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Hardware Intel Sets "Penryn" Launch Date
Anh Tuan Huynh (Blog) - August 14, 2007 6:18 PM
Print 73 comment(s) - last by Targon.. on Aug 24 at 5:26 AM
Intel prepares boxed quad-core "Penryn" based Xeon processors for November 11

Intel has set the launch date for its Penryn based quad-core Xeon processor family. The company intends to launch seven new Harpertown based models ranging from 2.0-to-3.16 GHz on November 11, according to a posting on Intel’s reseller webpage. Standard “E” bin and performance “X” bin processors launch on November 11.

Intel Xeon processors carrying the “E” designation feature 80-watt TDP ratings while the “X” bin processors have higher 120-watt TDP ratings. Intel does not plan to launch the low-power “L” models until Q1’08, with two models in the pipeline. 

Strangely, Intel never issued a formal announcement for the launch of Penryn nor has the November 11 date showed up on roadmaps. Instead, the launch date popped up on a public webpage for resellers.

Penryn Quad-Core Xeon DP

Model
 Core
Frequency 		TDP
L2 Cache
Launch Price

X54603.16 GHz 120W12MB
$1,172

E54503.00 GHz 80W12MB
$851
E5440
2.83 GHz 80W 12MB
$690
E54302.66 GHz 80W12MB
$455
E5420
2.50 GHz 80W12MB
$316
E54102.33 GHz 80W 12MB
$256
E5405
2.00 GHz
80W12MB
$209

Pricing for Penryn-based Intel Xeon processors begin at $209 for the entry-level E5405 to $1,172 for the top-end X5460. Although Intel set the launch dates for quad-core Xeon based Penryn processors, the company remains silent on the launch date of the desktop and mobile counterparts.

Intel’s Penryn architecture is the next evolution of the Core 2 micro architecture that made its debut with Woodcrest and Conroe processors. Penryn introduces a 45nm fabrication process with a few additional performance enhancements. Most notably, Penryn introduces new SSE4 instructions for enhanced multimedia performance.

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65nm huh?
By FITCamaro on 8/14/2007 6:15:37 PM , Rating: 1
Think you mean 45nm.




RE: 65nm huh?
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 8/14/2007 6:21:01 PM , Rating: 4
I haven't had my Red Bull yet today.


RE: 65nm huh?
By James Holden on 8/14/2007 6:21:42 PM , Rating: 6
What's 20 nanometers among friends? :)


RE: 65nm huh?
By JarredWalton on 8/15/2007 2:41:23 AM , Rating: 3
That's what *she* said....


RE: 65nm huh?
By dm0r on 8/15/07, Rating: 0
RE: 65nm huh?
By FITCamaro on 8/14/07, Rating: 0
RE: 65nm huh?
By therealnickdanger on 8/15/2007 7:47:37 AM , Rating: 4
Stick to water only for two weeks straight. By the third week you'll be feeling so good, you won't want to drink anything else. (A little alcohol everyday to keep the heart and head lubricated is good too!)


RE: 65nm huh?
By phusg on 8/15/2007 7:53:58 AM , Rating: 2
'cause alcohol is so good for your bowels and liver, not to mention not at all addictive (as is caffeine). Water is a good idea though, you got that right!


12MB cache on a US$200 chip
By PrinceGaz on 8/14/2007 6:57:44 PM , Rating: 2
That says a lot about Intel's production capabilities, that they can produce a chip with such a large cache and still sell it for just over US$200.

We need AMD to keep prices competitive, but the more I read about Intel's developments, the more I am concerned about them. The only products AMD now have which are worth buying are low end CPUs which they make next to no profit from, and X1950 Pro graphics-cards which are going dirt-cheap now suggesting they make very little from them given the large die-size.




RE: 12MB cache on a US$200 chip
By geeg on 8/14/2007 7:08:09 PM , Rating: 3
would avoid a worthless post but could not agree more.. we need AMD so much yet she might have been doomed.


RE: 12MB cache on a US$200 chip
By bfonnes on 8/20/2007 4:51:39 PM , Rating: 2
I really hate being a cynic, because I really like AMD, but does anyone remember what happened to a company named Cyrix after they started producing combined GPUs/CPUs about 8 years ago?


