Intel Xeon E5-1620

[Paul P]

Does anyone have any idea when the E5-1620 will be available in retail stores ? It has been released by Intel and several online places list it as available, but no one has any in stock.

Once it does come out, is it wise to wait a bit to see what others think of it (bug-wise) before buying ?

Does the retail price on a newly released CPU fall shortly after its introduction ?

I'd like to purchase this cpu some time before the end of June.

 

[IGROK2005]

A bit tired of waiting for this CPU as well.

OEM like Boston.co.uk - looks have them already. Provided me a quote.
While I want to build my own.

Paul, where do you plan to get your Mobo?

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

Right now it appears that we are only offering this processor as a tray. Which generally means that it is an OEM only right now. Also I am showing none of them within at any of our distributors. The only box (retail) code I am showing right now is for the Intel® Xeon® E5-1660 (BX80621E51660) and I am still not showing any in stock right now. I would say that you are looking at a minimum of a couple weeks before you will see even the Intel Xeon E5-1660.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

 

[Paul P]

Paul, where do you plan to get your Mobo?

I've pretty much decided on the ASUS P9X79 WS. I also considered the Intel DX79SI and the Supermicro X9SRA. The reason for these three is their support for ECC memory. I've settled on the ASUS on account of the company's reputation, the board's functionality and the apparently less stringent memory requirements (at least compared to the Supermicro). The bios-related functions are nice as well.

The only box (retail) code I am showing right now is for the Intel® Xeon® E5-1660 (BX80621E51660) and I am still not showing any in stock right now. I would say that you are looking at a minimum of a couple weeks before you will see even the Intel Xeon E5-1660.

CostCentral (whoever they are) show 94 E5-1660s in stock at $1150 each. A bit much for my budget.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

I understand and if I heard anything on these I will come back and let you know.


Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

 

[IGROK2005]

Paul, Chrisitan
What do you think about Supermicro X9SRI-F ?

I frankly don't care much about having ECC on my motherboard - but I need IPMI and huge RAM for (budget)virtualization.
This model is the cheapest Socket 2011 board with IPMI i found.
However it costs about £315.

Has anyone of you guys seen a Socket 2011 mobo with IPMI cheaper than mentioned model?
Maybe there are some alternative cheap solutions which I didn't came across.
(I've read about VPro - but looks only desktop processors have a proper KVM analogue - which I'm basically looking for).

Thanks for you opinion.

 

[bit_user]

Right now it appears that we are only offering this processor as a tray. Which generally means that it is an OEM only right now.

Hey, this is great info! Thanks!

I'm reading about DDIO and it seems like the combo of that feature + quad-channel memory + dual x16 PCIe 3.0 slots should make this a monster platform for GPU computing.

Can I get DDIO with the X79 chipset?

Assuming I need the C602 Northbridge, my only option for a single-socket mobo seems to be Supermicro. I just wish it had another x1 slot and maybe some eSATA.

 

[sebastien]

Already mid june and still nothing, nada, no xeon e5-1620 and e5-1650 to be sold somewhere else than major pre-cnfigured and overpriced PC retailers.
I cracked and tried to throw my discontentment at Intel with no success, then I blew upat intel community on Facebook and it seems my post while valid and full of questions was removed.
Sounds to me that these two chips will NEVER come on the market beside again major pre-configured and overpriced PC retailers; Hence two ghost chips, my enthusiasm and feeling for Intel are simply wading and fading as I feel in some ways cheated with statements or promises while waiting for nothing.

 

[bit_user]

Already mid june and still nothing, nada, no xeon e5-1620 and e5-1650 to be sold somewhere else than major pre-cnfigured and overpriced PC retailers.

I don't know what country you're in, but google shopping shows me 8 online stores that sell the E5-1620 within about 10% of its tray price.

I sympathize with you, but Intel is a monopoly and they can and do segment markets and do other things we don't like. Until they have another serious competitor, we just have to sit here and take it.

