Intel Xeon E5506 processor: quick test

This article is part of our November benchmark session and, ideally, should have been included in the article on Xeon X3450, X3470, and X5570 chips. However, since that CPU article became quite extensive, we decided to make the Xeon E5506 tests a separate express piece. And the Xeon E5506 isn't the last CPU we tested in November... but that's a story for another time.

The reasons for buying such an inexpensive chip are simple: its low TDP, its obvious price, and its extremely modest cooling requirements.

So why buy it? Good question. The answer is simple: to set up a small file server and, of course, to run some benchmarks alongside that. Honestly, looking at its specs, it's hard to imagine this processor delivering even a basic level of performance in our tests.

The processor

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A notable feature of the Xeon E5506 is that even CPU-z struggles to identify whether it's the E5506 itself or its more economical sibling, the Xeon L5506.

In practice, this doesn't really matter, as both CPUs have roughly the same 65-watt thermal package. Officially, the E5506 is an 80-watt chip, while the L5506 is 60 watts.

Otherwise, CPU-z's confusion is entirely justified, as both the Xeon E5506 and L5506 are based on the 45-nanometer Gainestown core. The chip features a rather small 4MB L3 cache, and its clock speed, along with the memory controller frequency, is a dismayingly low 1600MHz. Thankfully, the E5506's memory controller remains triple-channel, but the supported DDR3 frequency drops to just 800MHz. On the plus side, it has a relatively high throttling temperature threshold of 76 degrees Celsius.

Summing up the processor's characteristics, it's clear: the Xeon E5506 is cut back on almost all fronts, and quite severely in places. However, this decision allowed Intel to fit a rather hot, 45-nanometer Nehalem architecture processor into a fairly agreeable TDP.

Test setup:

• Processors — Xeon E5506, Xeon X3450, Xeon X3470, Xeon X5570, Xeon X5660, and Core i5-2500K

• Cooling — Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition (RR-212S-20PK-R1)

• RAM for LGA 1366 — 3x 8GB HyperX Genesis Na’Vi Edition (KHX16C9C2K2/8) for a total of 24GB

• RAM for LGA 1155 — 2x 8GB HyperX Genesis Na’Vi Edition (KHX16C9C2K2/8) for a total of 16GB

• RAM for LGA 1156 — 2x 8GB HyperX Genesis Na’Vi Edition (KHX16C9C2K2/8) for a total of 16GB

• Motherboard LGA 1366 — DELL T3500 (09KPNV)

• Motherboard LGA 1155 — Gigabyte GA-Z68P-DS3 (rev. 2.0)

• Motherboard LGA 1156 — Gigabyte H55M-USB3

• Graphics card — Palit GeForce GTX 1060 DUAL 3GB (1506/1709/8000MHz, Power Limit 115%)

• SSD — KINGSTON 120GB SA400S37120G (Windows 10 1903/Programs)

• HDD — Seagate 2TB ST2000DM008-2FR102 (Games)

• Power supply — Chieftec GPS-1250C

Software:

• Windows 10 Pro v1903 x64

• CPU-z v1.90.0 x64

• AIDA64 v6.10.5200

• NVIDIA GeForce Game Ready Driver 441.08 WHQL

• V-Ray Benchmark v4.10.03

• Corona Benchmark v1.3

• Cinebench R15.38

• Cinebench R20.060

• xNormal 3.19.3.39669 x64 (NM Map smoothing x4, AO Map smoothing x1)

• HWBot x265 Benchmark v2.0.0

• WinRar v5.8 Beta 2 x64

• 7-Zip v19.0 x64

Application benchmarks

There's no practical point in commenting on these tests; the charts speak for themselves. Enjoy the data:

Overall performance

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Rendering, synthetic

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Rendering

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Video encoding

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Archiving

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Games and graphics settings:

Assassin's Creed Odyssey+

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Battlefield V+

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Destiny 2+

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For Honor+

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GTA V+

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Hitman 2+

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Shadow of the Tomb Raider+

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Watch Dogs 2+

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Gaming benchmarks

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Conclusion

As strange as it sounds, this old 4-core processor with a laughable 2133MHz clock speed managed to deliver relatively acceptable performance in Destiny 2 (essentially console-level framerates) and a surprisingly confident result in For Honor. Of course, the chip struggled with framerate stability in the latter, but it's important to remember that each game was tested with the most CPU-intensive graphics settings. Dropping these settings to minimum, the E5506 actually starts to deliver decent results. However, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Battlefield 5 remain beyond the Xeon E5506's capabilities at any graphics quality. The chip's performance in EA's title is particularly abysmal.

Video: Xeon E5506 gaming benchmarks:

Pros:

• Processor and motherboard price

• Extremely low TDP

• Low cooling requirements

• Acceptable performance for a personal file server

Cons

• Alarmingly low performance in the vast majority of tests