Ultimate DIY Performance PC: EVGA & Intel Infused

As we’ve mentioned the EVGA Classified SR-2 supports Intel’s Xeon 5500 and 5600 series processors. Upon initial inspection, the Xeon 5500 and 5600 series looks just like their socket 1366-based desktop counterparts, as you can see in the images below...

Intel Xeon 5680 Processors, Top and Bottom

The top sides of the CPUs are outfitted with the same basic heat-spreader design as every other Socket 1366 processor and the chips use similar packaging.

The specific chips you see pictured here are Intel’s top-of-the-line Xeon 5680 processors. They sport 6 physical cores with a 3.33GHz "stock" frequency that can jump up to 3.6GHz in Turbo mode. They also support Intel’s Hyper-Threading technology, which allows each core to process two threads simultaneously and appear to the OS a two logical cores. The QPI links run at a full 6.4GT/s (3.2 DDR), and the base clock runs at 133MHz. The chip's max TDP is 130W, which is the same as the desktop Core i7 980X.

Xeon 5600 series processors are based on the Westmere microarchitecture, which is a 32nm shrink of the original 45nm Nehalem (Xeon 5500 series processors are based on the 45nm Gainestown core). Like the desktop Core i7 processors based on the Gulftown core, Xeon 5600 series processors support AES-NI (Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions), which accelerate AES encryption and decryption algorithms in hardware and the chips have 12MB of shared cache (Xeon 5500 series processors have 8MB).

Intel Westmere Die Map

The Xeon 5600 series processors feature a monolithic die with six execution cores. The queue engine and uncore elements reside in the center of the chip, flanked on either side by three execution cores and 1/2 of the shared L3 cache. The memory controller, miscellaneous I/O and QPI links are situated around the edges. In total, the chip is comprised of roughly 1.17B (that's billion) transistors and has a die size of about 248mm2.

The Intel Xeon 5680 is currently the company’s flagship Xeon processor.