The Server Room Blog

Selecting the Right Xeon Processor Just Got Easier

christopher.p.peters@intel.com — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 04:33:51 GMT

Since we started the Ask An Expert discussion thread in the Server Room a couple years ago, I found that the community often asked for guidance between selection of server system type and processor number as IT professionals sought to make the best purchase for them.

As I responded to these threads, I realized there were a lot of the same questions occurring over and over again. I then thought that having a selection tool to allow the community to guide themselves through a few questions to help narrow the options might be a valuable.

Sometimes the world (ok Intel) moves too slowly for me. My brainchild on this was something I wanted to have done about a year ago with the first 45nm quad-core processors (Xeon 5400). However, our server and corporate marketing teams got a little distracted by the Xeon 5500 (Nehalem) processor launch.

However, after much delay I’m proud to introduce this simple, interactive Xeon Server processor selector tool that can help you choose which server system type and processor would be ideal for your application and business goals. With Three Easy Steps, you can narrow your choices.

Step 1: Identify the business environment, application type and primary purchase criteria
Step 2: Compare and Choose the processor family (7000, 5000, 3000)
Step 3: Compare and Choose the specific processor within that family

In this 3^rd step you can look at price, performance, power and feature set across multiple CPUs to help you narrow. Take a short cut and look at the most popular CPUs or expand your options and look at the whole range of offerings.

We also have a Workstation Selection Tool (this tool was what triggered the idea to create a server one)

Other IT and business value assessment tools from Intel include:

Chris

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How Would You Like Your Benchmark?

christopher.p.peters@intel.com — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 06:25:22 GMT

Today, I met with Tim Denney (a summer intern here at Intel) who is working for our performance analysis team. Tim told me that he had built a tool allowing intel employees to compare performance of certain SPEC published benchmarks (www.spec.org) across a variety of processors.

Tim demonstrated this analysis tool that searches all the integer and floating point publications on www.spec.org across a range of architectures (Intel, AMD, UltraSPARC, Power). You can input different processors and then the tool returns the published results available and a simple graphical display of the best published results for the processors chosen.

After meeting with Tim, I thought about the numerous "Ask an Expert" questions I’ve received on OpenPort in the last 6-9 months where people have asked me where and how they can compare performance across a variety of processors (dual core to quad core, different speeds, 1S to 2S to 4S, etc).

In took me about a nano-second to realize that your input would be really helpful in developing an improved user interface. So here is your chance. I encourage you to try this performance comparison tool and respond back with your ideas on how we can improve the tool and user interface. I can’t guarantee that we can implement every suggestion, however, I do guarantee that we will listen.

So … How would you like your benchmark?

Which Xeon is right for me?

christopher.p.peters@intel.com — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 07:01:36 GMT

I recently found this simple animation that breaks down the Xeon processor family into bite-sized chunks and explains which Xeon-based servers are best suited to meet common IT and business needs.

I shared it last week when traveling with customers in Taiwan and it was well received.

What do you think of this video?

What do these new 45nm processors mean to you?

shannon.poulin@intel.com — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 15:20:00 GMT

Leading up to the launch of our 45nm processors I was often asked "what does this technology mean to my business?" or "what does it mean to me as a consumer?" My usual responses of improved performance, better performance/watt and better price/performance were all very true. But as I write this I am challenged to find more depth to that response. The solutions that you, the technology industry, collectively deliver include software, hardware and luckily for Intel processors that are now based on 45nm technology. We are on a line that is sloping up and to the right with respect to being able to deliver more performance over time. But so what? How can we look at single points on that line and reflect on their significance?

There are a number of examples where things start our revolutionary and simply evolve from there; flying, combustion engine automobile travel, the Internet, One day you walked/wagon/horse from place to place the next day you drove. One day you drove, the next day you flew. One day you wrote a letter, the next day an email. All of these had some groundwork that lead up to them for sure, but the new normal existed the day they became ubiquitous. Writing letters, putting a stamp on it and dropping it in a mailbox is now a lost art that we teach kids while we also explain to them what cassette tapes, rabbit ears and wired Ethernet are.

When was there enough performance, with low enough power and at a low enough price point for me to buy a handheld global positioning sensor unit that I can use to go geocaching with my kids? Clearly it wasn't ten years ago since I suspect the device may have existed for the military but wasn't quite portable enough for me or at a low enough price point to catch my eye. I am sure everyone can remember the first cell phones which looked like a car battery with a phone stuck on top. There are countless examples of points on a price/perf/power curve that lead to evolutionary or revolutionary products that change the way people live, work or play.

These new 45nm components are compelling and surely enterprise customers are going to find that they can run databases faster, develop software quicker and process transactions faster. Financial services companies will use these new products to execute faster trades. That in turn will allow them to win share against their competitors who are slower and it will reflect on their bottom line. Oil and gas companies will use these new products to more efficiently search for, locate and model the size of energy reserves. Search companies will use these products to ranks pages, target online consumers and drive advertising based commerce. Those things are evolutionary and allow companies to improve what they are already doing.

What are the revolutionary things that we will look back on and say "without the price/perf/watt that 45nm processors delivered in November 2007 xxx would not be possible?" Are you working on it? The technologies we develop are constantly looking to improve the present while also keeping an eye on the future. They are optimized for you, the developers and consumers, because quite frankly we are fascinated with what you are doing today and very interested in what you are going to do tomorrow with all of the high performing low power products that we are launching this month.

One last thing, if you're working on the next Google like revolutionary online platform drop me a note. I might want to alter my investment strategy J