Intel Xeon W5580: Nehalem EP

Final Thoughts

The words impressive, awesome, market-leading and best in class are all too often used by IT journalists to describe a new CPU or GPU. However, the Xeon W5580’s speed is such that it does make you want to reel off those tired, overused phrases.

For readers who aren’t satisfied with the performance of their current workstation, deciding whether or not to buy a pair of Xeon W5580s is extremely easy, as it’s significantly faster than the previous fastest workstation CPU. This means that with a W5580-based PC, you can do more work per week and deliver projects earlier.

Of course, priced at £1,472.58, a Xeon W5580 is over three times more expensive than an Opteron 2382 (which Scan sells for £456.55 inc. VAT) or a Xeon X5482 (£1,075.49 inc. VAT from Scan). However, if less render time equals more money, the system will justify your purchase in no time.

It’s slightly harder to justify buying a pair of Xeon W5580s for a server, as most server applications are unlikely to regularly require 16 fast execution threads. On the other hand, having 16 cores in a single box means that a dual-processor Xeon W5580 system will be able to run numerous different applications simultaneously, even if half of these cores are logical and not physical. Still, it’s worth waiting a few months for Intel to release cheaper, lower-frequency 5500-series Xeons if you want a Nehalem EP-based server.

Ironically, there’s plenty of sense in using a dual-processor Xeon W5580 system as an all-round performance PC; it’s great at gaming, and running both consumer and professional applications. Where the Skulltrail platform tried, but ultimately failed to straddle both work and play, a dual-processor Xeon W5580 system is so brutally fast that it muscles through any task you throw at it.

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• Value
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• 9/10

Score Guide