ASUS Z9 PE-D8 WS Dual Xeon Insanity E5-2660 & E5-2687W
3D Mark
Published: 2nd April 2012 | Source: Asus | Price: £370 |
3D Mark Vantage
It wasn't that long ago that all the world records were held on Skulltrail systems. How things have changed. There is barely a gnats chuff between the scores in the Extreme preset, and even in the P Score, the area we'd expect the veritable cornucopia of cores to impress, the i7-3960X edges ahead.
3D Mark 11
If Vantage was a close run thing, then 3D Mark 11 is taking things to new heights of closeness. A Hexcore CPU on a Rampage IV Extreme is inseparable from 16 cores of Xeons. Both impressive, and yet disappointing.
Most Recent Comments
It's a beautiful thing... that amount of processing power should be illegal.
I seriously want a pair of these for folding. 114k PPD without any bonuses is insane!
(Btw Tom the link is broken mate)
(Btw Tom the link is broken mate)
O my god ...
that is awesome , nice one TTL cudos
that is awesome , nice one TTL cudos
Off topic,
But where can I buy a benchtable like that ?
BTW the link on here goes to a smaller picture !
But where can I buy a benchtable like that ?
BTW the link on here goes to a smaller picture !
So much POWA!!!!!
Wasted for anything less than folding or rendering etc though.
@SnW
http://www.ldcooling.com/shop/45-ld-pc-v4
Wasted for anything less than folding or rendering etc though.
@SnW
http://www.ldcooling.com/shop/45-ld-pc-v4
Would I be able to play doom on it 
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Originally Posted by Malarky13
Would I be able to play doom on it |
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Originally Posted by SieB
So much POWA!!!!! Wasted for anything less than folding or rendering etc though. @SnW http://www.ldcooling.com/shop/45-ld-pc-v4 |
I can't wait till I build something like this in the future!Way too expensive cpu's , for that price ill build two single cpu 2011 rigs , and have change left to pay my debt to sociaty.
good review tom . thx.
good review tom . thx.
hey oc3d, vantage is only aware of 16 threads shamino came up with a way to get vantage to see more than 16 thread for his sr2 overclocks, but i dont think it will work for the xeons on the asus borad(unless you can find another way) but could work on a review of the SRX with ELEET i think you could get close to 100k in vantage as it can scale if you make it see all the thread available, hope this helps
shamino
http://www.evga.com/...igh=sr2+vantage
shamino
http://www.evga.com/...igh=sr2+vantage
Great review as always, cheers Tom.....
Also just wondering if there are any boards lined up for the future that can accomodate dual 3960-X ??? Is this even possible ?
Also just wondering if there are any boards lined up for the future that can accomodate dual 3960-X ??? Is this even possible ?
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Originally Posted by FTLN
Great review as always, cheer Tom..... Also just wondering if there are any boards lined up for the future that can accomodate dual 3960-X ??? Is this even possible ? |
Amazing but still not my preffered gaming machine ;]
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Originally Posted by FTLN
Great review as always, cheers Tom..... Also just wondering if there are any boards lined up for the future that can accomodate dual 3960-X ??? Is this even possible ? |
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Originally Posted by PetrolHead247
Most likely not because the 2011 chips lack the instruction set to enable 2 chips to work together |
My god,I see double. 
Interesting nice review as usual.
Interesting nice review as usual.OMG this is like end of the world
I'm trying to get hold of a Dell poweredge (Work thing) running Quad Xeon E7-4870 10 Cores, if I get the opportunity to stick windows 7/cinebench/F@H on it before I get instructed to start ploughing virtual machines on to it i'll try and get some numbers.
I really din't see the point of this, but the scores are awsome, makes me wonder what 4x E7 can do..
Great review Tom. Just watched the video review and I love how awesome these CPU's are. Would love to get a hold of a couple for a dedicated F@H rig, but I would have to sell my car + some body parts to make up the cost.
@wotevajjjj - the point is if you're rendering large files or F@h and the program utilizes all of the cores, then you could save heaps of time with rendering and gaining a massive amount of points when folding.
@wotevajjjj - the point is if you're rendering large files or F@h and the program utilizes all of the cores, then you could save heaps of time with rendering and gaining a massive amount of points when folding.
very pleasing review mate
this beast is superb..... with that price range, it's worthed
this beast is superb..... with that price range, it's worthed
A couple of weeks ago I was going to buy this board and two E5-2620's but then I read a review of the E5 chips inside an Asus Z9 PE-D8 WS and spoke to Jacob from EVGA's Forums. Both of those sources of information indicated the best overclock possible on the new XEON's was a lift in the BCLK from 100MHz to 105MHz maximum (and even that was not a sure thing). This would result in only a 100MHz improvement on the E5 2620's
It is quite disappointing that Intel has completely locked the new XEON processors. Some on the EVGA forums (who are pining over the SR-X) are planning to wait and see if Intel releases an X series XEON at a $1200+ price tag just for the benchmarking crowd but there is no indication Intel is even considering that and I decided not to wait for something I don't think will ever come to fruition.
