Six-Core Intel Xeon 7400 Shipping September 15
When the going gets tough in the enterprise server sector you need big processing power. Larger and more complex database systems, scientific computation and web servers demand more and more power every other day.
More power usually ends up meaning more physical hardware taking up more space. This is something that Intel is working hard towards minimizing – increase the processing power and reducing the footprint.
The last of the Penryn class enterprise processors is on the way. Boasting a huge 16MB L3 cache. This is Intel’s first step beyond four cores. The new Xeon 7400 (Dunnington) will have six cores and be the first using the new monolithic design - multiple cores on a single die. The Xeon 7400 will be socket compatible with Xeon 7300 boards which will allow for simple upgrades with little downtime.
The Xeon 7300 series were high-wattage as well, some pushing 130 watts. The new 7400 series is targeting a much lower wattage, however no solid data has been available – upon its actual release we should start to see what kind of numbers are out there in real world application.
Previous 7300 series Xeon processors weighed in at four cores and a hefty 8 MB cache and a very large price tag that ranges between $2,200 to $2,600. As no solid pricing information has been released regarding the new 7400 series, one could expect the 7400 come in little more than current 7300 pricing while 7300 series take a price slash. It would be logical to expect pricing around $2,600 to $2,800.
Enterprise processor markets have never had consistent pricing like the consumer processor market, so finding the right deal can be a lot of work for smaller businesses that wish to save a few bucks. Larger entities tend to worry more about what it can do for them as opposed to the sticker price.
Since this will be the last of this server era from Intel, it may not see much daylight as large entities are already planning their road map towards Nehalem, especially due to the architecture’s scalability. On a side note - if rumors continue to hold true, we should be seeing the Core i7 (Nehalem) line rolling out by the end of this year.
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Be great to get a review of this on standard apps (e.g. divx transcoding etc), be a taste of the future...
Yeah, I'd like to see how good Intel's monolithic processors will be as well as how 6 cores fair in higly multi-threaded apps.
Hmm..scientific computation. Perhaps that field is going in an entirely different direction, as in using the processing capability of GPU units rahther than general-purpose processors such as this. One of the world's fastest super-computers uses such a design, and also relies on standard AMD hardware for housekeeping. That's available now as well, not something planned for later use..
It's not like Intel had a choice. But whether that proprietary link between all 6 cores actually works as good as the AMD one, remains to be seen. The price of this hardware would make me think twice, as well as the potential teething problems of using newer designs (inc chipsets).
Also, I do think that basing assumptions on the willingness of corporations to cough up for this hardware is a bad idea, especially considering the recent economic downturn. That will work in AMD's favour, however.