Intel launches Xeon 7500 processor series

Capping off its largest ever data center refresh, Intel Corp. has launched the Xeon 7500 processor series.While the global launch was yesterday, Diane M. Bryant, CIO Corporate VP Intel IT, Intel Corp. and R. Ravichandran, director, Sales & World Ahead Program – Asia, Intel Technology India Pvt Ltd launched the Xeon 7500 processor series in Bangalore, India today.

Intel culminated the transition to the company’s award-winning Nehalem chip design with the launch of the Intel Xeon 7500 processor series. In less than 90 days, it has introduced the all-new 2010 PC, laptop and server processors that increase energy efficiency and computing speed and include a multitude of new features that make computers more intelligent, flexible and reliable.

Expandable to include from two to 256 chips per server, the Intel Xeon processors have an average performance three times that of Intel’s existing Xeon 7400 series on common, leading enterprise benchmarks, and come equipped with more than 20 new reliability features.

Some statistics were also provided. For instance, there is said to be a growing demand for big servers, such as:
* Data growth and information demand: 650 percent data growth.
* Real time business intelligence” $6.8 billion market by 2013.
* High performance computing: $11.1 billion market by 2013, supercomputers $3.8 billion.

Some of the breakthrough capabilities of the Xeon 7500 series include scalable performance — with modular scaling from 2 to 8 Sockets with QPI and 256 Sockets via OEM NCs, flexible virtualization — up to 8x memory bandwidth and 4x memory capacity increases, and advanced reliability — over 20 new RAS features including MCA recovery.

It is said to be a historic Xeon performance leap — up to 3X vs. previous generation and up to 20:1 consolidation. Some other features are:
• Breakthrough capabilities – scaling from 2 to 256 sockets, and 4X memory capacity up to 1TB,
• Mission critical catalyst – over 20 new RAS features and MCA recovery in x86.

Breakthrough capabilities of the new series include scalable performance — with modular scaling from 2 to 8 sockets with QPI and 256 sockets via OEM NCs, flexible virtualization — up to 8x memory bandwidth and 4x memory capacity increases, and advanced reliability — over 20 new RAS features including MCA recovery.

Some other capabilities include super nodes for high performance computing, large scale consolidation and virtualization — offering up to an estimated 92 percent annual energy cost reduction and 12-month payback, Machine Check Architecture Recovery — for the first time ever on x86 servers, which allows recovery from otherwise fatal system errors.

Intel also announced the Xeon processor 5600 series — which allows a 2-socket platform refresh. Features include better energy efficiency — up to 30 percent lower power and up to 15:1 consolidation, more performance — up to 60 percent increase and secure virtualization. In this case, Intel estimates up to 95 percent annual energy cost reduction and as low as five-month payback.

Approximately 1 million servers have had their replacement delayed by a year, according to a Gartner study. The monthly costs for not refreshing 50 single-core servers with three Intel Xeon 5600 servers is said to be close to $10,000.

There are some new security features in the Xeon 5600 series. These are the Intel Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions (Intel AES-NI) and the Intel Trusted Execution Technology (Intel TXT).

Intel also announced the Xeon processor C5500/C3500 series. Features include scalability from 1-4 cores — 2S for multiple design options, high Integration — improved performance density, and better energy efficiency — up to 27W reduction vs. previous generation.