Intel Stuffing More Than 8 Cores Into Westmere-EX

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The more cores, the more hardcore.

Intel's octacore server chip, the Xeon 7500 Nehalem-EX, is built on the 45nm process. For the next big evolution of the Xeon line, Intel hopes to be pushing even more cores when it takes it flagship to the 32nm Westmere-EX generation.

While the Westmere 32nm technology is in the Xeon 5600, Intel plans to extend that technology to EX sometime next year.

Stephen Smith, vice president and director of PC client operations and enabling at Intel, said during a webcast speech that the upcoming Westmere-EX chips will be targeted at systems with four sockets or more. The good news is that the Westmere-EX chips will be socket compatible for those who have already invested in the latest Xeon servers.

"We are well along in development and we are confident that we have a product that will give us a great performance boost. It will go into the same sockets, so the idea here is the platform is an investment that the OEMs have made," said Smith, according to the IDG.

Although Intel didn't divulge any information on core counts or clock speeds, analysts see that hitting 12 cores (for 24 threads) is a likely possibility given that AMD already has its Magny-Cours product.

Marcus Yam
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.
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45 Comments Comment from the forums
  • godwhomismike
    Meh... Doesn't AMD have a 16-core processor slated for an early 2011 release?
    Reply
  • Impressive and all, but is there really a large demand for for a 12 core chip? Or will Intel continue to rely on Dell & Best Buy to convince consumers they need multiple cores to multitask explorer and outlook?
    Reply
  • godwhomismike
    Norwood06Impressive and all, but is there really a large demand for for a 12 core chip? Or will Intel continue to rely on Dell & Best Buy to convince consumers they need multiple cores to multitask explorer and outlook?
    Would be awesome if those 12-core chips were in the $400 range. Then it would be doable to stuff two of them on a workstation motherboard without breaking the bank too much.
    Reply
  • thackstonns
    Norwood06Impressive and all, but is there really a large demand for for a 12 core chip? Or will Intel continue to rely on Dell & Best Buy to convince consumers they need multiple cores to multitask explorer and outlook?
    These are server chips right now. I don't think you will see to many of these at best buy.
    Reply
  • mx348
    12 Core chips are defiantly needed in the server market. Hyper-V, XenServer and VMWare will allow you to further consolidate server infrastructure.
    Reply
  • mattfoo2324
    Overkill for any regular consumer that doesn't do rendering or videos (I still want one!).
    Reply
  • scott_madison1
    Norwood06 :
    Impressive and all, but is there really a large demand for for a 12 core chip? Or will Intel continue to rely on Dell & Best Buy to convince consumers they need multiple cores to multitask explorer and outlook?


    thackstonns:
    These are server chips right now. I don't think you will see to many of these at best buy.


    It's truly amazing how people can miss the point so badly isn't it? But on another note. Your saying you don't buy your servers from best buy?
    Reply
  • pooflinger1
    Norwood06Impressive and all, but is there really a large demand for for a 12 core chip? Or will Intel continue to rely on Dell & Best Buy to convince consumers they need multiple cores to multitask explorer and outlook?
    Seeing as how these are Xeon CPU's, I would say there is HUGE demand. If you can fit 12 cores in a single socket that used to house 4, or even 8, then you can drastically increase the capicity of your servers without drastically increasing the power consumption or rack space needed.
    Reply
  • techguy911
    Intel is falling behind amd has quad 12 core socket boards already out you can buy them and they are going to have a 16 core out in about 11 months.
    They also have single socket that is affordable board is $500, 12 core is $1200.
    I plan on building one for 3d animation rendering station this summer.
    Reply
  • lamorpa
    Server chip! SERVER CHIP!!

    It's the third word in the article, and it's double underlined.

    I suggest the following strategy when making a comment: Read the article (or at least the first paragraph) (or at least the first sentence!) (or at least the beginning of the first sentence!!)

    People read the comments to find out additional information, not to see how bad your reading comprehension is...
    Reply