Intel introduced 17 enterprise-class processors in its long awaited Xeon upgrade.
The company said they are Intel's most revolutionary server processors since addressing the market with the Intel Pentium Pro processor almost 15 years ago. "The chips can automatically adjust to specified energy usage levels, and speed data center transactions and customer database queries."
Intel says the 5500 series uses 10 Watts at idle, half that of previous editions. Alongside the processors Intel announced its Data Center Manager software development kit that enables management console vendors to extend platform power control and set rack and datacenter level power policies dynamically, responding to changing server workloads to ensure that racks do not exceed those power levels. For server applications, processor frequencies peak at 2.93 GHz with DDR3 memory speeds up to 1333 MHz and power levels of from 60 to 95 watts. Under certain conditions, Intel Turbo Boost Technology can provide operating frequencies up to 3.33 GHz, depending on the processor and system configuration. Workstation frequencies go up to 3.20 GHz with power levels of 130 watts, and up to 3.46GHz using Intel Turbo Boost Technology depending on the workload and environment.
The 5500 series, was codenamed "Nehalem-EP."
Technologies such as Intel Turbo Boost Technology, Intel Hyper-Threading Technology, integrated power gates, and Next-Generation Intel Virtualization Technology (VT) improved through extended page tables, allow the system to adapt to a broad range of workloads.
"The Intel Xeon processor 5500 series is the foundation for the next decade of innovation," said Patrick Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group. "These chips showcase groundbreaking advances in performance, virtualization and workload management, which will create opportunities to solve the world's most complex challenges and push the limits of science and technology."
Intel has claimed a series of world records in performance and efficiency. "With over 30 new world records2 the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series establishes new standards for two-socket performance while delivering gains of more than double the previous- generation Intel Xeon processor 5400 series. On the SPECpower_ssj2008 benchmark, which measures energy-efficient performance of servers, a Xeon 5500 series-based Verari Systems VB1305 server platform smashed the previous world record with a score of 1943 ssj_ops/watt.
"The series offers automated energy efficiency enhancements including a processor idle power level of 10 watts, a 50 percent reduction in system idle power compared to the previous generation. New integrated power gates, based on Intel's unique high-k metal gate technology, allow idle cores to power down independently. The Intel Xeon processor 5500 series also takes intelligent power to a new level with up to 15 automated operating states," the company said.
For rack mounted servers and embedded systems the L5518 and L5508 versions include options for applications in thermally constrained environments, such as blades and appliances for communication infrastructure, security, storage, medical applications, carrier-grade rackmount servers, router modules and even submarine technology.
The L5518 offers 2.13 GHz and a power level of 60 watts. The L5508 offers 2.00 GHz and a power level of 38 watts.
The company announced the Intel 82599 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller, featuring advanced virtualization technology and unified networking support, which greatly improves network I/O performance in virtualized data centers.
Each processor contains up to 8MB of level 3 cache.
230 systems based on the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series are expected to be announced by more than 70 system manufacturers including Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, IBM, Sun Microsystems.