Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Intel unleashes new Xeon 7400 beasts

Continuing its onwards and upwards drive to produce ever-more powerful processing technology, market leader Intel Corporation has this week moved to extend its advantage in the high-end server arena with the launch of seven new Xeon 7400 Series microprocessors.

Built on 45 nanometer (nm) manufacturing techniques, Intel’s new line sports up to six processing cores per chip along with 16MB of shared cache memory, which the Santa Clara-based titan says makes the 7400 Series perfect for delivering increased application performance of up to 50 percent in databases, virtualised environments, enterprise resource planning and server consolidation.

According to Intel, platforms based on the Xeon 7400 Series will be able to scale up to 16 processor sockets to deliver servers with as many as 96 processing cores inside, which in turn offers “tremendous scalability” alongside ample computing threads, extensive memory resources and uncompromising reliability for data centers.

“With new features such as additional cores, large shared caches and advanced virtualization technologies, the Xeon 7400 series delivers record-breaking performance that will lead enterprises into the next wave of virtualization deployments,” trumpeted Tom Kilroy, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group.

Looking to further bolster the worth of its 7400 Series, Intel is keen to point out that the new Xeon line has already set new four-socket and eight-socket world records across key industry benchmarks for virtualisation, database, enterprise resource planning and e-commerce.

Based on Intel’s 45nm high-k process manufacturing, the Xeon 7400 Series will, if Intel is to be believed, provide a performance boost of up to 50 percent in certain environments, while also leveraging in up to 10 percent reduction in platform power for those more eco-conscious buyers.

The series offers up performance frequencies ranging as high as 2.66GHz and power levels down as low as 50 watts, while the six core model pushes less than 11 watts per core for a total of just 65 watts.

Intel’s 7400 Series is compatible with existing Xeon 7300 Series platforms and also the 7300 chipset (up to 256GB), allowing IT departments to quickly deploy the new processor into a stable platform infrastructure.

And what of the accompanying prices? Available for order in quantities of 1,000, prices across the series range from $856 USD through to a more wallet-testing $2,729 USD.

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