Review: Gigabyte GA-7PESH1 powered by 2x Xeon E5 2690 under real World workloads
Published by Christian Ney on 11.05.12Page:
Conclusion
| Allgemein | + | - | |
| At a first glance we were surprised that the Gigabyte GA-7PESH1 comes with quite a nice color scheme. We really wouldn't have expected this from a workstation motherbooard. Furhtermore it was possible to install large CPU coolers, which is really usfull if you want to build a high-end workstation that operates at low noise level. Another nice addition is the LSI RAID Controller which is capable of managing up to twelve drives. Therefore it is also worth mentioning that the RAID Controller has been connected via eight lanes. Like there there should be plenty of bandwidth. | - Design - LSI RAID Controller - Spacious around CPU Sockets |
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| Layout | + | - | |
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Looking at the DIMM slots showed that they have been placed very close to the CPU sockets. Like this Gigabyte has been able to save some space which they needed because of the expansion slots. In fact there is a good mix. What you get is two PCI Express x16 Gen3 slots, two PCI Express x8 Gen3 slots as well as another PCI Express x4 Gen2 slot. If you for example want to install a high performance PCI Express SSD then you'll be happy about the PCI Express x8 Gen3 Slots. |
- Location of DIMM Slots - Expansion Slots - PCI Express Gen3 | ||
| Performance | + | - | |
| The performance when using synthetic and theorical benchmarks is just impressive. Performance is really up to twice as high when using two instead of only one processor. But sadly you won't see the same for real world workloads. Simply because todays software isn't ready for that many threads. Of course you will see benefits with such a machine if you require heavy computing workload or a virtual machine. We also noticed a huge performance drop regarding the memory and cache bandwidth when enabling the HyperThreading technology. Maybe this came due to a too young BIOS. We will report that to Gigabyte and let you know. | - Synthetic Benchmarks | - Memory and Cache Bandwidth when HyperThreading is enabled. | |
| BIOS | + | - | |
| The BIOS is of course well furnished for a server use. But only in this case. As we said already this motherboard is not designed for the enthusiast market so that's normal. But anyway we would have liked to have a BIOS with more configuration settings for clock frequency and memory timings for exemple. | - Lots of WorkSation/server settings | - Free of enthusiasts settings | |
| Recommendation | + | - | |
| I guess you already heard it too many times for whom this motherboard has been designed. So we recommend this motherboard for a server that is powering several virtual mahines. Furhtermore it's also very suitable for a high performance workstation. | -
Worksation - Server - Running several virtual machines |
- Overclocking - Gaming - Desktop |
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| Rating | |||
| We give the Gigabyte GA-7PESH1 four out of five stars. | |||
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Author: c.ney@ocaholic.ch Copy edited and translated: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch c.ney@ocaholic.ch
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Preview: Gigabyte GA-7PESH1 Dual Socket LGA2011 Motherboard |
Review: ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS Dual Xeon Motherboard
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