Intel Xeon Gold 6146 12-Core/24-Thread Processor Review

The Setup and Test Methodology

It is not an easy job to come up with fair tests for a processor. After all, you can’t run a CPU without a lot of other hardware and all that hardware will affect the results. Still, I’ve tried to dig out as many tests as possible which show what the processor is capable. Hopefully, it will show us where the strengths and weaknesses are located.

The operating system used will be Windows Server 2012 R2 which is the same that we used with previous server motherboard reviews. It should also be noted that we’re only using a dedicated GPU for monitor out. By eliminating the high-performance graphics card, we are able to compare the pure performance.

Additional Hardware

• Motherboard: Supermicro X11SPI-TF
• Cooler: Supermicro 4U Active CPU Heat Sink (SNK-P0070APS4)
• RAM: Crucial DDR4 2133 MHz (8x 16GB)
• OS Drive: Toshiba OCZ VX500 512GB SATA3
• GPU: Sapphire Ultimate R7 250 1G D5

Calculation Tests

Having the CPU calculate is an easy way to show how well it does. The quicker the test is performed, the better the performance. For these tests, I’ve picked Super Pi and wPrime. Both are applications familiar to most and the results are easily comparable.

• SuperPi Mod 1.9 WP
• wPrime 2.10

Benchmark Suites

Suites are popular too as they offer up a whole lot of results with very little effort. We’ll be using AIDA64, GeekBench4, and PerformanceTest 8 here.

• AIDA64 Engineering Edition
• GeekBench 4
• PerformanceTest 8

Rendering Tests

Rendering tests are mostly for handled by your graphics card, but not solely. While these aren’t exactly intended areas of operation, they do offer us comparable figures between our reviews. We’ll be using HandBrake for H.265 conversion of 4K video as well as Cinebench 11.5 and 15 here.

• Cinebench R11.5
• Cinebench R15.0
• HandBrake 4

SiSoft Sandra and SpecWPC

SiSoftware’s Sandra is technically a benchmark suite too, but it offers a lot more details. It tests more and different things, so it deserves its own category. SpecWPC is also a whole set of tests and an industry standard. The results are directly comparable with other reviews which makes it great. Most professionals won’t look at anything else.

• SiSoftware Sandra Platinum SP2/SP4
• SpecWPC 1.2

Memory Performance

Memory is another thing which is affected by a processors capabilities and performance. For that reason, I’ve chosen to include those test results too.

• AIDA64 Engineering Edition
• GeekBench 4
• PerformanceTest 8
• SiSoftware Sandra Platinum SP2/SP4

Review Notes

It should be noted that some charts don’t make a whole lot of sense right now. Some tests are run for the first time and as such don’t have any comparable values. As we test more of the new processors, we’ll get more results and will update the charts.