RE: 12MB cache on a US$200 chip
By Martimus on 8/22/2007 3:20:17 PM , Rating: 2
Cyrix made very poor quality products from the get go though. IBM produced their chips for them, but they were always known to have horrible quality.


RE: 12MB cache on a US$200 chip
By flipsu5 on 8/17/2007 9:42:18 AM , Rating: 2
This is good and bad, for the consumer and the manufacturer respectively.

Obviously, such a high end going for "pretty cheap" is great for the high-end purchaser. One may hope that all the 65 nm Core 2 Duo products now get priced as aggressively as memory.

It is also surprising to see such a high-end product go for the same price as a 65 nm or even a 90 nm standard product. Keep in mind that this is a large area chip using a more expensive process. This affects both Intel and AMD.


Xeon's are nice and all, for the server space
By retrospooty on 8/14/2007 7:11:33 PM , Rating: 3
But I want to know final clock speeds, prices, and release dates for the retail products, both Wolfdale and Yorktown.




By coldpower27 on 8/14/2007 9:19:22 PM , Rating: 2
Oh you mean for the desktop derivatives, it's still a bit early to say, but were looking at Q1 2008 for Yorkfield and Wolfdale, Yorkfield XE sometime in Q4 2007.


RE: Xeon's are nice and all, for the server space
By lompocus on 8/14/2007 10:08:51 PM , Rating: 1
:( please tell me you are pulling those numbers out of your ass, PLEASE MAN PLEASE!

Darn, well at least now it gives me time to upgrade from my P5N32-SLI (590 intel) to an X38 in order to even USE penr-I mean, Wolfdale :(.

Did they say 'fiscal year' Q1, because usually that means it encompasses october and november, and that is when Crysis comes out!


By deeznuts on 8/15/2007 12:45:29 PM , Rating: 2
Nope, his numbers sound about right for Yorkies and Wolfies. They'll come out with a Yorkie XE to showcase it, but then the others will follow suit.


Might be a dumb question...
By PrezWeezy on 8/16/2007 1:49:45 PM , Rating: 2
Hey I haven't been keeping up as much as I should, but is Penryn supposed to be the first "Native Quad Core" (as the marketing guys at AMD would call it) or will it still be a package level integration?




RE: Might be a dumb question...
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 8/16/2007 4:37:00 PM , Rating: 2
It's still a multi-chip package.


RE: Might be a dumb question...
By PrezWeezy on 8/16/2007 5:56:55 PM , Rating: 2
Thanks Kris. Do you have any ideas when they might start making a 4 core die? Or are we stuck waiting for Nehalem?


Hurry up AMD
By daftrok on 8/14/2007 7:09:10 PM , Rating: 1
Seriously they need to pick up the pace before they get shanked.




RE: Hurry up AMD
By Proteusza on 8/15/07, Rating: 0
RE: Hurry up AMD
By dm0r on 8/15/2007 7:50:56 AM , Rating: 2
Actually, amd planned to launch barcelona at 10 september and start delivering at 11 September, so its earlier than new xeons release.


RE: Hurry up AMD
By Targon on 8/24/2007 5:26:06 AM , Rating: 2
The problem is that the first release of Barcelona will only come at 2.0GHz speeds. The "good stuff" won't be out until November/December for Phenom X4, and who knows when the higher speed Opterons will be released.

I still think it is a positive thing for AMD that Intel isn't releasing their new chips faster than the 3.16GHz parts for their initial release, so AMD may be able to surprise some people in the fourth quarter. Many businesses tend to buy in the first quarter(when the new budgets come in for the year), while consumers look for holiday launches. If AMD is able to get Phenom X4 out in time for a late November release at 3.0GHz speeds, people should be fairly happy.


By crystal clear on 8/17/2007 10:00:43 AM , Rating: 2
"Intel lines up nine 45nm CPUs for the desktop"

Intel recently increased the number of 45nm-based CPUs it plans to launch for desktop PCs to nine, according to sources at motherboard makers.

