Intel Atom C3000 Denverton – First benchmarks and what we can expect when it is finally...

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gigatexal

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Nov 25, 2012
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given the c2000 bugs I still see these improvements as welcome in that i can get a many-core system with D-series xeon like performance on (hopefully) the cheap.

A silent 64GB, or 128GB box with lots of I/O and cores for under a grand as well as a small form factor? Count me in*.

* I know pricing is unknown and who knows about ram prices as they seem to be ticking up but a man can dream can't he?
 

mstone

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Mar 11, 2015
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the c2xxx can still route 1gbps fine, but it might be possible to openvpn 1gbps on a c3xxx 2 or 4 core, which would be nice--really much more sensible than xeon d routers, because the L3 is mostly wasted on that application.
 

gigatexal

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Nov 25, 2012
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yeah intel is smart they don't want people buying these over broadwell-de. Things might get interesting if Zen is decent and can be scaled down to similar power envelopes, i wonder what affect that would have on prices.
 

Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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Significant increase for new encryption :)
C3xxx cores seem to be about half a Xeon-D core so looks like a nice platform.

Does not look like a big power saving to Xeon-D though as Patrick points out more power used by IPMI etc which is kind of sad.
 

mstone

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Mar 11, 2015
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Significant increase for new encryption :)
C3xxx cores seem to be about half a Xeon-D core so looks like a nice platform.

Does not look like a big power saving to Xeon-D though as Patrick points out more power used by IPMI etc which is kind of sad.
Consider it in a networking application with a serial interface instead of ipmi. This would make a heck of an upgrade for an alix type board, for example. Beyond that, even if the overall power consumption isn't tremendously lower, the denverton should be easier to cool passively.
 

diskdiddler

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Mar 3, 2017
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Anyone know when the follow up articles with more information will be coming? I'm hoping an 8 core one of these might run a FreeNAS machine, Plex transcoder, OpenVPN client and about 6 jails (docker instances off the linux VM under FreeNAS10)

(My understanding is Plex transcoding a VC-1 file is buggy / broken and can only be single threaded, the C2750, simply couldn't do it unfortunately, so a big IPC change is welcome.)
 

diskdiddler

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Mar 3, 2017
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Hey Patrick, thanks for the response, I shall wait eagerly, my budget won't allow for it for probably 3 or 4 months anyhow.
Let's hope it's a good one, buying a full Xeon rig sounds expensive, hot and noisy, oh and expensive...
 

Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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Xeon rig meaning E5 ? Or Xeon-D, the latter is probably similar prices to c3000 (eg 8 core c3000 = 4 core Xeon-d) and both under $500 usd.
E5 Xeon, loud and noisy is difficult to say, later v3/v4 with well thought out cooling not at all and seems power efficient if done well.

C3338 (2 core) boards @ $225 seems like a good start price but to see what th 8-core is, I suspect $400 range, not too far off 4 core Xeon-D
 

Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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If I were building a 1GbE server, the C3338 would be a great option.

Personally, my next home NAS will be waiting for the 8 core model so I can get full I/O on the platform.
 
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Evan

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It's almost tempting... still interested in power usage, may bite the bullet and order one, have ddr4 rdimm spare so that's easy.
 

Patrick

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It's almost tempting... still interested in power usage, may bite the bullet and order one, have ddr4 rdimm spare so that's easy.
In the small SC721 chassis (mITX NAS tower one popular with Xeon D) it is around 25w with 2 SSDs under load.
 

Geran

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Oct 25, 2016
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These need to hurry up and be released...I got money burning in my pockets and my wife is a getting anxious to use it so I need to use it before her :)
 

Evan

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Jan 6, 2016
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In the small SC721 chassis (mITX NAS tower one popular with Xeon D) it is around 25w with 2 SSDs under load.
Under load that's not too bad.
Sure the usage under load is going to be better than Xeon-d but idle looks to be not that different simply due to all the platform requirements (e.g. IPMI)

I have a Xeon-D in the SC721, I have been meaning to test the difference between the 250w and a pico-PSU style power supply.

I wonder how the consumption will look with 10G (I assume external phy like the Xeon-D ?) and more cores, I guess idle is around 20w but the maximum will be only 50w rather than closer to 75-80w