Just buy the OEM version and save your energy for more worthy causes.

 

[Paul P]

At last !

Here's one source : http://ncix.ca/products/?sku=69825&vpn=P4X-UPE51620-SR0LC&manufacture=SuperMicro

 

[bit_user]

shopping.google.com showed me like 8 sites that sell it. None had it in stock.

I think I'm going to try a small reseller right in Intel's back yard:

http://www.intellixpert.com/product/cpu/E5-1620


They claim to handle international orders, but don't specify where. They seem to do quotes on a case-by-case basis.

 

[bit_user]

I think I'm going to try a small reseller right in Intel's back yard:

http://www.intellixpert.com/product/cpu/E5-1620

It arrived, today. I've now got it right in my hot, little hands.

It was on backorder for nearly a month, but these guys came through for me. They also called and emailed me to let me know it was backordered and gave me the option to cancel my order. They didn't bill me until it actually shipped and sent a tracking number at that time.

I have no affiliation with this company. I am just replying to say that it is possible to get this chip if you want it. And without paying an outrageous price.

 

[Paul P]

I finally got mine last week. Now if I can just find some time to put my system together (around an ASUS P9X79 WS motherboard).

I'm a bit worried about the heat that this chip is going to put out. Up to 130w sounds like a lot.

The CPU just came wrapped in some foam with a sticker stuck on it. No box or anything else. Got it from NCIX with just about everything else for my upcoming build and they were a real pleasure to deal with. My first time with them and it won't be my last.

 

[bit_user]

I'm a bit worried about the heat that this chip is going to put out. Up to 130w sounds like a lot.

I don't think you have to worry much about heat. Most or all of the desktop Socket-R (LGA 2011) chips are hotter. So, you can be pretty sure that any half-decent Sandy-E cooler will do the job.

Perhaps this will help:

Big Air: 14 LGA 2011-Compatible Coolers For Core i7-3000, Reviewed

The CPU just came wrapped in some foam with a sticker stuck on it. No box or anything else.

Yup, it's a tray processor. That means resellers buy them in bulk, a whole tray at a time. When they sell one individually, they have to package it, themselves. That's true OEM, for you.

 

[Paul P]

For the cooler I've chosen the Zalman CNPS20LQ radiator, which is very much like the one Intel offers for the LGA2011s.

I'm looking forward to finding out how well it works. I really didn't want a massive air cooler hanging off this very expensive motherboard. I'm not planning on overclocking so maybe I'll be ok.

 

[Paul P]

bit_user,

What memory are you using with your E5-1620 ?

I've chosen the following kit from Kingston :

KVR16E11K4/16I
DDR3-1600 - 16GB (4GB 2Rx8 512M x 72-Bit x 4 pcs.)
PC3-12800 CL11 ECC 240-Pin DIMM Kit

It's not on Asus's qualified vendors list so I guess I'm taking a bit of chance. The price was reasonable.

I'll report back once I've found out if it's good or not.

 

[bit_user]

For the cooler I've chosen the Zalman CNPS20LQ radiator, which is very much like the one Intel offers for the LGA2011s.

I don't know much about water cooling, but that looks quite substantial. I like how it's pre-assembled. If my downward-blowing cooler turns out to be insufficient, I might try something like yours.

You can probably find reviews where it was tested on an overclocked i7-3960X or something. If it can cool that thing, your E5-1620 should be no problem.

I did find one review on a French language site where it was included in their testing on a FX-8150, stock & overclocked. The only problem with their data is they didn't subtract off the ambient temperature, though they did list the ambient temperatures for each test, which varied by as much as 6.5 C (with your cooler being tested on the hottest day).

If they controlled for ambient temperature, your cooler still would be a mid-to-low performer, but the FX-8150 has a TDP of 125W and the Zalman CNPS20LQ cooled it to very acceptable levels, at stock clock. 47 C (absolute), to be precise. My Pentium 4 ran at up to 65-70 C, under load, and that PC lasted 8 years and still works.