Within the nine CPUs, five will be dual-core processors (Wolfdale) and the remaining four will be quad-core (Yorkfield). All will adopt a 1333MHz FSB. Model numbers for the upcoming products are still undecided, noted the sources.

Four of the five Wolfdale processors will have core frequencies of 3.16GHz, 3.0GHz, 2.83GHz and 2.66GHz, while the frequency of the remaining one is unknown. All five Wolfdale processors will feature 6MB L2 cache, detailed the sources.

Three of the four Yorkfield processors will have core frequencies of 2.83GHz, 2.66GHz and 2.5GHz with the remainder as yet unknown. Three will include 12MB L2 cache while the 2.5GHz version will have 6MB.

Intel will introduce the ability to increase the clock multiplier in steps of 0.5 in the upcoming 45nm range to increase its model choices, pointed out the sources.

With Intel aiming to eventually scale the 45nm range up to a maximum core frequency of 4.0GHz, the sources estimate that at least four more CPUs will appear at a later time with frequencies higher than the initial 3.16GHz.

Intel declined the opportunity to respond to this report, saying it cannot comment on unannounced products.



http://www.digitimes.com/mobos/a20070817PD207.html




By flipsu5 on 8/17/2007 10:40:14 AM , Rating: 2
It seems that the bin splits are pretty wide and getting wider.


$%@#$%!
By konekobot on 8/15/2007 2:03:53 PM , Rating: 2
holy crap, I was going to buy the G0 SLACR for $299 at clubIT, but I'll wait for the E5420 @ $316.

2.50 GHz 80W 12MB L2 $316
vs.
2.40 GHz 95W??? 8MB L2 $299

i'm building a new machine, so this is a great time of year. can't wait to see some price drops when nvidia launches is G90 card for xmas.




mulitplier
By FXi on 8/15/2007 11:25:41 PM , Rating: 2
What kind of mulitplier is 3.16? 1333 makes things so strange...




By FutureMedia on 8/17/2007 5:12:36 PM , Rating: 2
Over at MacRumors.com a guy from England is posting he thinks your chart is about the price for quantity 1K in trays instead of quantity ONE in Retail Boxes. I say the chart is about what one person will pay Fry's for each processor. Am I right or is the other person right?

i.e. Is the chart listing wholesale or retail prices?




Futuristic
By crystal clear on 8/18/2007 3:11:29 AM , Rating: 2
This- for those interested in knowing what to expect down the road.

Everyone in the chip industry knows that the giddy, exponential curve they've been riding for decades can't go on forever. Some day a “showstopper” will finally appear, signaling an end to the amazing pace at which microprocessors, memory, and other chips have become denser and faster without getting more expensive. Nobody ever expects that dreaded day to be right around the corner.

But now, sobering revelations about a futuristic, multibillion-dollar chip-making initiative have thrown a shiver through the industry, raising concerns that the showstopper may be closer than anyone had thought.

As recently as March, researchers were still confident that a technique called extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photolithography would be ready in 2011 to start churning out cutting-edge logic chips. But at an advanced lithography symposium held that month by the photonics society SPIE, experts from IBM and its development partners AMD, Micron Technology, and Qimonda said they do not expect EUV to be ready for its intended debut. Others in the industry, though less blunt, say progress made in the coming year will make or break the deadline.

Historically, each generation of photolithography technology has remained useful for about six or seven years, spanning three size reductions, or nodes, in chip processing. Today's technology uses light with a wavelength of 193 nanometers to produce chips with key parts, or features, that measure just 65 nm. If the seven-year rule holds true, 193-nm lithography will need a replacement by 2012 or 2013.

Before anyone panics, it's important to note that the industry has been consistently wrong about when any particular production technology will hit its limits. But with six years to go, it's clearly crunch time for this technology. “The next year or so is going to be crucial,” says Michael C. Mayberry, vice president of Intel's technology and manufacturing group.



http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/aug07/5394




By crystal clear on 8/16/2007 4:54:41 AM , Rating: 1
Intel takes on Security & bypasses the O.S.-

Symantec, Intel work on security on microchips

BOSTON (Reuters) - Symantec Corp (SYMC.O: Quote, Profile , Research) and Intel Corp (INTC.O: Quote, Profile , Research) are jointly developing security products that could be built into tiny computer microprocessors, Symantec Vice President Rowan Trollope said on Tuesday.

