As most of you may have noticed, Asus is a big participant in our reviews. Asus is, after all one of the biggest OEMs out there and they make a very high quality product. You can get just about anything computer related from Asus Except for the obvious memory and CPU. Recently we have been fortunate enough to be able to test out Asus’ workstation line, starting with our recent review of the P5E64 WS Evolution. This board is simply an amazing performer but Asus has not stopped there. They have a top of the line board for the Dual CPU crowd. This arrives in the form of the Z7S WS a dual socket Crossfire enabled board based on Intel’s Skull Trail “Seaburg” chipset. Will this new Workstation board satisfy the hardcore enthusiast who laughs at a single CPU? Can Asus bring the level of performance we saw on the Evolution to the Z7S? Read on to find out.
Product: Asus Z7S WS
Author: Sean Kalinich
Reviewed on: July 24th 2008
Product cost: $479.99 (at Newegg.com)
Manufacturer: Asus
Spelling and Grammatical editor: Planetx64 Staff
Discussion Link
{mospagebreak title=Packaging and Accessories}
Packaging and Accessories:
Mainboards are arriving in more and more sedate boxes. As the market has grown (the DIY market especially) the boxes have become less gaudy and more professional. The Z7S WS is no exception to this. Its outer shell shows the wireframe outline of a sports car, bringing to mind speed, and power. Of course on the back are the usual images spotlighting the features of the Z7S with more visible under the front flap.
After opening the box we are greeted with a nice assortment of stuff. The Z7S WS is bundled with the following extras:
6 x SATA Data Cables
3 x SATA Power Cables
1 x 2 in 1 (IDE & Floppy) Cable Set
1 x I/O Shield
1 x ASUS Motherboard Support CD
1 x User’s Guide
1 x I/O Shield
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Also included are a Sound Card for the x1 MIO slot and a diagnostic module.
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Features and Specs:
Taken straight from the Asus Site the Z7S WS has the following specifications:
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Processor / System Bus |
2 x Socket LGA771 |
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Core Logic |
Intel® Seaburg Memory Controller Hub (MCH) |
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Form Factor |
CEB form factor, 12" x 10.5" ( 30.5cm x 26.7 cm ) |
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ASUS Features |
Smart Fan: MemCool Support |
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Memory |
Total Slots: 6 (4-channel) |
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Expansion Slots (follow SSI Location #) |
Total PCI/PCI-X/PCIe Slots: 6 |
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Storage |
IDE Controller |
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Networking |
LAN: 2 x Marvell 88E8056 Dual Gb LAN |
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Graphic |
VGA |
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Onboard I/O Connectors |
Floppy Connector: 1 |
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Rear I/O Connectors |
External Serial Port: 2 |
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Management Solution |
Software: - |
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Monitoring |
CPU Temperature: - |
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EMI |
US (FCC, CFR47 Part 15, Class B): √ |
But these specifications do not cover everything; the Z7S has a few nice features.
Crossfire Support – The Z7S Ws supports Crossfire with 2 PCI-e 2.0 full x16 slots
DDR2 FBDIMM 800MHz support – Traditionally the bottle neck for Xeon based workstation boards the Z7S bring support for faster FBDIMM RAM.
PCI-e 2.0
e-SATA – Asus calls this “SATA on the go” there are two e-SATA ports on the board for extra storage.
Digital Voltage Regulation – The Z7S uses the more efficient Digital Voltage regulation to ensure that your system gets the power it needs.
The Z7S is a nice little package on paper. Now we need to see how it holds up in the real world.
{mospagebreak title=Board Layout}
Layout:
They layout of the Z7S WS is unfortunately not that good. The CPU sockets are very close together preventing the use of most third party coolers for the Xeon. There are also two large and one small heat sink in the way, one on the Northbridge, one for the Southbridge, and one on the DVM.
The RAM slots and CPU sockets have been reversed (which is good) There are Six Slots for RAM available with an interesting configuration for channels. The first four follow the normal two slot- per-channel layout we are used to while the last two are single slot channels.
The rest of the board is just plain cramped. The top PCI-e x16 slot is useless for any of your longer cards as the heatsink for the Southbridge gets in the way. I put a 9800GTX in this slot and the card not only touched the metal on the heat sink it also prevented the use of the PATA IDE slot and partially obscured the 4-pin Aux ATX power plug. To properly use this slot with the longer cards you would have to abandon PATA devices and remove several fins from the SB heatsink (or perhaps replace it altogether). In the end I had to move my 9800GTX down to PCI-e slot 2, this required me to use the PCI-X slot for my Xonar card as the standard PCI slot was now covered by the cooler for the 9800GTX. I was able to put both an ATi 3850 and 4850 in this top slot but the clearance was very close.
