Launch of Intel Xeon 7500 Series 8-Core Processor

Launch of Intel Xeon 7500 Series 8-Core Processor

A handful of tech guys were invited to Intel’s office here in Kuala Lumpur today to be part of the tele-conferencing where Boyd Davis (General Manager, Data Center Group Marketing, Intel) unveils the Xeon 7500 series processor.


I’ll not bore you with the details but basically – 8 cores with hyper-threading, totalling to 16 threads. Have a look -24MB L3 Cache goodness. 😀

Here’s how the processor does in Cinebench 11.5 test, recorded at Intel Malaysia office here in Kuala Lumpur.

Fast eh? That’s the power of 4 units of Xeon 7500 – totally 64 threads 😀 32 Threads did the processing instead of 64, this is due to the software limitation.

The EX in Nehalem-EX stands for expandable – the processor sockets, memory and I/O all scale (or expand). For example, it can scale from two sockets up to 256 sockets. Its scalable and modular architecture allows an unprecedented range of system designs, enabling the processor to span all the way from medium up to large-scale enterprise computing environments.

source : Intel Press Release for Nehalem EX

Remember my article I Don’t Support Earth Hour? Well this actually is a step in helping the environment, at the same time it helps companies cut cost too.

Launch of Intel Xeon 7500 Series 8-Core Processor

Sure, upgrading to a whole new Xeon 7500 based machine incurs something but think about it – you can consolidate your existing cluster of servers into 1 powerful machine. This means total less power consumption, less heat generated and still get the work done the same way or better.

Better? Yes ….

This is the first Xeon processor to possess Machine Check Architecture (MCA) Recovery, a feature that allows the silicon to work with the operating system and virtual machine manager to recover from otherwise fatal system errors, a mechanism until now found only in the company’s Intel® Itanium® processor family and RISC processors.

The Intel Xeon processor 7500 series offers unique scalability through modular building blocks enabled by Intel® QuickPath Technology (QPI) interconnect. With QPI, cost-effective and highly scalable eight-processor servers that don’t require specialized third-party node controller chips to “glue” the system together can be built. Intel is also working with system vendors to deliver “ultra-scale” systems with 16 processors for the enterprise, and up to 256 processors and support for 16 terabytes (one terabyte is equal to 1,000 gigabytes) of memory for high- performance computing “super nodes” running bandwidth-demanding applications such as financial analysis, numerical weather predictions and genome sequencing.

source : Intel Press Release for Nehalem EX

And here’s more detail on the product …..

The Intel Xeon processor 7500 series supports up to eight integrated cores and 16 threads, and can scale up to 32 cores and 64 threads per 4-chip platform or 64 cores and 128 threads per 8-chip platform, and is available with frequencies up to 2.66 GHz, and 24 MB of Intel® Smart Cache memory, four Intel QPI links and Intel Turbo Boost technology. Thermal Design Point (TDP) power levels range from 95 watts to 130 watts.

The Intel Xeon processor X7560, with eight cores and 24MB cache size, is built for highly parallel, data demanding and mission-critical workloads, whereas the Intel Xeon processor X7542 is a frequency-optimized 6-core option at 2.66 GHz targeted for super node high-performance computing applications in science and financial services.

My Thoughts

Nothing much from the consumer point of view. It’s beyond the needs for most of us but the list of features from the Xeon server clearly makes it a great choice for organizations who run mission-critical workloads. They can make use of the new features (over 20 of them) found on the new Xeon range processors to minimize downtime.

More details at Intel® Xeon® Processor 7000 official page.’

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