The program, dubbed Project Hood, is part of an effort by both companies to expand their use of virtualization technology, or using software to replicate entire computer systems.

They are developing software security "appliances" that would work with virtualization technology that Intel is already incorporating into its computer chips, Trollope said.

Appliances are specialized computers that handle tasks such as storing data, streaming music or securing a network.

Instead of designing the security software to run on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows or another operating system, Symantec and Intel are building it so it can directly interact with the Intel chips.

"It runs underneath and alongside the operating system," Trollope said.

The companies are developing the products for use on servers and business desktop computers, though they may eventually expand the effort to consumer PCs, he said.


http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?typ...




How about too little too late
By penter on 8/15/07, Rating: -1
RE: How about too little too late
By darkpaw on 8/15/2007 9:06:10 AM , Rating: 2
Ever heard of workstations? Many commercial work stations come in a dual processors format (either AMD or Intel) and are usually used for CAD/3d Modeling/Video processing type work.

I think the only place AMD still has the advantage is in 4-8 way+ systems.


RE: How about too little too late
By deeznuts on 8/15/2007 12:47:05 PM , Rating: 2
And what about rendering farms? Don't they do encoding or something (my buddy is a CGI guy but I'm terribly ignorant on what programs they use etc.)


RE: How about too little too late
By maroon1 on 8/15/07, Rating: -1
RE: How about too little too late
By Targon on 8/15/2007 3:28:05 PM , Rating: 2
Intel doesn't have them either, note the November release on these things. It is possible(I am not saying it will happen) that AMD may have their 3.0GHz versions of Barcelona ready by the time these new Xeons hit the market. We will need to see what happens in the next four months.


RE: How about too little too late
By sdsdv10 on 8/15/2007 10:30:05 PM , Rating: 2
I believe he was referring to the quad core Clovertown CPU's his Newegg links lead to, for which AMD currently has no comparable product. As you noted, this will change with the release of Barcelona based chips in September of this year.


overboard
By omnicronx on 8/14/07, Rating: -1
RE: overboard
By afkrotch on 8/14/07, Rating: -1
RE: overboard
By Targon on 8/14/07, Rating: -1
RE: overboard
By TomZ on 8/14/2007 6:54:37 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
With the B2 stepping able to hit 3GHz, it is possible that AMD could move up their launch of Phenom X4 to steal Intel's thunder. We shall see how it goes.

Has this been confirmed by any reliable sources? I think you're engaging in idle daydreaming.


RE: overboard
By deeznuts on 8/14/2007 6:58:54 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
Has this been confirmed by any reliable sources? I think you're engaging in idle daydreaming.
Last I heard of a Barsy 3.0 it was one machine which nobody was allowed to touch. Has this changed?


RE: overboard
By KristopherKubicki (blog) on 8/14/2007 7:05:13 PM , Rating: 2
Some people were allowed to use the machines. But they were not allowed to benchmark on it.


RE: overboard
By TheDoc9 on 8/14/2007 9:07:13 PM , Rating: 2
I've been out of the Intel loop, what does this processor do that justifies the $1200 vs. the $300 Q6600?


RE: overboard
By retrospooty on 8/14/2007 10:35:38 PM , Rating: 2
Its a server CPU. This is not the retail desktop processor.


RE: overboard
By darkpaw on 8/15/2007 9:09:36 AM , Rating: 2
The real question is what does it do over the other much cheaper Xeon processors from the same family. Short answer is its only slightly faster. The likely market for these overpriced but only slightly faster processors is for rendering/CAD systems. Every little bit will increase performance, and the additional few grand spent on processors is nothing compared to the tens of thousands spent on the software running on those systems.

If you can spend a bit more on the hardware and get more out of the software its a good investment.


RE: overboard
By MonkeyPaw on 8/14/2007 8:33:27 PM , Rating: 3
AMD also reportedly used a different 3.0ghz K10 in a demo in Japan, so there are at least 2 of them out there. ;)

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/200708130...

