Intel “Paxville” Dual Core Xeon and the Asus PVL-D Intel E7520

When Intel's Xeon and AMD's Opteron lineup first started doing battle for the workstation and server markets, both chips had their unique advantages and niche markets they could fill. The Xeon processor had a massive install base to work off of, an already solid reputation, and could run at far higher clock speeds compared to what AMD could offer. On the other hand, the Opteron was proven to be a more efficient architecture and had the favor of many IT professionals who understood the advantages of AMD's design.
When AMD introduced their first dual-core Opteron processor four months ago, the scales dramatically tipped in AMD's favor. With their dual-core architecture, owners of dual-processor systems could easily upgrade to a quad-core processing setup with two of these new processors. Combined with a new 90nm chip design which allowed the new dual-core Opteron processors to run far cooler and consume far less power compared to single-core Xeon processors, the dual-core Opteron became the runaway hit for high-end workstations and servers. While the chips were most certainly expensive, many were willing to pay the price. The dual-core Opteron bested the Xeon across the board, and Intel has been struggling to establish their footing ever since. Even with the introduction of new 3.8 GHz Xeons and Low Voltage (LV) Xeon models, the Xeon has lost much of its allure.

It's taken far longer than expected, but Intel is finally striking back with a dual-core product of its own, codenamed "Paxville". Intel's "Paxville" Xeon design essentially shoves two single-core processor cores, each with 2 MB of on-die cache, on to a single Socket-604 package. Much like the dual-core Opteron, dual-core Xeon processors are able to plug into a Socket-604 dual-processor motherboard to allow for quad-core processing with only two physical processors. Not only this, but when you throw Hyper-Threading in to the mix, you essentially double that, allowing for eight virtual processors to be seen by the operating system. Certainly sounds exciting, although most people seem (rightly) skeptical of this new design. Why?

Intel suddenly felt compelled to launch their new "Paxville" dual-core Xeon processor a little over two weeks ago, unexpectedly early for a chip which was originally scheduled to launch at the end of this year. The processor launch caught most everyone off guard, including motherboard makers, whose "Paxville" compatible platforms are still not available, and won't be for quite some time. The lack of compatible motherboards and the launch of only a single 2.8 GHz dual-core product has cast an unfortunate shadow on the launch of these processors. Nevertheless, this didn't stop us from seeing if Intel's new design is up to snuff.

With the help of our friends at Asus, we were able to get our hands on an early "Paxville" compatible motherboard based on the Intel E7520 chipset, the Asus PVL-D. With two dual-core Xeon processors, we set out to see if Intel's dual-core Xeon product stands up to AMD's dual-core Opteron. Let's get started