Intel E5-2620 QA8G ES (stepping B0) VT-d?

[luiset83]

I have the opportunity to get one of these engineering sample CPUs for a new build for about ~$200, where the lowest retail/shipped price I have seen is around $400.

Can anyone comment if VT-d features would work on this processor? For that matter, if anyone else is running the same processor, any comments on any retail advertised feature that does not work/work correctly?

In general, discourage or encourage me to get this processor and state the reasons.

Here is a screenshot of CPU-z for this processor:

Lastly, the motherboards I am currently looking into are Supermicro's X9SRA or AsRock's X79 Extreme6. The reason why I'm considering the X9SRA is only because of the capability of being able to use ECC RAM. That being said, would the E5-2620 be able to address the 256GB claim with RDIMMs? I only ask about future expansion, chances are the MOST I'd ever need on this system is 128 GB... however, if the E5-2620 is not capable of addressing more than 64 GB with RDIMMs I will go with AsRock's offering.

At the moment, 48GB of RAM will do for the simulations I intend to do, and I can do those just with UDIMMs, 4 GB x 4 (existing) and the later upgrade with 8 GB x 4, once I ascertain that the motherboard works correctly. This was the main reason for choosing a consumer board, given that by the time RDIMMs become reasonably priced to buy RDIMMs for Supermicro's server board the processor might just be outdated, haha.

Also, as to why I chose the E5-2620, it's at a good tradeoff point performance/price wise.

 

[tangoseal]

Do not use CPU-id which is programmed esentially for desktop processors as your point of determination in what processors can do.

Use the ARK:
http://ark.intel.com/products/64594...-2620-(15M-Cache-2_00-GHz-7_20-GTs-Intel-QPI)

Also every single new and up and coming XEON will have VT-d because that is what you pay a premium for.

Hell I have a 3930K and VT-d works on that. Verified! it is just a desktop chip.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

Yes the Intel® Xeon® E5-2620 would support VT-d. I would say that it is just a bug in CPU-z data base that it doesn't list support VT-d.

 

[luiset83]

Thanks for the responses, I guess I should have been a bit clearer.

I have no doubt the retail version of the E5-2620 supports VT-d and everything Intel advertises. The production processor steppings are C1 and C2, as per: http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/Intel-Xeon E5-2620.html

My question concerns an engineering sample (ES) version of this processor, stepping B0. (QA8G) Does anyone have experience with this particular processor? Perhaps the solution is to contact Intel themselves and inquire if any issues affect this particular stepping?

 

[Corvette]

Something tells me Intel would tell you that engineering samples aren't for sale and that you shouldn't buy it.

 

[luiset83]

Something tells me Intel would tell you that engineering samples aren't for sale and that you shouldn't buy it.

And you would be correct, as I tried that approach. The support person basically said it might work, it might not. When I inquired to see if they had any additional documentation in regards to the stepping that other line of thought came out. I might scrap the idea at the moment and just end up going with the retail version of the chip later on.

Late edit: I was able to get VT-d working on a different Xeon LGA 2011 (C0 stepping) processor -- see here for details:
http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1040823690&postcount=26