That would be something if AMD could almost match Intel in clockspeed (and IPC, of course) being an entire process behind. My guess is that Intel is being conservative with their launch with room for faster quad cores later on. I guess how much faster depends on how much more IPC penryn has over conroe, and that looks to hinge on the adoption of SSE4. I can see encoding software quickly being adjusted for SSE4 to make penryn look better.


RE: overboard
By lompocus on 8/14/07, Rating: 0
RE: overboard
By Amiga500 on 8/15/2007 3:56:25 AM , Rating: 2
I wouldn't say it limits AMD to a small market niche at all.

How many universities are there that do HPC work [be it engineering, maths or computer science]? engineering companies? Medical companies?

While media decoding may be of more use to the desktop market, I'm not sure whether it gets widespread use on servers.

Rendering doesn't rely on SSE4 does it? Even media companies might not see a significant need to get a Penryn over a K10.


RE: overboard
By 16nm on 8/15/2007 12:45:22 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
How many universities are there that do HPC work [be it engineering, maths or computer science]? engineering companies? Medical companies?


Not many. That's a very small piece of the market. Then again, AMD are very small compared to the behemoth that we like to call Chipzilla. So if they can corner this part of the market then it does them good.


RE: overboard
By Setsunayaki on 8/15/2007 4:37:05 AM , Rating: 2
To add on to what you said....

When you overclock, you are also stating that you want more pipelines to be filled by the higher bus frequencies....In order for processors to do more and more...One needs higher caches to keep those pipelines fed...

One proof of cache performance is the overclocking performance....an E6300 at 3ghz ends up in some benchmarks doing as well as a E6700...and when overclocked to say 500 x 7 for 3.5ghz, your performance gets limited by present L2 cache...

The extra 2MB of cache actually allowed performance to increase by as much as 10% of many applications. The presence was important.....the E6320s overclocked beat out the X6800 because of the same cache and higher clock speed achieved overclocked.

Xeon Processors are for servers and the cache is extremely important because of the high level of Input/Output operations that a server must make per second dealing with many clients simultaneosly.

Now I would like to see AMD release their Desktop Quad Core Processor because I want to see a Quad Core price war with Intel. ^_^


RE: overboard
By Falloutboy on 8/14/2007 6:25:19 PM , Rating: 3
not for a serverchip these are xeons.

but at 45nm I'm sure intel has a bit more diespace to playwith but would be surprised the desktop chips have this much


RE: overboard
By TomZ on 8/14/2007 6:33:12 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
anyone else think 12MB cache is a little much

For quad-core, I think it's good. I'm also sure Intel simulated different cache sizes to arrive at the 12MB size.


RE: overboard
By Jason Clark on 8/14/2007 6:34:39 PM , Rating: 2
When you are bound by your front side bus, you want to stay as far away from memory as you can... thus larger cache.


RE: overboard
By Anonymous Freak on 8/14/2007 7:16:11 PM , Rating: 1
Yes indeed. I can't wait for CSI to come out and alleviate some of the FSB issues. At least they are finally putting each socket on its own bus. (Yeah, it was in mid '06, but it was a long time coming.)


RE: overboard
By Targon on 8/15/2007 7:57:37 AM , Rating: 2
That is pretty much what I said in my post that was knocked down to a 0. Without an integrated memory controller, to keep the CPU happy, Intel processors NEED the huge caches we are seeing here. The Integrated memory controller that AMD uses improves the access to memory by such a large amount that a huge cache size isn't needed(though cache is still faster and will improve performance).


RE: overboard
By sonoran on 8/14/2007 7:39:24 PM , Rating: 5
Just an amusing historical footnote - the original IBM PC had a 10MB hard drive. That's smaller than the cache on these chips. ;)


RE: overboard
By Polynikes on 8/14/2007 8:26:56 PM , Rating: 1
That's pretty funny.


RE: overboard
By Alpha4 on 8/14/2007 8:32:47 PM , Rating: 2
Haha. Too true. The thought of that much cache conjures up memories of my 486dx2 with 12MB of PC66 SD-ram.


