Intel announced its six-core 45nm Intel Xeon Processor 7400 Series products this week. The new series will feature up to six-cores on a single chip with 16MB of shared cache. The processors are built for demanding enterprise applications needing significant processing power like virtualized applications, data workloads, business intelligence and more.
According to Intel, some applications will see almost 50% performance increase. Server platforms using the new 7400 series processors will be able to scale to up to 16 processor sockets making servers with up to 96 cores available.
Tom Kilron, Intel VP and general manager of the Digital Enterprise Group said in a statement, "The arrival of these processors extends Intel's lead in the high-end server segment. 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 virtualization technologies, the Xeon® 7400 series delivers record-breaking performance that will lead enterprises into the next wave of virtualization deployments."
Intel reports that systems using the new processors have set records on four-socket and eight-socket industry benchmarks. IBM set a record of 1.2 million tpmC result on an eight-socket System x3950 M2 server. It also set a record with a four-socket server System x3850 M2 of 684,508 tpmC on the TPC*-C benchmark.
IBM announced its servers based on the new CPUs the same day Intel announced the CPUs. The servers IBM used to set the previously mentioned records -- the System X3950 M2 -- is the first single system to break the 1 million transactions per minute barrier on the TPc-C benchmark. The system offers record setting performance, but still reduces the overall power consumption by 37%.
IBM's VP of System x, James Northington said in a statement, " As the market leader in high-end x86 servers and the only vendor to design its own chip set for Intel-based servers, IBM is addressing the performance needs of our clients and the growing demand for scale up x86 servers. The new System x servers announced today provide the innovation our x86 clients have come to expect, with better performance and power usage than our competitors' offerings."
IBM System x3850 M2 and x3950 systems will be available in September at $10,389 and $13,389 respectively. Intel isn’t only improving on its server CPUs; roadmaps show that the firm's next generation Atom processors will be available in Q3 of 2009. Intel continues to rely heavily on both server and low-cost netbook CPUs in the face of weakening consumer spending on technology products.