In the end I picked up an Asus Rampage IV Extreme and 3930K which I've overclocked considerably. I don't regret that purchase one bit especially after hearing your conclusion in your review of the Asus Z9 where you basically say do what I just said if you want to overclock or build a killer gaming rig.
It is quite disappointing that Intel has completely locked the new XEON processors. Some on the EVGA forums (who are pining over the SR-X) are planning to wait and see if Intel releases an X series XEON at a $1200+ price tag just for the benchmarking crowd but there is no indication Intel is even considering that and I decided not to wait for something I don't think will ever come to fruition.
In the end I picked up an Asus Rampage IV Extreme and 3930K which I've overclocked considerably. I don't regret that purchase one bit especially after hearing your conclusion in your review of the Asus Z9 where you basically say do what I just said if you want to overclock or build a killer gaming rig.
If Rodney saw it he'd definately say it was a 100% Kick Ass product. Mind you he says that about everything LOL 
Looks amazing by the way your gonna need your own sub station soon
Looks amazing by the way your gonna need your own sub station soon
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Originally Posted by SnW
Off topic, But where can I buy a benchtable like that ? BTW the link on here goes to a smaller picture ! |
They make amazing custom cases, if I ever have enough cash, I will buy a case there.
*removed, thats almost spam mate*
imho the Z9PE-D8 WS can run 4 pcie at full 16x speed with a dual cpu setup.
afaik two xeons on this board provide 80 pcie lanes.
cpu 1:
slot 1 and 3 at 16x speed, slot 2 and 4 at 8x speed, slot 3 is downgraded to 8x if slot 2 and 4 are running 8x cards.
cpu 2:
slot 5 and 7 at 16x speed, slot 6 at 8x speed.
asus say on their website 2*16x / 4*8x, imho this is true with a single cpu setup.
with dual cpu this should be 4*16x, sadly i dont remember where i did read that...
it just sounds odd to have only 4*8x with 80 lanes.
afaik two xeons on this board provide 80 pcie lanes.
cpu 1:
slot 1 and 3 at 16x speed, slot 2 and 4 at 8x speed, slot 3 is downgraded to 8x if slot 2 and 4 are running 8x cards.
cpu 2:
slot 5 and 7 at 16x speed, slot 6 at 8x speed.
asus say on their website 2*16x / 4*8x, imho this is true with a single cpu setup.
with dual cpu this should be 4*16x, sadly i dont remember where i did read that...
it just sounds odd to have only 4*8x with 80 lanes.
This was a lot of fun to digest. Thanks so much!. I know I love seeing the extreme boundaries, even tho they may not be so relevant to my own reality.
I am not a gamer; but an artist/student of motion graphics & visual effects. Guys with the skills I'm learning build the games, the commercials, the movies, the broadcast graphics... Boring workstations heve been my life. My activity on a box mixes high resolution digital video, photos, 3D modeling, 3D animation, 3D motion tracking, and compositing. And my workflow demands hefty snap in real time tool response, previewing, and rendering. The proven gaming strategy of overclocking i7s/RAM, and stacking up multiple cuda GPUs would only get me so far.
A solid WS strategy calls for a beefy balance of lotsa cores, lotsa RAM, SSD caching, RAIDed HDDs, a high-end GPU with "Adobe-blessed NVIDIA sensibility",and effective tweaking of graphics apps for performance.
It's clear to most that a WS improves with the number of cores; but there is an interesting dilemma there. Graphics peeps fortunate enough to have a lot of cores (8+) can't often use them all. Oftentimes they encounter a phenomenon where applying too many cores actually slows their processing down (e,g, Adobe apps like After Effects). This happens when threading spawns many instances of a graphics program and cores begin to step on each other's toes as they compete for inadequate RAM. Installing more (and faster) RAM helps; but the biggest problem is that the multi-threading strategies the apps are coded with are inadequate or nonexistent. Benchmark apps are better in this regard, so they aren't as real world as we'd like. To their credit Adobe and others do enable their code to be assisted to some extent by OpenGL, Open CL, and Cuda processing in GPUs. But rendering is still not what it could be yet. So talk of processing cores and NVIDIA's Maximus schemes are really more tantalizing than satisfying to me. In spite of this, there still are reasons to invest in lotsa cores: 1) a typical graphics workflow requires many hefty apps to be open and processing simultaneously, 2) some rendering apps are threaded decently enough to capably use how ever many cores you enlist, and 3) multi-core machines built today will be able to fight obsolescence admirably as more and more apps jump on the multi-threading bandwagon.
