Sandy Bridge-E: 17 New Xeon CPUs for Q4

Later this year, Intel will launch the Romley-EP dual-socket platform, comprised of 17 different E5-2600 models. The E5-2600 line-up will consist of 2, 4, 6 and 8 cores, operating at frequencies up to 3.3 GHz, and featuring up to 20 MB of L3 cache. They will be supported on the LGA 2011 socket.

Xeon E5-2600 series is going to have eight 8 cores (16 threads) with 20 MB of L3 cache. In this processor family are the Xeon E5-2650, E5-2650L, E5-2660, E5-2665, E5-2670, E5-2680, E5-2687W and E5-2690. The fastest 8-core Xeon, the E5-2687W, is clocked at 3.1 GHz with a 150 W TDP.

There will be five 6-core (12 threads) chips with 15 MB of L3 cache: the Xeon E5-2620, E5-2630, E5-2630L, E5-2640 and E5-2667. These chips will run at frequencies ranging from 2 GHz to 2.9 GHz.

There will be three 4-core chips with 10 MB of L3 cache. The processors are Xeon E5-2643, E5-2603 and E5-2609. The E5-2643 has the highest core frequency of 3.3 GHz in the whole line-up and will have Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost.

The two entry-level Xeons, E5-2603 and E5-2609, on the other hand, do not support Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost technologies. The 2603 and 2609 chips are clocked at 1.8 GHz and 2.4 GHz, have a TDP of 80 Watt and have a maximum supported DDR3 memory data rate of 1066 MHz.

Xeon E5-2637 is a dual-core CPU with 3 GHz clock speed, 5 MB L3 cache, and 80 Watt TDP.

Specifications of all upcoming E5-2600 processors are provided in the table below:

Model	Cores	Threads	Frequency	L3 cache	DDR3 support	TDP
Xeon E5-2603	4	4	1.8 GHz	10 MB	DDR3-1066	80 Watt
Xeon E5-2609	4	4	2.4 GHz	10 MB	DDR3-1066	80 Watt
Xeon E5-2620	6	12	2 GHz	15 MB	DDR3-1333	95 Watt
Xeon E5-2630	6	12	2.3 GHz	15 MB	DDR3-1333	95 Watt
Xeon E5-2630L	6	12	2 GHz	15 MB	DDR3-1333	60 Watt
Xeon E5-2637	2	4	3 GHz	5 MB	DDR3-1600	80 Watt
Xeon E5-2640	6	12	2.5 GHz	15 MB	DDR3-1333	95 Watt
Xeon E5-2643	4	8	3.3 GHz	10 MB	DDR3-1600	130 Watt
Xeon E5-2650	8	16	2 GHz	20 MB	DDR3-1600	95 Watt
Xeon E5-2650L	8	16	1.8 GHz	20 MB	DDR3-1600	70 Watt
Xeon E5-2660	8	16	2.2 GHz	20 MB	DDR3-1600	95 Watt
Xeon E5-2665	8	16	2.4 GHz	20 MB	DDR3-1600	115 Watt
Xeon E5-2667	6	12	2.9 GHz	15 MB	DDR3-1600	130 Watt
Xeon E5-2670	8	16	2.6 GHz	20 MB	DDR3-1600	115 Watt
Xeon E5-2680	8	16	2.7 GHz	20 MB	DDR3-1600	130 Watt
Xeon E5-2687W	8	16	3.1 GHz	20 MB	DDR3-1600	150 Watt
Xeon E5-2690	8	16	2.9 GHz	20 MB	DDR3-1600	135 Watt

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Top Comments

sseyler Aug 27, 2011, 1:57 AM

Damn, that's a lot of cache.
19
dragonsqrrl Aug 27, 2011, 2:09 AM

These processors are going to offer absolutely beastly performance, especially in dual processor configurations. Imagine a tweaked Sandy Bridge architecture, coupled with much more L3 cache, a quad channel memory controller, 40 on die PCIe 3.0 lanes, with 8-cores/16-threads. I can't wait to see the benchmarks later this year, this is going to be epic.
14

Other Comments

sseyler Aug 27, 2011, 1:57 AM

Damn, that's a lot of cache.
19
subasteve5800 Aug 27, 2011, 1:58 AM

Is anyone else slightly puzzled why the E5-2690 is slower than the E5-2687W? Wouldn't it have made more sense to switch the names?
3
dragonsqrrl Aug 27, 2011, 2:09 AM

These processors are going to offer absolutely beastly performance, especially in dual processor configurations. Imagine a tweaked Sandy Bridge architecture, coupled with much more L3 cache, a quad channel memory controller, 40 on die PCIe 3.0 lanes, with 8-cores/16-threads. I can't wait to see the benchmarks later this year, this is going to be epic.
14
Eman25th Aug 27, 2011, 2:13 AM

subasteve5800Is anyone else slightly puzzled why the E5-2690 is slower than the E5-2687W? Wouldn't it have made more sense to switch the names?

yeah i was thinking the same thing, probably could just buy the faster one and underclock it for the power saving >.>
0
silverblue Aug 27, 2011, 2:19 AM

150W?

Having said that, 20MB of L3 is astounding.