RE: overboard
By deeznuts on 8/15/2007 12:52:07 PM , Rating: 2
I had a computer where my dad's college professor colleague came over and doubled the ram on our computer. I was a very very young fool back then, and the computer was a bit dated, but let's just say I believe he doubled it to like 128K or something.


RE: overboard
By bhigh on 8/15/2007 1:37:26 PM , Rating: 2
It was plain old DRAM or EDO DRAM in the 486 days. SDRAM wasn't available until about 1997, well into the Pentium and K6 days.

My 90 MHz P5 used EDO DRAM, my 200 MHz K6 had SDRAM.


RE: overboard
By boffo on 8/14/2007 11:28:54 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
Just an amusing historical footnote - the original IBM PC had a 10MB hard drive. That's smaller than the cache on these chips. ;)


Not true, and it's even more extreme than that. You're thinking of the PC-XT, which was the second generation. The first IBM PC only had a couple of 5.25" floppy drives. Oh, those were the days.


RE: overboard
By Regs on 8/15/2007 12:02:55 AM , Rating: 3
It is scary. I only wonder what the future brings. Nano's and data traveling through light (photons) and what not. Maybe then can we make man travel to mars possible.

Then of course colonize mars with research labs. Then opening up portals and gateways for extra-dimensional travel. Of course...hell will then start to take over so we can't go too fast.


RE: overboard
By wordsworm on 8/15/2007 12:09:48 AM , Rating: 2
Or better yet... remember the movie Weird Science? Who cares about traveling to Mars. What's the big deal in that?


RE: overboard
By porkpie on 8/15/2007 7:45:25 AM , Rating: 4
Fantasizing about running off a few copies of Kelly LeBrock on our inkjet printer, are we?


RE: overboard
By Polynikes on 8/15/2007 6:49:50 PM , Rating: 3
As long as our fearless hero from Doom 3 is there on Mars to stop the incoming invasion... :D


RE: overboard
By erikejw on 8/14/07, Rating: -1
RE: overboard
By nofumble62 on 8/15/2007 12:21:06 AM , Rating: 2
Large cache, larger task.

How many larger tasks do you encounter? Don't know. But there are 4 cores that need to be fed constantly. A farmer can tell you that you don't want to carry food for a herd in a small container, or you will need many trips back and forth.

This is the reason why AMD has not achieved any performance gain with their large memory bandwidth yet.


RE: overboard
By uzum4ki on 8/15/2007 7:03:34 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
This is the reason why AMD has not achieved any performance gain with their large memory bandwidth yet.

While cache may make a large difference in latency on Intel's chips, it's less of a concern on AMD's due to the on-die memory controller. I therefore call shens on you, /gg sir.


RE: overboard
By maroon1 on 8/15/2007 12:43:32 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
While cache may make a large difference in latency on Intel's chips


Really ?!

Have you read this article
http://www.dailytech.com/Intel+Sheds+Light+on+Penr...

Intel upcoming "Penryn" will have faster cache, and it will have lower latency than the current processors.


RE: overboard
By uzum4ki on 8/15/2007 6:28:10 PM , Rating: 3
Perhaps I should have said "cache size" and if the newer cache is faster, that's fantastic, I plan on getting one at release. However your reply is irrelevant to my comment as it is still true that on AMDs chips, cache size is less of a concern.


RE: overboard
By akyp on 8/14/2007 11:10:02 PM , Rating: 2
640kB RAM was considered too much, once upon a time.


RE: overboard
By sirius4k on 8/15/2007 1:40:52 AM , Rating: 2
LOL ^^ That is correct.

Let's just stop those too-much posts, shall we ? :)

There's never too much processing power
There's never too much memory
There's never too much dataspace
There's never too much graphics power
Specially when it comes to serving hundreds/thousands of ppl. M'kay?
And we ARE discussing about Intels heavyweight-class here.

Just because some of you surf in internet, read your everyday mail, watch movies and occasionally play maybe even Solitare doesn't mean that something out there that has much much more power then your machine does, is pointless.

People who think like that are holding back the evolution of technology :P
And that's no good.<EOF>


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