What memory are you using with your E5-1620 ?

I temporarily cannibalized DIMMs from a random machine that happened to work. [strike]I'm planning to order 4x Crucial CT51272BD160B 4GB CL9 Unbuffered ECC DDR3-1600 DIMMs.[/strike]

Edit: Do not get this RAM. It is 1.35V memory, which E5 Xeons will not support above 1333 MHz, regardless of the DIMMs' specs. If you want your DDR3-1600 to actually run at that speed, you should stick with 1.5V RAM, single or dual-rank, and only one DIMM per channel. See: Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2600 product family UDIMM Support (pdf) (that's for unbuffered - there's also a similar doc for registered).


The main thing is to ensure your board supports registered or unbuffered, depending on which you bought. Besides that, I think voltage is the only other nonstandard aspect of DIMMs to worry about. Intel CPUs like a different voltage than AMD, but I forget which is which. When in doubt, get the "Intel Certified" version, if they make one in that product line.

It's not on Asus's qualified vendors list so I guess I'm taking a bit of chance.

Does Kingston have a memory finder on their site? I think memory vendors are much more aggressive about testing board compatibility than board vendors are about testing memory compatibility.

 

[Paul P]

Does Kingston have a memory finder on their site? I think memory vendors are much more aggressive about testing board compatibility than board vendors are about testing memory compatibility.

Thanks for mentioning this. I had searched the Kingston site but for some reason hadn't found their Kingston memory finder. I just looked up the Asus P9X79 WS motherboard and it lists the memory I bought as a possibility (phew...)

Your memory is also listed for my motherboard by the Crucial memory finder. Had I known I'd probably have gone with Crucial based on their reputation even if the Kingston is possibly a bit cheaper. They both look pretty similar spec-wise.

It's amazing how fast prices fall in this business. I'm already telling myself I should have waited on a couple of components, and I just bought them.

Speaking of the Pentium 4, that's what my new system is replacing. A Dell Dimension 8200, which is what, 10 years old or so ? Never stopped working (every day) and still going strong, running XP. I figured it was time to change

 

[bit_user]

Your memory is also listed for my motherboard by the Crucial memory finder. Had I known I'd probably have gone with Crucial based on their reputation even if the Kingston is possibly a bit cheaper. They both look pretty similar spec-wise.

[strike]The Crucial DIMMS I cited are the only CL 9 DDR3-1600 ECC memory I've found[/strike]. Everything else seems to be CL 11. Not that CAS Latency is such a big deal, but the latest benchmarks I've be able to find seem to indicate that it might be worth a couple % of performance. For me, that's worth the few $ they cost over the Kingston memory.

Edit: Crucial has updated their website to show this memory at CAS 11. Combined with the fact that this RAM is 1.35V and is not supported by your E5 Xeon at 1600 MHz, I would absolutely not recommend this model. A Crucial rep recently told me they discontinued all of their 1.5V DDR-3 Unbuffered ECC DIMMs. As a result, I am switching to Kingston.

Now, if you throw ECC out the window, you can do a lot better than that, but ECC is one of the main benefits of the E5-1620 over a i7-3820. And I've had parity or ECC RAM in all the PCs I've owned since 1998.

 

[Paul P]

Well, I just learned something new CAS latency. Thanks for that.
I was happy just to have found memory that appeared to be suitable, I should have taken more time to research though I'm jogging as it is, trying to upgrade while busy with a lot of other things.

According to the link I may be able to redeem myself by overclocking the memory though I guess that might kind of defeat the purpose of using ECC memory...

 

[bit_user]

I was happy just to have found memory that appeared to be suitable, I should have taken more time to research though I'm jogging as it is, trying to upgrade while busy with a lot of other things.

Well, DDR3-1600 ECC memory only just came onto the market, this year. I've been watching. So, you're already pretty close to the leading edge, there.

