Tag: xeon

Intel readies server shifts

Posted on October 27, 2014 by - News

intel_log_reversedRoadmaps seen by sources close to chip manufacturer Intel say there’s a series of sea changes for server chips to be released in the second quarter of 2015.

According to reporters at Taiwanese wire Digitimes, Intel will release processors for servers based on Haswell-EX  as it readies other products for workstations too.

It is scheduled to introduce Skylake Xeons in the third quarter as well as Broadwell Xeons during the third quarter of next year.

That means – as is the tradition at Intel – we’ll see several processors phased out including Xeon Phis, Itaniums and other microprocessors, according to the wire.

Meanwhile the same media says that Intel will manage to ship a milllion units of its so-called “Education Tablets” this year.  The machines are largely aimed at developing markets.  Shipments will exceed three million units in 2015.

Intel expands Xeon E5 family

Posted on September 9, 2014 by - News

The-Meaning-of-Life-monty-python-17864160-852-480Intel has expanded its Xeon E5 family and giving them higher core counts, the more advanced Haswell-EP architecture, and DDR4.

The result, at least on paper, turns the E5 into a top of the range server chip and a big leap for the entire Xeon E5 series.

The Xeon E5 v2 chips, based on Ivy Bridge, topped out at 12 cores per socket, however the new cores can manage 18 cores per socket.

What makes the new chips slightly less appealing is that there is an increase in the power draw, the Xeon E5 v2 family ranged from 50W to 150W, whereas the Xeon E5 v3 family will span 55W – 160W in a single workstation configuration.

It is all possible because of the Haswell architecture which doubled certain cache bandwidths and introduced features like AVX2, which offers a theoretical near-doubling of floating point performance.

AVX2 did not turn out as sexy as Intel had hoped because most consumer software does not got a benefit from using it.

But in high performance computing, database processing, and other enterprise tasks it is starting to get noticed. Intel has also provided full support for DDR4. Exactly how much DDR4 you can use per socket will depend on your the clock speed and the restrictions on these systems are fairly tight. DDR4-1866 will only allow two DIMMs per channel.

Other features include integrated USB 3.0 support, a full suite of SATA 6G ports, and up to four 10 GigE ports.