blue and black oversized heatspreaders. They are attractively designed and very strong. the PCB underneath is green.

We paired the 64Gb of HyperX Predator with two Corsair H80 ‘all in one' liquid coolers. We experienced no installation issues, fitting underneath the rear radiator for CPU1 without a problem, as shown above. They could cause fitting problems with some of the larger CPU coolers such as the Noctua NH D14 however.

We would like to thank Kingston for offering this memory for the review today at late notice.

On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source. You can right click and ‘save as’ to your computer to view later.

We experienced some problems initially with the 2687W processors which was due to an older bios being installed on the Asus Z9 PE-D8 WS. We updated to the latest 3109 version which cured a frequent ‘micro stutter' issue.

The ‘main' panel shows a brief overview of the system, with 64GB of memory installed and two 2687W processors at 3.1ghz.

The AI Tweaker panel was put in place by ASUS to cover the eventuality that Intel may release unlocked E5 processors. Sadly they haven't so many of these functions are wasted.

The ‘ Advanced' panel shows an overview of all the configurable areas of the motherboard. We were surprised to find DIMM timings in the Chipset configuration, rather than the Ai Tweaker panel.

As this is a server style workstation motherboard, there is a dedicated menu system for viewing Smbios and System event logs. The ‘Boot' panel offers various traditional options for configuring the boot phase, such as adjusting drive positions and boot screen logo on/off.

The ‘Monitor' panel details a list of temperature, fan speeds and voltage readings. Very useful for troubleshooting and checking the cooling performance. The Security panel allows an IT manager or system owner to lock out the bios to unfriendly hands.

The Tool menu is used for flashing the BIOS to as newer revision. It works painlessly as we had to do this to get the system fully operational for the 2687W dual configuration. The EXIT tab can be used for saving and rebooting after making changes to the system. There is also a handy boot override menu for a ‘one time' setting.

As mentioned earlier in the review, the XEON E5 processors are locked by Intel and there is no way to overclock these processors, apart from increasing the BLCK. We only managed a a 104mhz result, so it is pointless to include results at this speed.

With 64GB of the Kingston Predator 2,133mhz memory installed we tried to push past the default 1,333mhz ‘safe' setting. This is handled by using the ‘DDR speed – force' option in the bios. We managed to get stability at 1,600mhz with 9-9-9-24 1T timings, but any higher resulted in a no post.

The system was unable to rescue itself from 1,866mhz or 2,133mhz options, so we manually had to reset the CMOS via the jumper switch every time.

We tried loosening the timings to 11-11-34-2T at 1,866mhz, but it still wouldn't post. 1,600mhz was the limit with 64GB installed.

System validation of our build is available over here.

To test today we are using the reference XEON clock speed. In various sections of the review we will compare against a variety of systems and processors we have tested in the past, listed below.

Main Test System:
Processors: Intel E5 2687W x 2
Motherboard: Asus Z9 PE-D8 WS
Coolers: Corsair H80 x2

Memory: 64GB Kingston Predator 1,600mhz 9-9-9-24 1T

Graphics Card: Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition (1,200mhz core 1,600mhz memory).
Power Supply: Seasonic 1000W Platinum Modular
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Lian Li X2000FN
Monitors: Dell U3011, 3x Ilyama ProLite E2472HDD
Boot Drive: Corsair 240GB Neutron GTX SSD
Secondary Drive: Corsair 240GB Neutron SSD

Comparison Test Systems:
Intel E5 2660
Motherboard: Gigabyte X79S-UP5-WIFI
Cooler: Corsair H100
Memory: 16GB G.Skill ARES 2,133mhz @ 9-11-10-28
Graphics Card: Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition (1,200mhz core 1,600mhz memory).
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Lian Li X2000a
Boot Drive: Intel 510 120GB
Secondary Drive: Patriot 240GB WildFire

Intel i7 3960X EE
Motherboard: Asus P9X79 WS WorkStation
Cooler: Corsair H100
Memory: 8GB Corsair Dominator GT8 2400mhz memory
Graphics Card: Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition (1,200mhz core 1,600mhz memory).
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Optical Drive: Asus BluRay Drive
Chassis: Cooler Master Cosmos 2
Monitors: Dell U3011, 3x Ilyama ProLite E2472HDD
Boot Drive: Crucial C300 128GB SSD
Secondary Drive: Patriot 240GB Pyro SE

