Intel Xeon E3-1230

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Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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Just as an update, posted the Xeon E3-1230 benches. Frankly I think this is THE Sandy Bridge Xeon to get if one does not need slightly higher clocks or the built-in GPU.
 

XZed

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Feb 3, 2011
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Hello,

First : I'd like to congratulate and thank you, Patrick, for all your diary efforts to maintain such a website :D !!!!

What a pleasure to finally hav a great website sharing and informing about storage and all related hardware...

It's so nice to be informed about hardware evolution (Xeon E3 story for example).

Secondly, i'm thinking about an upgrade of my workstation.

I want to setup a workstation w/ server-grade components.

These days, after such articles about Xeon E3 / C2xx chipsets, i hesitated between all this bunch of technologies... :

P67 chipset, next Z68 chipset, new Xeon E3, etc...

Finally (hoping doing the best choice), i decided to setup my workstation basing it on Intel C2xx chipset / Xeon E3-12xx CPU.

The best performance/price ratio seems being the E3-1230, so it surely will be my CPU choice.

As it's being dedicated to a workstation use, i'd like to have a lot of x16 / x8 slots (and electrically cabled as is)..

But, as Patrick told, Bromolow platforms seem PCI-e lanes poor :( ...

Hesitating on P8B mobo series (WS one, i suppose...)...

Thank you
 

Patrick

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The E3-1230 is really a price/ performance standout. Workstation wise I would look at the i7-2600K though just because overclocking is fairly easy on it. Bad thing is you lose ECC.
 

XZed

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Feb 3, 2011
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The E3-1230 is really a price/ performance standout. Workstation wise I would look at the i7-2600K though just because overclocking is fairly easy on it. Bad thing is you lose ECC.
As you conclude, there are so many pros/cons (ex : no ECC) on new CPU, that the choice is complicated :( ...

Besides this, many background thoughts explain why i want a E3 :

Perhaps use this new config for a later server one (so wanted VT-d feature), etc..

Thank you anyway :)
 

ubiquityman

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Mar 18, 2011
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no ECC is a deal breaker for me.

When I'm not using my computers, they're on standby. The ram is still being refreshed and kept alive under standby so still susceptible to bit flips. At work and at home, my machines with ECC run for weeks without any reboots in between. My laptops & media center PCs w/o ECC behaves a lot more like computers without ECC. It's rare, but they definitely lockup or bluescreen more than the desktops with ECC. I can't say for sure it's due to ECC as there are many other factors involved, but my personal experience is that there is a very slight but noticeable difference in reliability.
 

ACCS

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Apr 6, 2011
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The E3-1230 is really a price/ performance standout. Workstation wise I would look at the i7-2600K though just because overclocking is fairly easy on it. Bad thing is you lose ECC.
Patrick,

I absolutely agree with you that the E3-1230 is at a good price/performance point. It's much better than the Xeon 34xx CPUs. For most uses, it's better than the 35xx and 36xx CPUs. Overall, these are nice CPUs, and I expect to build quite a few of them for customers.


However, you and I have different definitions of the purpose of a Workstation. To me, the primary requirement of a Workstation is that it needs to be ROCK SOLID. This is mainly because most Workstations are used in businesses (usually by programmers & engineers) to perform profit-making tasks. From a statistical standpoint, overclocking reduces reliability. This statistically lower reliability means that more programmer/engineer time is wasted, due to down hardware. This costs the company money, as the programmer/engineer is being paid to be less productive (often non-productive), and an IT person is being retasked from their other work to fix the workstation. Overclocking also requires explicit attention from the hardware people in IT to properly ("safely") set the overclock initially. Often the cost of that time is more than the cost to step up to a faster CPU.

Also, a Workstation needs to be able to be recreated at will. With overclocking, you reduce the ability to reproduce the system ("safe" overclocks may be different on different chips).

Finally, many Workstations are used for design functions. If there's a CPU-induced glitch, and the CPU has been overclocked, that's the fault of the overclocker (the business can be considered to be liable), and is not acceptable in business. If the same glitch occurs on a non-overclocked system, that's the hardware's fault (the business is not normally considered to be liable, if they're proactive about the resolution, once it's identified), and is normally considered to be acceptable in business (some uses require validation of results on multiple systems, for reasons of liability).

When a Workstation needs to be faster for single-threaded applications, the solution is to buy a faster CPU (higher clock or improved architecture). When it needs to be faster for multi-threaded applications, you add more cores, more sockets, or move to a cluster, as appropriate.

In general, overclocking of a Workstation is a BAD choice. In a home, for a non-business Workstation, it might be acceptable, but I wouldn't suggest it.


In case you can't tell, I don't like overclocking. I've seen it lead to numerous difficult to find problems, including intermittent issues, and corrupted data. New CPU designs (Core2 and later) have more overclocking headroom than the older CPUs (P4), but there's still an increased chance of failure and increased power usage. These problems increase significantly when the CPU voltage is raised.


I build systems for a living, and the majority of my customers are businesses. When they call me, I'd much rather have them tell me that they need another system, than that they need me to fix the system they have. I try to configure my systems with that in mind, and I mostly succeed (disk failures are different - they can't be avoided).
 

XZed

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Feb 3, 2011
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no ECC is a deal breaker for me.

When I'm not using my computers, they're on standby. The ram is still being refreshed and kept alive under standby so still susceptible to bit flips. At work and at home, my machines with ECC run for weeks without any reboots in between. My laptops & media center PCs w/o ECC behaves a lot more like computers without ECC. It's rare, but they definitely lockup or bluescreen more than the desktops with ECC. I can't say for sure it's due to ECC as there are many other factors involved, but my personal experience is that there is a very slight but noticeable difference in reliability.
Other users feedbacks about ECC experiences, would be great :)
 

penn7

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Apr 8, 2011
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bigadv

Patrick;

Will this processor complete a bigadv project on time, stock speed? I found a cheap ARock H67 motherboard to go with it. I found out about this site from your posts in the HardOCP DC forum.
 

Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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Welcome. Yes currently doing a 2685 (a slower unit) at 32:50tpf.
 

jdw715

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Apr 16, 2011
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I am thinking about getting this. Do I need a special mb? I'm looking a few mATX h67s (maybe p67) and wondering if I use can use it. I don't plan on overclocking or need ECC.

Do server CPUs typically have longer lifespan than Desktop versions? This will be SFF and want to keep heat at a minimum.
 

Patrick

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Dec 21, 2010
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Do server CPUs typically have longer lifespan than Desktop versions? This will be SFF and want to keep heat at a minimum.
The UP Intel server chips (Xeon X3400 series, E3 series) are basically desktop chips at heart with ECC enabled.