New High-End Xeon® Server Processors Raise Bar

New Intel High-End Xeon® Server Processors Raise Performance Bar

Intel Corporation has extended its lead in the high-end server segment, setting new standards in virtualisation performance with the launch of seven 45 nanometer (nm)-manufactured Intel® Xeon® Processor 7400 Series products. With up to six processing cores per chip and 16MB of shared cache memory, applications built for virtualised environments and data demanding workloads, such as databases, business intelligence, enterprise resource planning and server consolidation, experience dramatic performance increases of almost 50 percent in some cases.

Platforms based on these processors can scale up to 16 processor “sockets” to deliver servers with up to 96 processing cores inside, offering tremendous scalability, ample computing threads, extensive memory resources and uncompromising reliability for enterprise data centres.

“The arrival of these processors extends Intel’s lead in the high-end server segment,” said Tom Kilroy, Intel vice president and general manager of the Digital Enterprise Group. “This new processor series helps IT manage increasingly complex enterprise server environments, providing a great opportunity to boost the scalable performance of multi-threaded applications within a stable platform infrastructure. With new features such as additional cores, large shared caches and advanced virtualisation technologies, the Xeon 7400 series delivers record-breaking performance that will lead enterprises into the next wave of virtualisation deployments.”

Several Performance Records
The Intel Xeon processor 7400 series has already set new four-socket and eight-socket world records on key industry benchmarks for virtualisation, database, enterprise resource planning and e-commerce. IBM, following the record-setting 1.2 million tpmC result on its eight-socket System x* 3950 M2 platform, delivers an all-time high result for four-socket servers on System x* 3850 M2 server with a score of 684,508 tpmC on the TPC*-C benchmark, which measures database performance in an online transaction processing environment.

An HP ProLiant DL580 G5 server on the SAP-SD benchmark that measures a server’s sales and distribution capability on SAP software set a world record with a score of 5155 SD-Users. On the SPECint*_rate2006 benchmark, which measures a system’s integer throughput performance, a Fujitsu-Siemens PRIMERGY* RX600 S4 server set a record with a score of 291. Several other records were also set on other key enterprise-related benchmarks.

Virtualisation Platform of Choice
Based on Intel’s 45nm high-k process technology and reinvented transistors that use a Hafnium-based, high-k metal gate formula, the new Xeon 7400 series delivers exceptional performance improvements with lower power consumption. This delivers almost 50 percent better performance in some cases, and up to 10 percent reduction in platform power, and has resulted in a world record VMmark (a virtualisation benchmark) score for four-socket, 24 processing core servers at 18.49 on a Dell PowerEdge R900 platform using VMware ESX server v3.5.0.*

These virtualisation performance increases, and advanced virtualisation capabilities such as Intel Virtualisation Technology (VT) FlexMigration make Xeon 7400 series-based servers ideal platforms for customers to standardise their virtual infrastructures. FlexMigration enables VM migration from previous-, present- and future-generation Core microarchitecture-based platforms. This ensures investment protection for administrators seeking to establish pools of virtualised systems and using those pools to facilitate failover, disaster recovery, load balancing and optimising server maintenance and downtime.

Product Details, Customers
These products offer frequencies up to 2.66 GHz and power levels down to 50 watts, including the first 6-core, x86 compatible 65-watt version which translates to just under 11 watts per processor core, with platforms available in rack, tower and highly dense blade form factors.

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

Starting today, servers based on the Intel Xeon 7400 processor series are expected to be announced by more than 50 system manufacturers around the world, including four-socket rack servers from Dell, Fujitsu, Fujitsu-Siemens, Hitachi, HP, IBM, NEC, Sun, Supermicro and Unisys; four-socket blade servers from Egenera, HP, Sun and NEC; and servers that scale up to 16-sockets from IBM, NEC and Unisys.

Many software vendors are also supporting Intel Xeon 7400 based platforms with innovative solutions enabling virtualisation and scalable performance for the high-end enterprise, including Citrix, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Red Hat, SAP and VMware.

Pricing for the Xeon 7000 Sequence processors in quantities of 1,000 ranges from $856 to $2,729. For more details on the Intel Xeon 7400 processor series, visit www.intel.com/xeon. For more details on world records and other claims, visit:
http://www.intel.com/performance/server/xeon_mp/summary.htm?iid=perf_server_lhn+mp_sum

Intel [NASDAQ: INTC], the world leader in silicon innovation, develops technologies, products and initiatives to continually advance how people work and live. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom and blogs.intel.com.

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Intel, Intel Core and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the United States and other countries.

* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. Performance tests and ratings are measured using specific computer systems and/or components and reflect the approximate performance of Intel products as measured by those tests. Any difference in system hardware or software design or configuration may affect actual performance. Buyers should consult other sources of information to evaluate the performance of systems or components they are considering purchasing. For more information on performance tests and on the performance of Intel products, visit www.intel.com/performance/resources/limits.htm or call (U.S.) 800-628-8686 or 916-356-3104.

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