The system in the above test would problee make my life a whole lot easier!! But unfortunately I'm on a lower budget and looking to build a WS. Here's what I'd really love-LOVE to see at Overclock3D (and I'm sure you've thought of it already...) I'd love to see a more practical shootout based on the cost/performance expectation of the more typical graphics grunt. Maybe start with a baseline single CPU config based on the E5-2687w tested here, and then compare it to the same amount of cores achieved by a dual E5 Xeon config that costs roughly the same. And for good measure throw in a config that's cheaper but has even more cores....
Certainly we're still talking more cost here than the high-end gaming MoBo/CPU, but less cooling. And how awesome would it be to experience the effectiveness of Intel QPI, plus chew on the subtle differences in CPU cache and clock-speed! Here would be my contenders:
------------------------------------
1) Single CPU, 8-core (baseline)
Single E5-2687w Xeon CPU (8 core, 3.1 – 3.8 GHz, 150w, 20MB cache)
ASUS P9X79 WS motherboard
Cost: $2280 US
------------------------------------
2) Dual CPU, 8-core
Two E5-2643 Xeon CPUs (4 core, 3.3 – 3.5 GHz, 130w, 2 QPI Links, 8GT/s, 10MB cache)
ASUS Z9PE-D8 motherboard
Cost: $2370 US ($90 more than the baseline strategy)
------------------------------------
3) Dual CPU, 12-core
Two E5-2630 Xeon CPUs (6 core, 2.3 – 2.8 GHz, 95w, 2 QPI Links, 7.2GT/s, 15MB cache)
ASUS Z9PE-D8 motherboard
Cost: $1820 US ($460 less than the baseline strategy)
------------------------------------
AGAIN, Thanks for the very intriguing & enlightening test. Very helpful for us WS peeps!
Dayoldy
I am not a gamer; but an artist/student of motion graphics & visual effects. Guys with the skills I'm learning build the games, the commercials, the movies, the broadcast graphics... Boring workstations heve been my life. My activity on a box mixes high resolution digital video, photos, 3D modeling, 3D animation, 3D motion tracking, and compositing. And my workflow demands hefty snap in real time tool response, previewing, and rendering. The proven gaming strategy of overclocking i7s/RAM, and stacking up multiple cuda GPUs would only get me so far.
A solid WS strategy calls for a beefy balance of lotsa cores, lotsa RAM, SSD caching, RAIDed HDDs, a high-end GPU with "Adobe-blessed NVIDIA sensibility",and effective tweaking of graphics apps for performance.
It's clear to most that a WS improves with the number of cores; but there is an interesting dilemma there. Graphics peeps fortunate enough to have a lot of cores (8+) can't often use them all. Oftentimes they encounter a phenomenon where applying too many cores actually slows their processing down (e,g, Adobe apps like After Effects). This happens when threading spawns many instances of a graphics program and cores begin to step on each other's toes as they compete for inadequate RAM. Installing more (and faster) RAM helps; but the biggest problem is that the multi-threading strategies the apps are coded with are inadequate or nonexistent. Benchmark apps are better in this regard, so they aren't as real world as we'd like. To their credit Adobe and others do enable their code to be assisted to some extent by OpenGL, Open CL, and Cuda processing in GPUs. But rendering is still not what it could be yet. So talk of processing cores and NVIDIA's Maximus schemes are really more tantalizing than satisfying to me. In spite of this, there still are reasons to invest in lotsa cores: 1) a typical graphics workflow requires many hefty apps to be open and processing simultaneously, 2) some rendering apps are threaded decently enough to capably use how ever many cores you enlist, and 3) multi-core machines built today will be able to fight obsolescence admirably as more and more apps jump on the multi-threading bandwagon.
The system in the above test would problee make my life a whole lot easier!! But unfortunately I'm on a lower budget and looking to build a WS. Here's what I'd really love-LOVE to see at Overclock3D (and I'm sure you've thought of it already...) I'd love to see a more practical shootout based on the cost/performance expectation of the more typical graphics grunt. Maybe start with a baseline single CPU config based on the E5-2687w tested here, and then compare it to the same amount of cores achieved by a dual E5 Xeon config that costs roughly the same. And for good measure throw in a config that's cheaper but has even more cores....