Notice this announcement only a short time before Bulldozer is due to arrive (maybe)?
8
jprahman Aug 27, 2011, 2:19 AM

Has anyone else noticed theE-2687W with it's 150W TDP?! I mean 20MB L3, 8 Physical and 16 Logical cores, all running at 3.1GHz, I can't imagine that it'll be cheap. I have to admin I agree with ssleyler, I'm somewhat surprised with the extremely large amounts of L3 cache that these chips have. I've heard that with Nahelem Intel engineers used 2MB of L3 per core as a rule of thumb as they believed that it was the optimal amount for best performance, looks like they've decided to go a little above that 2MB/Core figure for Sandy-Bridge-E.
4
gmp23 Aug 27, 2011, 2:25 AM

I would feel like a dope for upgrading to the i7 2600k a week ago, but the price tag on these babies is going to be ridiculous.
-1
amk09 Aug 27, 2011, 2:29 AM

gmp23I would feel like a dope for upgrading to the i7 2600k a week ago, but the price tag on these babies is going to be ridiculous.

the 2600k will be a top-tier CPU capable of pretty much anything for years to come, you shouldn't feel like a dope at all
7
greliu Aug 27, 2011, 2:46 AM

These seem like they would be ridiculous lol, but so will the price... I think.
1
halcyon Aug 27, 2011, 2:48 AM

I look forward to seeing a Mac Pro with 2x8-core CPUs. The virtual networking I could do would be a lot of fun.
-10
bak0n Aug 27, 2011, 3:14 AM

Lemme guess. A new chip-set that will have no future upgrade-ability forcing individuals to swap their motherboard anytime they want a processor upgrade.

I'll stay with AMD xxthx.
-1
dalethepcman Aug 27, 2011, 3:14 AM

So the xeon e3 and xeon e5 have been released. I wonder what the xeon e7 will be...

Personally I see the E5-2650L being the sweet spot. 70 watts for 8 cores is incredible, and in all of our server clusters getting more power is the limiting factor. So decreasing the power requirements of the systems will allow us to install additional racks to add to the farm.

Packing four of these into a single blade would deliver incredible performance.
-1
Anonymous Aug 27, 2011, 3:19 AM

halcyon: I'm assuming you mean creating a bunch of server VMs and playing Systems Engineer? Why on earth you'd consider Mac to be an optimal platform is beyond me, and you could host a he11 of a lot more VMs on a 2x12-core Opteron system running Linux for less money. You could even host plenty of VMs on a Phenom II X6 with 16GB of RAM for well under $1000.
5
halcyon Aug 27, 2011, 3:24 AM

systemz_engineerhalcyon: I'm assuming you mean creating a bunch of server VMs and playing Systems Engineer? Why on earth you'd consider Mac to be an optimal platform is beyond me, and you could host a he11 of a lot more VMs on a 2x12-core Opteron system running Linux for less money. You could even host plenty of VMs on a Phenom II X6 with 16GB of RAM for well under $1000.

...because I use my Macs for other things too that I prefer doing in OS X nowadays.
-9
christop Aug 27, 2011, 4:49 AM

I guess these will be server chips and not extreme desktop chips. I smell a huge price tag..
6
CaedenV Aug 27, 2011, 4:58 AM

bak0nLemme guess. A new chip-set that will have no future upgrade-ability forcing individuals to swap their motherboard anytime they want a processor upgrade.I'll stay with AMD xxthx.

Yes,unlike AMD these will greatly improve over the last series, and the next series will greatly improve on this one. So not only a new chipset, but a whole new socket for them as well.
Besides, these things are for major servers that you set up and then leave alone. It is not for your home network where you play a little and upgrade here and there. If that is all you are doing then a little i3/5 will do plenty.
0
jecastej Aug 27, 2011, 5:06 AM

They look terrific but what about the price? Usually These specs come with estimated prices in 1k quantities. I will love to have one of those 8 cores/16 threads but without a price I have no perspective at all.

However I can see 2 more relevant not so clear specs to me (?):

1.- They are not in direct line of GHz upgrade with the top current Xeons but they have a greater cache. The new top 6 cores 15 MB cache ones are lower clocked than current W3680 3.20 and 3.33 GHz 6 cores 12 MB cache. Will Intel release an extreme series later? Or are they fast enough and will also be cheaper?

2.- I can see they are on another thermal design too. The E5-2643 3.3 GHz, the closest Xeon to the 2600K has a 130 Watt TDP while the 2600K desktop is a 3.4 GHz is has a 95 w TDP. The same happens with the 6 cores.

They are very different beasts!

I guess it will make sense if they where somewhat lowered priced Xeons. I will have to wait and see what INTEL intended to do.
0
jecastej Aug 27, 2011, 5:08 AM

They look fine but what about the price? Usually These specs come with estimated prices in 1k quantities. I will love to have one of those 8 cores/16 threads but without a price I have no perspective at all.

However I can see 2 more relevant not so clear specs to me (?):

1.- They are not in direct line of GHz upgrade with the top current Xeons but they have a greater cache. The new top 6 cores 15 MB cache ones are lower clocked than current W3680 3.20 and 3.33 GHz 6 cores 12 MB cache. Will Intel release an extreme series later? Or are they fast enough and will also be cheaper?

2.- I can see they are on another thermal design too. The E5-2643 3.3 GHz, the closest Xeon to the 2600K has a 130 Watt TDP while the 2600K desktop is a 3.4 GHz is has a 95 w TDP. The same happens with the 6 cores.

They are very different beasts!

I guess it will make sense if they where somewhat lowered priced Xeons. I will have to wait and see what INTEL intended to do.
-4
jecastej Aug 27, 2011, 5:09 AM

Sorry!
-4
digitalrazoe Aug 27, 2011, 7:11 AM

Why does the E5-2637 intrigue me ? Now I should be more enthralled with the 2643 and the '87W (more cores slight more bump in clock. pure math is rather more dazzling) but if'n I was going to build a system with bang for the buck with an upgrade path for years to come.. a good motherboard and 2 cores at 3GHz... sounds good to me.. Now let's just hope that intel doesn't gouge us to death with their prices... I am not holding my breath.
-1

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