Intel Launches Eight Core, 16 Thread Nehalem-EX

UPDATE: We've added in a couple new videos from Intel and IBM talking about the Nehalem-EX architecture and application.

In the enthusiast space for Intel fans, Gulftown may have just arrived with its hexacore power, but the world's largest chipmaker has a special new product for the server space.

Intel today launched the Xeon 7500 processor series, which offers up to eight cores packed in a single chip that's able to handle 16 threads at once.  Systems can include up to 256 chips per server to combine for 2,048 cores and 4,098 threads.

"The Xeon 7500 brings mission critical capabilities to the mainstream by delivering the most significant leap in performance, scalability and reliability ever seen from Intel," said Kirk Skaugen, vice president of the Intel architecture group and general manager of Intel's data center group. "This combination will help users push to new levels of productivity, and accelerate the industry's migration away from proprietary architectures. We are democratizing high-end computing."

This Xeon series is the first of the family to possess Machine Check Architecture (MCA) Recovery, a feature that allows the silicon to work with the operating system and virtual machine manager to recover from otherwise fatal system errors, a mechanism until now found only in the company's Itanium processor family and RISC processors.

The new Nehalem-EX chips won't be cheap though; the hexacore X7542 model starts at $1,980 and the octacore X7560 is $3,692.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
  • coopchennick
    Yes, it can play it.

    ...play what, I don't know what you're getting at...
    Reply
  • shadow187
    That's great and all, but come on guys. We're going to need more than cores. 100 cores at 2ghz each might be nice, but to be honest, I'd rather have 20 cores at 10ghz each.

    What I'm saying is, I'd rather we see improvements against the hertz barrier, not the core/threading. I mean, if we get an 8,000mhz processor, give each core 4 threads! (Though I do not know if this is possible (I don't know how hyperthreading works) ).
    Reply
  • lgmtk
    "Yes, it can play it."
    oh come on marcus you are no fun...

    on that same note - WOW.
    Reply
  • brett1042002
    coopchennick...play what, I don't know what you're getting at...
    Duck Hunt
    Reply
  • webbwbb
    It'll be nice when this hits the consumer market. I would love to see how after effects performs on that. Also, in paragraph 2 I think you meant 4,096 threads, not 4,098.
    Reply
  • 4098 or 4096
    Reply
  • jhansonxi
    I'm waiting for some manufacturer to jam one in a laptop just to prove they could.
    Reply
  • lauxenburg
    Too bad AMD has 12 cores and 16 cores by summer. ^ ^
    Reply
  • shin0bi272
    so anyone taking bets as to how long it will be before we see 8 core desktops? 6 core xeons came out 2 years ago this july IIRC and we just got 6 core desktops (*and they only cost your first born son).
    Reply
  • touchdowntexas13
    brett1042002Duck Hunt
    Speaking of duck hunt, I recently tried to play duck hunt on my old nintendo only to find out that the game does not work with LCD screens...

    It was a bit of a disappointment, but I guess I shoulda known.
    Reply