Intel i7 3820
Motherboard: ASRock Extreme4-M
Cooler: Intel reference cooler
Memory: 8GB Corsair GTX8 @ 2133mhz
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: Lian Li PC60
Monitors: Dell U3011/La Cie 730
Boot Drive: Crucial C300
Secondary Drive: Patriot Pyro SE 240GB

AMD FX 8150 Black Edition
Processor: AMD FX 8150 Black Edition
Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Memory: G-SKill Ripjaws 1600mhz 8GB (2x 4GB)
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: SilverStone Raven 3
Boot Drive: Intel 40GB SSD
Secondary Drive: Patriot 120GB WildFire

Intel Core i7 990X
Processor: Intel Core i7 990x
Cooler: Corsair H100
Motherboard: Gigabyte G1 Assassin
Memory: Kingston HyperX 6GB
Drives: Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Chassis: Antec Twelve Hundred

Core i7 970 @ 4.6ghz
Graphics: Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition (1,200mhz core 1,600mhz memory).
Cooling: Coolit Vantage
Motherboard: MSI X58A-GD65
Chassis: Thermaltake Level 10 GT
Power Supply: Corsair AX1200
Memory: 6GB ADATA @ 2133mhz 9-10-9-32
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V+ 512GB Gen 2 SSD (Storage) / Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB (OS boot)

Intel Core i7 2700k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2700k
Cooling: ThermalTake Frio OCK
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard
Chassis: Silverstone Raven 3.
Power Supply: Corsair 850W.
Memory: Corsair 1600mhz memory
Storage: Intel 80GB SSD (boot) / Patriot Wildfire 120GB SSD.

Intel Core i7 2600k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2600k
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty Z68 Professional Gen 3
Cooler: Intel XTS-100H
Memory: ADATA 1600mhz DDR3 8GB (2x4GB)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower 850W
Boot Drive: Intel 510 SSD 250GB

Intel Core i5 2500k
Processor: Intel Core i7 2500k
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard
Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer Xtreme Rev.2 CPU Cooler
Memory: Corsair 1600mhz memory 8GB (2x4GB)
Power Supply: Corsair 850W.
Boot Drive: Patriot Pyro 120GB SSD.

AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1100T
Motherboard: Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7
Cooler: Noctua NH D14
Memory: G-SKill Ripjaws 1600mhz 8GB (2x 4GB)
Power Supply: ADATA 1200W
Chassis: SilverStone Raven 3
Boot Drive: Intel 40GB SSD
Secondary Drive: Patriot 120GB WildFire.

PCMark 7 includes 7 PC tests for Windows 7, combining more than 25 individual workloads covering storage, computation, image and video manipulation, web browsing and gaming. Specifically designed to cover the full range of PC hardware from netbooks and tablets to notebooks and desktops, PCMark 7 offers complete PC performance testing for Windows 7 for home and business use.

PCMark 7 sadly doesn't utilise two processors, so the results are based on a single 2687W. This system obviously outperforms the single E5 2660 system with the Gigabyte Z79S-UP5-WIFI.

Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings.

We compare against Kitguru’s main GPU test system, comprising a Core i7 970 clocked to 4.6ghz (full system listed on Testing Methodology page).

3DMark Vantage doesn't utilise the two processors either, and we can see that the overclocked Core i7 970 from the last generation delivers better gaming results, scoring 36,667 points compared to 32,051 from the Asus Z9 PE-D8 WS system. Still, these are good results.

3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.

After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page.

Strangely, the Asus Z9 PE-D8 WS system finished in last position, although the second processor was not utilised again in this gaming benchmark. We repeated this test multiple times to confirm. In the real world however this minor dip in performance wouldn't be noticed.

Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.

Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:

• Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
• Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
• Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
• Multicore CPU support
• Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
• Powerful C++ API
• Comprehensive performance profiling system
• Flexible XML-based data structures

We use the following settings: 1920×1080 resolution. Anti Aliasing off. Anisotrophy 4, Tessellation normal. Shaders High. Stereo 3D disabled. API: Direct X 11.

The system averages 97.2 frames per second, which is 1.8 fps slower than the single ES2660 in the Gigabyte X79S-UP5-WIFI motherboard. Obviously this benchmark isn't touching the second processor either.

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software.

Sandra is a (girl’s) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.

It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.

