The specific instance I have is a 2.3GHz odd-ball (matching no production part's exact specification) engineering sample. It easily performs within a few percentage points of the production 2.4GHz part, and does not have any critical defects. Great choice of processor for any entry level server, as it's just fast enough to make good use of the massive memory bandwidth/capacity and IO capabilities. It's also well suited to some higher end workloads, with its primary limiting factors being low speed and core count. E5-2xxx parts will not overclock (they are known to be deliberately crippled in this respect), so don't bother if you're looking for something to play around with. Additionally, the low clock speed will choke modern games and any single-threaded CPU intensive applications; this is not to say that the processor is anemic by any stretch of the imagination, as it easily outdoes any previous generation of quad core CPU with a comparable clock speed. This CPU lacks Hyperthreading, but it isn't likely that it would provide much benefit for the roles it was intended to fulfill. It should be able to easily keep up with the largest of RAID's due to each chip providing 40 PCI-E lanes to work with, adequate CPU core performance, and more memory bandwidth than most software can make use of; in conjunction with some dual processor server and workstation boards (I personally run an Asus Z9PE-D8 WS with 2x E5-2643 4core@3.3GHz), you will have 4 full pci-e 2.0 x16 ports available. For IO intensive + CPU not-so-intensive work (file serving, backups, certain IO CPU biased database loads), this processor would be a great fit. Another significant advantage of the less expensive Xeons is that (dependent on the motherboard) it allows you to fully populate each processor with 1 or 2 DIMMs per channel (out of 4 on each CPU); while the cost of RAM does add up, even DDR3 ECC is dirt cheap (remember when 1GB of any DRAM cost as much as a new car?). In my dual processor setup, 8 x4GB 1600MHz non-ECC DIMMS are used, and 4 x4GB 1600MHz in the single CPU being reviewed here; in various memory benchmarks, bandwidth easily exceeds 10GB/s under most workloads, and can tickle 50GB/s under some conditions. In my particular application with this CPU, which is being tested on a Biostar TPower X79 (pending the arrival of an i7-3820), performance has proven itself to be thoroughly adequate for anything except for CPU-constrained single threads. Heat output is so low that I can boot with nothing but my fingertips touching the CPU heat spreader without any discomfort (a different story under full load though, as it's still an 80 watt CPU). Presently, it is being cooled with an LGA-771 heatsink interfaced with toothpaste, and hangs around room temperature under any non CPU intensive task; it could probably be adequately cooled with any late 2nd gen Pentium heatsink, though I wouldn't recommend it. If it's going to be used in a production environment, I highly recommend avoiding engineering samples due to various issues with BIOS incompatibility and various minor errata. Additionally, the warranty (and slight clock speed improvement) that would come with the production part are rather important when building a system for critical work. Additionally, there are no guarantees with grey-market equipment, and mismatched steppings can cause nerve-wracking issues. Even running as a lone CPU on a low-end X79 board, the CPU pulls its weight.Read full review
I'm so surprised the package INCLUDES a fan. It becomes a reserve spare.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
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