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Some nice but hard to use (once installed in a case) features are a bank of dip switches that allow you to set the fan headers on the board from controlled (4-pin) to uncontrolled (3-pin) a full USB slot for a USB TPM key or other security dongle, having it inside the case is great protection, and a place for an optional TPM chip or Diagnostic Module.
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Even with these extras the layout is not good at all and as with Evolution the performance better be stellar to bring up our opinion.
{mospagebreak title=BIOS}
BIOS:
I was a little disappointed with the BIOS, normally Asus packs so many settings into their BIOSes that you get confused. With the Z7S things were very limited. There were no setting for memory and very few settings for the CPUs. I was shocked that there were very few adjustments for voltage.
These adjustments are also very poorly labeled. The adjustment for vDIMM was labeled as “1.8v Dual Adjustment”. The only other voltage options were for the north and south bridge. For an Asus board I found the BIOS seriously lacking.
{mospagebreak title=Performance Part I}
Performance:
For my performance testing I did a comparison to the Intel S5000XVN Workstation board. I wanted to see if Asus would be able to give us true workstation performance and gaming to boot. This decision led me to use a single high end GPU for both systems.The configuration for each system was identical:
2 x Intel Xeon X5365 Processors (Quad Core 3.0GHz 1333MHz FSB)
4 GB (2x2GB) Kingston 667MHz FBDIMMs
3x Seagate Cheetah 15K.4 ST373454SS 74GB 15k RPM SAS HHDs (RAID 5)
3x 80GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST380815AS SATA II 3.0G HDDs (single drives)
LSI Logic LSI00118 PCI Express SAS MegaRAID 8344ELP 128MB
1 Sony DVD-RW
Asus Xonar D2
NZXT Sentry LX
Foxconn 9800GTX-512N
Cooler Master UCP 1100 PSU
Microsoft Windows Vista x64 running on the RAID 5 Array
The mainboards tested were
Intel S5000XVN and of course the Asus Z7S WS
Microsoft Windows Vista was Installed fresh for each board and updated to SP1 additional updates were noted for the first test run so that the update level for each would be identical.
Onboard Audio was tested separately for the Z7S WS. The Xonar was used to enable additional EAX sounds used in gaming.
Subsystem testing
Memory:
The memory subsystem on the Z72 includes support for 800MHz FB-DIMMs This is a nice improvement over the S5000XVN. But more than that the 5400 series chipset has improved memory performance. The Z7S showed a nice increase in memory performance over the S5000VXN even with the 667MHz FB-DIMMs. This boost is good news as traditionally the major bottle neck with the dual Xeons has been memory.
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Intel S5000VXN |
Asus Z7S WS |
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Drive and Bus Speed:
This test shows not only the speed of the on-board SATA controller but the speed of the PCI-e Bus.
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Intel S5000VXN |
Asus Z7S WS |
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There was no clear cut winner here. Both boards have very fast drive controllers and can handle the bandwidth needs of the LSI MegaRAID
Audio:
Here the Z7S wins hands down the PCI-e x1 based external audio codec on the Z7S runs rings around the on-board audio CODEC on the S5000VXN. The addition of both optical and Coaxial SPDIF out just add to the Z7S ZS, additionally if you chose to use a third party card you can disable the slot and free up system resources.
{mospagebreak title=Performance Applications}
Application Testing
FutureMark:
As usual I include the FutureMark tests for the numbers crowd. But these tests can be used to give a base line performance number and can help to trouble shoot performance issues. They are not (nor is any other synthetic) truly representative of real world system performance.
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3DMark Vantage |
PCMark Vantage |
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While not a big surprise the Z7S shows a good performance gain over the older S5000VXN.
Lightwave 9.3 x64:
Lightwave 3D 9.3 is one of the market standards for 3D digital animation.
For testing I use the Lightwave 8.0 content CD. From here I take the Moonbase scene and use frame 32 for my render. Settings for Lightwave are shown below as well as the results for both boards.
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Intel S5000VXN |
Asus Z7S WS |
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04:16 |
03:38 |
Time in Minutes and Seconds (lower is better)
The Z7S shows it improved performance here again.
CineBench R10:
From Maxon, Cinebench is based off of the same render engine used in Cinema4D. It is meant to show how well your system can handle rendering using this application.
