[GTALUG] Intel i7-6700 vs Xeon E3-1230 v5 --> 65W vs 80W ??

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

Top posting makes this confusing.  I tried to fix this.

On Tue, Jun 28, 2016 at 10:52 PM, William Park via talk <talk at gtalug.org> wrote:
| 
| Intel i7-6700 and Xeon E3-1230 v5 are pretty much the same, except that i7
| has builtin Graphics and Xeon does not.  I don't get it.  How can i7 with
| builtin graphics consume less power?

| From: William Park via talk <talk at gtalug.org>
| Date: Fri, 1 Jul 2016 12:30:56 -0400
| 
| They are both 14nm.  Xeon turbos to 3.8GHz and no GPU at 80W, but i7
| turbos to 4GHz with GPU at 65W.  Me thinks it's Intel marketing.  Take
| dies that fail QA, rebrand them as "Xeon", and sell just below i7.

Good points.  Here are my guesses (I have no actual knowledge).

Here's Intel'S diff: <http://ark.intel.com/compare/88196,88182>

Notice on the first line "Product name", the turbo speed is given for
the i7 but the base frequency is given for the Xeon.  Different spins
for different markets?

The i7 does not support ECC but the Xeon does, putting them in separate
markets.

The increased TDP is puzzling until you understand that CPUs now
throttle when parts of them get hot.  The Xeon has more headroom so
(with the correct cooling) it probably runs faster under continous loads.

Perhaps if you gave the i7 80w cooling (plus some for the GPU) it
might match the Xeon.  The faster turbo might get in the way.

Lots of folks are surprised to find Intel CPUs don't run as fast as
they are specified to.  The blame is almost always on the cooling.
But it may not be possible to cool the processors in question
sufficiently.

For example, many fanless Cherrytrail systems don't decode video the at 
the rate their specs suggest.  I've seen several folks claim from 
experience that the Kangaroo is unsuitable for being a TV box for this 
reason.
<http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-3021966/cooling-infocus-kangaroo.html>