Native ports for all major operating systems are available:

• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
• Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
• Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
• Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)

All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:

• SMP – Multi-Processor
• MC – Multi-Core
• SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
• MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
• GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
• NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
• AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
• IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit

Now we can truly see the system shine, taking top position in all the benchmarks, by a clear margin. Nothing even comes close to two E5 2687's when they are working together. The memory bandwidth result is particularly noteworthy, over 64GB/s of bandwidth from the Kingston Predator Quad channel kit.

CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.

CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It’s completely free.

The Intel Core i7 3960X EE puts in a good showing at 4.8ghz, scoring just over 14 points. Two Xeon R5 2687W's however score 25,41 points, miles ahead of the rest of the pack. If you make your living by rendering 3D scenes and are working to a tight time scale, this is the system you need to buy. [yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdkDsI8wihI']

Fast enough for you?

wPrime is a leading multithreaded benchmark for x86 processors that tests your processor performance by calculating square roots with a recursive call of Newton’s method for estimating functions, with f(x)=x2-k, where k is the number we’re sqrting, until Sgn(f(x)/f’(x)) does not equal that of the previous iteration, starting with an estimation of k/2. It then uses an iterative calling of the estimation method a set amount of times to increase the accuracy of the results. It then confirms that n(k)2=k to ensure the calculation was correct. It repeats this for all numbers from 1 to the requested maximum.

We set wPrime to 32 cores.

A final time of under a minute is incredible and shows the power on hand when using two 2687W processors. The overclocked Core i7 3960X EE @ 4.8ghz managed to complete the test in 120 seconds.

Crystalmark is a useful benchmark to measure theoretical performance levels of hard drives and SSD’s. We are using V3.0 x64. The Corsair Neutron 240GB is being tested on the Asus Z9 PE-D8 WS motherboard today.

Not quite the best results we have seen from the Corsair Neutron 240GB drive, but still very impressive. We tried various SATA ports on the motherboard and the results did vary between the Intel and Marvell controllers.

The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.

The read speeds are excellent, scoring over 550MB/s. Write speed is slighly less impressive, although it is a limitation of the basic Neutron drive, rather than the controllers on the ASUS motherboard. Still, excellent results.

HQV Benchmark 2.0 is an updated version of the original tool and it consists of various video clips and test patterns which are designed to evalute motion correction, de-interlacing, decoding, noise reduction, detail enhancement and film cadence detection.

There are two versions of the program, standard definition on DVD and high definition on Bluray. As our audience will be concentrating on HD content so will we.

This has a total of 39 video tests which is increased from 23 in the original and the scoring is also up from a total of 130 to 210. As hardware and software gets more complicated, the software has been tuned to make sure we can thoroughly maximise our analysis.

Read our initial analysis over here

	Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition
Dial	4
Dial with static pattern	5
Gray Bars	5
Violin	5
Stadium 2:2	5
Stadium 3:2	5
Horizontal Text Scroll	5
Vertical Text Scroll	5
Transition to 3:2 Lock	5
Transition to 2:2 Lock	0
2:2:2:4 24 FPS DVCAM Video	5
2:3:3:2 24 FPS DVCam Video	5
3:2:3:2:2 24 FOS Vari-Speed	5
5:5 FPS Animation	5
6:4 12 FPS Animation	5
8:7 8 FPS Animation	5
Interlace Chroma Problem (ICP)	5
Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE)	5
Random Noise: Sailboat	5
Random Noise: Flower	5
Random Noise: Sunrise	5
Random Noise: Harbour Night	5
Scrolling Text	5
Roller Coaster	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Text Pattern/ Scrolling Text	5
Roller Coaster	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Bridge Traffic	5
Luminance Frequency Bands	5
Chrominance Frequency Bands	5
Vanishing Text	5
Resolution Enhancement	15
Theme Park	5
Driftwood	5
Ferris Wheel	5
Skin Tones	7
Total	196

A score of 196 points is class leading right now, the ideal solution for high definition media playback on a big screen.

V2011 is the first release of 3DStudio Max to fully support the Windows 7 operating system. This is a professional level tool that many people use for work purposes and our test will show any possible differences between board design today.

Autodesk 3ds Max Design 2011 software offers compelling new techniques to help bring designs to life by aggregating data, iterating ideas, and presenting the results.

Streamlined, more intelligent data exchange workflows and innovative new modeling and visualization tools help significantly increase designers’ creativity and productivity, enabling them to better explore, validate, and communicate the stories behind their designs.