And the Crucial RAM I cited is literally the only CAS 9 stuff I've found. So, you'd have really had to hunt around for it. I just got frustrated seeing latencies creep up faster than speed, especially when the enthusiast-oriented stuff was timed so much more aggressively. I just figured there ought to be something out there better than CAS 11 and kept searching until I found it. I'd still like to find CAS 9 in a single-ranked DIMM, but it probably doesn't matter.

According to the link I may be able to redeem myself by overclocking the memory though I guess that might kind of defeat the purpose of using ECC memory...

First of all, going from CAS 11 to 9 is only worth a couple percent, in the most extreme cases. For most workloads, the difference will be tiny or immeasurable.

Now, if you do want to overclock your RAM, I doubt ECC will overclock as well as non-ECC, but the ECC will give you an extra safety margin. Normally, people overclock until their machine becomes unstable. But with ECC, you could overclock (or just tighten the timings) until you start seeing single-bit ECC errors in the logs, and then dial it back one setting. The beauty being that single-bit errors are correctable, so you can have the peace of mind of knowing whether you're close to the edge or not and being able to monitor it over time.

However, I don't overclock, at all. I even underclocked a fileserver, once. For me, another 15% or 20% isn't worth the cost of data loss, corruption, or instability. That's why I bought a Xeon w/ ECC RAM, in the first place.

 

[Paul P]

I've finally gotten my system up and running and so far I'm impressed. Everything seems to be working fine (once I gave up on trying to get Intel's RSTe RAID to work on the X79 chipset combined with the UEFI (GPT) disk format).

It would be nice, however, if I could tell that my ECC memory was actually being used as such.

The ASUS bios says ECC is on Auto, whatever that means.

Memtest86+ says ECC (testing?) is off and there's no way to turn it on.

I ran Memtest86+ through 4 passes (8 hours) with no errors, but is that NO errors, or errors being fixed ? How to tell ?

Is there a utility somewhere that can detect the presence of ECC memory and tell if it's being used ?

Microsoft's memory tester doesn't say anything about it either.

 

[bit_user]

Check your BIOS logs. I think ECC errors are usually logged, there. Also, it seems there are utilities or Windows extensions that can show you such errors without rebooting. I recommend searching for other threads on the subject. It really is a more general area of concern, and I've already run across a couple.

One way to verify that ECC is working would be to incrementally tweak your memory timings or speed until you start seeing errors in the logs.

Also, try the other branch of Memtest86. There's the + version, which I think was branched off an earlier program that had stalled but is now back in development.

 

[bit_user]

One thing I really dislike about Intel's C60x chipset is that it's only got 2 SATA 3.0 channels (and 4 SATA 2.0 channels). WHY? AMD had 6-channel SATA 3.0 back in like 2010!! And I don't want to have to use an add-in-card, since my mobo doesn't have enough PCIe slots, as it is.

I don't know what Intel was smoking. I paid over $300 for a workstation motherboard that's designed for a CPU with plenty of I/O bandwidth. It wouldn't have killed them to up the other 4 slots to 3.0. And it's not like they even gave me the option of Thunderbolt (which I don't want, anyhow).

 

[Paul P]

One thing I really dislike about Intel's C60x chipset is that it's only got 2 SATA 3.0 channels (and 4 SATA 2.0 channels). WHY? AMD had 6-channel SATA 3.0 back in like 2010!! And I don't want to have to use an add-in-card, since my mobo doesn't have enough PCIe slots, as it is..

I orginally thought that (in my case) the six channels were more than enough, but when I put my system together I filled them all up ! ( 1 ssd, 3 hdds, and two odds ) Now I know why ASUS threw in the Marvell controller for an extra couple of channels, though I don't want to touch it as it'll probably give me more trouble than it's worth and its performance looks pretty poor.

My case has more drive bays than the motherboard can support. Who'd have thought. I do have a couple of PCIe slots available if I want to crowd things.