Certainly we're still talking more cost here than the high-end gaming MoBo/CPU, but less cooling. And how awesome would it be to experience the effectiveness of Intel QPI, plus chew on the subtle differences in CPU cache and clock-speed! Here would be my contenders:
------------------------------------
1) Single CPU, 8-core (baseline)
Single E5-2687w Xeon CPU (8 core, 3.1 – 3.8 GHz, 150w, 20MB cache)
ASUS P9X79 WS motherboard
Cost: $2280 US
------------------------------------
2) Dual CPU, 8-core
Two E5-2643 Xeon CPUs (4 core, 3.3 – 3.5 GHz, 130w, 2 QPI Links, 8GT/s, 10MB cache)
ASUS Z9PE-D8 motherboard
Cost: $2370 US ($90 more than the baseline strategy)
------------------------------------
3) Dual CPU, 12-core
Two E5-2630 Xeon CPUs (6 core, 2.3 – 2.8 GHz, 95w, 2 QPI Links, 7.2GT/s, 15MB cache)
ASUS Z9PE-D8 motherboard
Cost: $1820 US ($460 less than the baseline strategy)
------------------------------------
AGAIN, Thanks for the very intriguing & enlightening test. Very helpful for us WS peeps!
Dayoldy
I'm about to buil a rig for videoediting in Adobe cs6 so I guess that the cinebench is the benchmark for me? Due to the expensive cpu-cost in a dual E5-2687W setup I have an idea to cut the initial cost by beginning with one cpu and keep the option to upscale to two cpus if needed in the future.
The question is how will on E5-2687W stack up to an i7-3960X setup in Cinebench?
The question is how will on E5-2687W stack up to an i7-3960X setup in Cinebench?
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Originally Posted by Legacy-ZA
You may try http://www.mountainmods.com/
They make amazing custom cases, if I ever have enough cash, I will buy a case there. |
They make TERRIBLE cases.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by andy73
imho the Z9PE-D8 WS can run 4 pcie at full 16x speed with a dual cpu setup.
afaik two xeons on this board provide 80 pcie lanes. cpu 1: slot 1 and 3 at 16x speed, slot 2 and 4 at 8x speed, slot 3 is downgraded to 8x if slot 2 and 4 are running 8x cards. cpu 2: slot 5 and 7 at 16x speed, slot 6 at 8x speed. asus say on their website 2*16x / 4*8x, imho this is true with a single cpu setup. with dual cpu this should be 4*16x, sadly i dont remember where i did read that... it just sounds odd to have only 4*8x with 80 lanes. |
You did read it on there website (http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_2011/Z9PED8_WS/#specifications) under specs. it does say you can run 4 PCI-E lanes at the full 16x.
"4 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16 (dual x16 or quad x8)
2 x PCIe 3.0/2.0 x16"
so according to the first line 2 16x can be run and at the same time 2 more 16x lanes can be run. Its only after that that speed starts to go down.
it will be good to see how the up and coming quadro cards will work with this...
"14 SATA ports (8 SATA 3Gbp/s and 6 SATA 3Gbp/s)"
Little typo
It should be: 14 SATA ports (8 SATA 3Gbp/s and 6 SATA 6Gbp/s)
Little typo
It should be: 14 SATA ports (8 SATA 3Gbp/s and 6 SATA 6Gbp/s)Hi Tom,
Just read this review. Awesome. Looking at a Xeon system, but seriously, the cost. /cry
You were commenting on getting 3d software to show the difference in performance.
Well, http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/ is a link for open source 3d software.
The test scene used by the community: dl.dropbox.com/u/1742071/1m/BMW1M-MikePan.blend the scene is ready to render, just hit f12.
Original link on http://blenderartists.org/forum/show...ht=cycles+test
I would expect you doing a mini review showing the differences in the speed of various setups would generate a lot of interest from the blender community.
Just read this review. Awesome. Looking at a Xeon system, but seriously, the cost. /cry
You were commenting on getting 3d software to show the difference in performance.
Well, http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/ is a link for open source 3d software.
The test scene used by the community: dl.dropbox.com/u/1742071/1m/BMW1M-MikePan.blend the scene is ready to render, just hit f12.
Original link on http://blenderartists.org/forum/show...ht=cycles+test
I would expect you doing a mini review showing the differences in the speed of various setups would generate a lot of interest from the blender community.
what is the cost of this system?
I love the review.
I remember that you did a review of the Xigmatek Elysium.
Would this board fit w/2 corsair h80s at the top?
The board is EEB format. The Elysium holds E-ATX. Both formats are 12" x 13". Are the standoffs in different positions?
Thanks!
I remember that you did a review of the Xigmatek Elysium.
Would this board fit w/2 corsair h80s at the top?
The board is EEB format. The Elysium holds E-ATX. Both formats are 12" x 13". Are the standoffs in different positions?
Thanks!
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Originally Posted by tinytomlogan
They make TERRIBLE cases.
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Finally someone else agrees
'
CSS Valid
What would happen if you combined the power of the ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS and two of the latest Xeon processors? We find out.
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