Major new features:

• Slate: A node based material editor.
• Quicksilver: Hardware renderer with multithreaded rendering engine that utilizes both CPU and GPU.
• Extended Graphite Modeling Toolset
• 3ds Max Composite: A HDRI-capable compositor based on Autodesk Toxik.
• Viewport Canvas toolset for 3D and 2D texture painting directly in the viewport
• Object Painting: use 3D geometry as ‘brushes’ on other geometry
• Character Animation Toolkit (CAT): now integrated as part of the base package
• Autodesk Material Library: Over 1200 new photometrically accurate shaders
• Additional file format support: includes native support for Sketchup, Inventor
• FBX file linking
• Save to Previous Release (2010)

We created a new 8200×3200 scene and recorded the time for the hardware to finalise the render.

Yes, only 2 minutes and 32 seconds to complete the scene render. A standard Core i5 2500k takes almost 8 and a half minutes to complete the same scene.

MainConcept 2.2 takes advantage of all the physical cores on the Xeon processors, but it doesn't fully utilize all the processor time.

We encode an MPEG-2 file to H.264. The file is 500 MB in size.

The Core i7 3960X does particularly well in this test, especially when overclocked to 4.8ghz.

Our good friends at Cyberlink kindly supplied the software for our BluRay and conversion tests.

Cyberlink PowerDVD 12 is one of the finest solutions for the BluRay experience on Windows and we found this software to work perfectly with this chipset. We tested with the new Bluray Disc of ‘The Road’.

No problems for any of the systems on test today and the differences are so minor it would be impossible to tell the differences in the real world.

Many people using this system will be enjoying Flash related content so we feel it is important to test with some of the more demanding material available freely online.

Again, negligible differences, although recordable with our software.

Handbrake is a fantastic free program which we wanted to include to confirm findings with Media Espresso, earlier in the review. HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

We used the latest V 0.9.5 for testing today across all platforms. We encoded an DVD.MPG file.

The dual processor setup isn't fully utilized in this test as the results show, which is slightly disappointing.

SolidWorks Professional includes libraries of standard parts and fasteners, tools to automatically estimate manufacturing cost and to help utilize imported geometry, and utilities that search designs for errors. Your designs can be realistically rendered with PhotoView 360 software and shared with the eDrawings Professional package, an easily deployed tool that lets everyone view, measure, and markup the design data. SolidWorks Professional also gives you an integrated data management system that securely stores all project information and tracks all design changes. Streamline your design process with SolidWorks Professional.

We test with a 3000×2000 render which comprises 3.02M Polygons and 256 AA samples.

SolidWorks scales well with overclocking, and the 3960X EE delivers a fantastic end result when overclocked to 4.8ghz. The Xeon E5 2687W x2 system takes top spot with a final time of 2 minutes and 57 seconds.

Dirt Showdown is the latest title in the franchise from Codemasters, based around the famous Colin McRae racing game series, although it no longer uses his name, since he passed away in 2007.

We enabled the game across three 24 inch screens at 5760×1080 resolution, with the settings shown above.

The Xeon E5 2687 x2 system scored 3 frames per second more than the E5 2660 system, averaging 93 fps.

According to EA, Battlefield 3 garnered 3 million pre-orders by the day of its release. It is unknown at present whether these figures are worldwide or just for the US. The pre-order total makes it “the biggest first-person shooter launch in EA history”, according to the publisher. The engine is beautiful on the PC and very demanding of the partnering hardware.

We configured the game to run on three 24 inch monitors at 5760×1080. We set the Texture quality to high.

Good results from both system, with the 2687W dual system taking the lead by 3 frames per second.

On the last page we tested Max Payne 3 while running in Direct X 10.1. We have been unable to get this game playable across three screens in Direct X 11 with high image quality settings enabled.

We set anti aliasing to 2x and Tessellation to High. At these settings, the game demanded 1813MB of memory.

Slightly overkill for a gaming system, but good results nonetheless, averaging 47 frames per second.

The tests were performed in a controlled air conditioned room with temperatures maintained at a constant 24c – a comfortable environment for the majority of people reading this.

Idle temperatures were measured after sitting at the desktop for 30 minutes. CPU load measurements were recorded by running a looped test of Cinebench R11.5 64 bit. GPU load measurements were recorded by playing Crysis Warhead for a 45 minute period.

The combination of Lian Li X2000FN and dual Corsair H80 coolers produce a fantastic end result. The system emits very little noise too which is an added bonus.