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Intel S5000VXN |
Asus Z7S WS |
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Here we see one more win for the Z7S, we also find that the Z7S’ 5400 chipset is better at combining the power of both CPUs.
HyperPi .099b
HyperPi is a nice application that allows you to run multiple versions of the XS SuperPi Mod.
This test can show performance of the CPU, Memory, and HDD as well as the system’s ability to transfer data between these components.
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Intel S5000VXN |
Asus Z7S WS |
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The Z7S shows off again with a very large 10+ second lead.
AutoGK Video Transcoding:
Video transcoding (the changing of a video file from one format to another) is a part of computing. Most users do this now, even the most basic novice. I like to use AutoGK as it uses multiple cores, and includes all of the applications I might need for transcoding. For testing I use a 2-1/2 hour DVD of personal footage. This DVD was authored using DVD Studio Pro HD.
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Intel S5000VXN |
Asus Z7S WS |
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I am sure by now the winner is no surprise the Z7S with the 5400 series chipset wins again.
PhotoShop CS3
What workstation board evaluation would be complete without a run through of Photoshop? For my testing I used Driver Heaven’s Photoshop test.
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The Z7S WS betters the S5000VXN in almost all filters and wins in overall time.
{mospagebreak title=Performance Gaming}
Gaming:
All game testing is done at 1920×1200 resolution with AA and AF settings maxed out. Frame Rate and all screen shots were captured using FRAPS.
BioShock:
Bioshock is one of my favorite games, with good graphics, including DX10 textures and great game play.
For my testing I ran the Welcome to Rapture level from just after you get the Electrobolt Plasmid until the end of the level. Settings are shown below.
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Again the Z7S is the better performer in both average FPS and minimum.
Call of Duty, Modern Warfare:
Call of Duty, Modern Warfare is a great game. This title combines a good story great graphics and a better than average “bar fight” AI. For testing I ran the “Crew Expendable” mission. Settings are shown below.
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Once again the Z7S is out in front.
Assassin’s Creed:
Our second DX10 (well DX10.1) Assassin’s Creed is a good third person game with a healthy story and good interactivity. It does have far too many cut scenes for my tastes but is good for system testing. For my testing I ran the first memory only. This took me from introduction through being sent on a mission outside of the village. Settings are shown below.
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I think by now a pattern is becoming clear, the Z7S is simply a better board for gaming than the S5000VXN.
Crossfire Support:
As you have noticed above I included 4850 and 4850 Crossfire scores only for the Z7S WS. This was due to my not having the 4850s when this evaluation started. Also the S5000VXN is only PCIe 1.0 compatible.
I therefore show only the performance you can expect in Crossfire over single card on the Z7S. The difference is quite nice. This added feature makes the Z7S WS an even better board than other Workstation boards for the Xeon 5000 series.
{mospagebreak title=Price/Warranty}
Price/Warranty:
The Z7S WS like the P5E64 WS Evolution, is not an inexpensive board. It will set you back about $480.00.
This price is nothing to thumb your nose at. For many the cost of the Z7S combine with the cost of two 5000 series Xeon CPUs will be too much. But for the prosumer or professional that needs high-end workstation performance and likes to game the Z7S is almost a one of a kind as it fills these needs quite handily. Another factor in the Z7S’ favor is that the Intel SkullTrail board is over $600, this puts the Z7S in a much better light given its performance and lower price tag.
Warranty on the Z7S WS is the same three year warranty as with the consumer mainboards from Asus.
{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}
Conclusions:
I was very impressed with the Z7S WS’ performance. I had thought there would be some performance gain but did not expect to see as much as I did. Even with identical hardware setups the Z7S simply outperformed the S5000VXn from Intel. I do wish the BIOS were better done and had more tweaks, but that might have made the board too difficult to get stable. The lack of the SLI support present on the Intel based Skulltrail boards is a mixed bag On the one hand it would have been nice, on the other hand the NV200 bridge causes issues and makes a board very unstable and prone to heat and voltage issues not to mention the extra cost of adding this in.
Board layout is a problem and will make keeping your Xeons cool without going deaf a problem. As well as the need to carefully choose the GPUs you use, a 4870 or 4870×2 would have a rough time on this board. These items do require some thought to be put into any purchase plans that include the Z7S WS, but when you look at the performance advantage and the extra features (not to mention the lower cost than the Intel alternative) the Z7S WS is going to be at the top of any Dual Xeon workstation shipping list.
Discussion Link
I would like to thank Eric Chen at Asus for his help in putting together the Z7S WS evaluation.