Hi ces,ces wrote:alewinsky, can you summarize why one would go out of their way to buy a Xeon cpu and Xeon motherboard as opposed to just using a Sandy bridge or an ivy bridge.alewinsky wrote:Well, I must admit that I have had the same view untill I started reading a bit more about the E3 series, and what Intel is hoping to accomplish with the new line. They are working on products for the Micro Server category, and it looks like the E3 is the first result of that focus. As far as I can see the E3 is basically a Sandy Bridge CPU? UPDATE: Also looks like the hardware will be available in consumer channels. Already popping up on sale in the Danish consumer hardware sites (not in stock yet, but already on their sites).ces wrote:There must be a reason most consumers don't buy Xeons... other than lack of availability in consumer channels. Do you know why that might be. I have often wondered... but never really paid much attention to finding out why I might want a Xeon. I guess its just safer running with my fellow lemmings.
I'll try
The one big benefit is ECC memory support (which some people value very much). I would also like this, but haven't found a suitable system to meet my demands yet (not even the current consumer level XEON's). This can be seen by the history of this thread. I don't run an XEON currently, because of problems with VT-d and VMWare ESXi/Intel motherboards.
AES-NI support on all models.
Some models without integrated graphics (wouldn't need this anyway..)
Then the price for the E3 XEON's are about the same as the i7 series (actually I think the E3-1230 is a bit cheeper than the i7-2600, and still offers 4 cores with hyperthreading).
That said, I'm looking forward to the Ivy Bridge cpu's/motherboards with enthusiasm. I think the Intel DQ77KB looks very promising for a ultra low power home server.
/alewinsky