Power consumption is very important today, especially if you are running a room full of workstation/server systems. Adopting a series of more efficient machines could save a business thousands a year.

We used a calibrated meter to measure the power at the wall. No monitors were factored into the readings. All systems included the same graphics card, memory configuration and hard drive population.

We measured wattage at the socket when running Cinebench R11.5 64 bit which loads all cores to 100% utilisation. The graphics card was inactive during the reading.

The pair of Intel Xeon E5 2687W processors consume significant power, taking 429 watts at the socket, compared to 213 from the 3960K at reference clock speeds. That said, when the 3960K gets almost 1.5 volts @ 4.8ghz, it consumes 440 watts.

We can only imagine the power consumption of two 2687W processors if Intel would let us overclock them while increasing the voltage.

There is no doubt that this is a crazy system build, delivering ludicrous performance results when paired up with specific software packages.

As we already knew beforehand, this system is completely overkill for a gaming rig and it is definitely a better move to invest in multiple graphics cards and a less expensive Core i7 3770k with 8GB of 2,666mhz memory. For a fraction of the price.

Intel have a wide range of Xeon E5's currently available and today we reviewed the two flagship models, which not coincidentally also consume the most power. Two of these when tasked at 100% consume around 430 Watts.

That is before you even consider installing a high end graphics card (or more) for the latest Direct X 11 games.

The review also shows a current limitation of many software packages. The newest version of Cyberlink Mediaespresso crashed constantly when starting an encoding task (above image). Many other software packages don't even use the secondary processor at all, and a wider range utilise only a percentage of overall processor time. This allows a processor such as the Intel Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition to claim back a lot of performance deficit, particularly when overclocked.

Adobe Photoshop still only uses several cores for their filtering algorithms, so the massive power on tap from the 2687W's is barely touched. This program responds much better to a large amount of fast memory with a tweaked system bus and overclocked processor. The Core i7 3770k performs particularly well in Adobe Photoshop for instance with 2,666mhz memory, especially when overclocked to 4.8ghz.

We did find the 2687W slightly faster than the 3960X at reference speeds in Adobe Photoshop, possibly due to the fatter level 3 cache.

The main strength for the Xeon E5 2687W when configured in a pair, is with 3D rendering programs such as 3D Studio Max and Cinema 4D.

The insane memory bandwidth and 32 core processing power allowed our build today to pull out way ahead of the other flagship systems we benchmarked against. An overclocked i7 3960X Extreme Edition manages to break the 14 point barrier in Cinebench for instance, but it still feels positively pedestrian when compared against the staggering 25.41 points we achieved with two Xeon E5 2687W's.

The Asus Z9 PE-D8 WS is a fantastic motherboard that is supplied fully loaded with 14 SATA ports, and dual x16 bandwidth PCI-e performance, if an ultra high end Crossfire or SLI system is important. The board will in fact support a x8/x8/x8/x8 configuration, if you want to play around with QUAD Nvidia or AMD configurations.

As stated earlier in the review, we had planned to focus on the EVGA Classified SR-X motherboard, but we experienced so many issues we just sent it back. Not only is the BIOS a mess, but it was also unstable and actually slower at reference clock speeds than the Asus Z9 PE-D8 WS board we used today.

When you factor in that the physically larger EVGA Classified SR-X costs £560 and the relatively compact Asus Z9 PE-D8 WS board is £455, it seems like a no brainer to save the £105.

The only notable negative we could mention during testing was that when we installed 64GB of Kingston Predator 2,133mhz memory, the maximum speed we could achieve was 1,600mhz. Anything higher would result in a no post, and force a manual CMOS reset via the jumper switch. That said, the board did post a 64.2GB/s memory bandwidth result, which is our highest result ever … by around 10GB/s.

EDIT: I learned today that memory cannot be configured higher than 1,600mhz on Xeon motherboards regardless of the XMP profiles.

In closing, if you need a system for high end 3D rendering duties and have software that you know will fully utilise 16/32 cores, then you will be in for a hell of a ride.

Pros:

• insane performance with supported software.
• memory bandwidth.
• For 3D rendering and CAD work, nothing comes close.

Cons:

• The cost.
• Most people would be better off with overclocking a 3960X.

Kitguru says: A solid, kick ass system that produces benchmark figures to make every other system we have tested pale into insignificance. Just be prepared to dig deep into your wallet. Unmissable for a specialised audience who need every ounce of CPU power.

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