Intel recently updated its line of high-performance Xeon processors for workstations and servers. TYAN, a member of the Seagate Cloud Builder Alliance, has announced that many of its products, including motherboards and barebones systems, will support the new architectures after a simple BIOS update.
In an article for ZDNet, Nick Heath explained that the new Xeon E5-2600 v2 chip features a 22nm architecture that makes it more energy efficient. Additionally, the chips support a maximum of 12 cores, up from the eight allowed in their predecessors, and now have up to 30 MB of Level 3 cache. With this combination of power and efficiency, the updated processors will be especially useful on servers that dynamically shift between workloads on the cloud and in databases.
Intel has moved Xeon from the old Sandy Bridge architecture to Ivy Bridge, explained IDG News Service’s Agam Shah. In total, 18 Ivy Bridge-based chips were announced for two-socket servers, with clock speeds between 1.7 and 3.5 GHz and new features specifically designed for better networking and cloud storage.
“The Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v2 product family delivers up to 45 percent more performance and 40 percent more energy efficiency over servers shipped last year due to 50 percent more cores and cache along with efficiencies associated with our 22nm tri-gate process technology,” said Intel vice president Shannon Poulin. “Customers can expect increased virtualization performance, VM density, and platform and data protection technologies to meet growing demand.”
TYAN revealed that a wide range of its products now integrate support for the Xeon E5-2600 v2. The additional cores and threads possible on the latest Xeons will boost TYAN’s solutions targeted at the general server market, as well as its FT77B-B7059 server platform for GPGPU deployment. The latter will feature two processors, eight GPUs and multiple 3.5 inch HDDs for high capacity storage.
