Intel unveiled its latest generation Xeon processor E5-2600/1600 v3 product families for software-defined data center loads, including in servers, workstations, storage and networking infrastructure. The big improvements over the previous generation include 3X performance gain, better energy efficiency and enhanced security. The devices use Intel's 22nm, 3-D Tri-Gate technology.
Some highlights of the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 product family:
- A new cache monitoring feature provides data to enable orchestration tools to intelligently place and rebalance workloads resulting in faster completion times. This also provides the ability to conduct analysis of performance anomalies due to competition for cache in a multitenant cloud environment where there is little visibility into what workloads consumers are running.
- New platform telemetry sensors and metrics for CPU, memory and I/O utilization. With the addition of thermal sensors for airflow and outlet temperature, the visibility and control has increased significantly from the prior generation. The processors offer a holistic set of sensors and telemetry for any SDI orchestration solution to more closely monitor, manage and control system utilization to help maximize data center efficiency for a lower total cost of ownership.
- Up to 18 cores per socket and 45MB of last-level cache. This represents up to 50 percent more cores and cache compared to the previous generation processors.
- An extension to Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions 2 (Intel AVX2)4 doubles the width of vector integer instructions to 256 bits per clock cycle for integer sensitive workloads and delivers up to 1.9x higher performance gains.
- Increased virtualization density, allowing support for up to 70 percent more VMs per server compared to the previous generation processors.
- Memory bandwidth constrained workloads will gain up to 1.4x higher performance compared to the previous generation with the support of next-generation DDR4 memory.
- Intel Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions (Intel AES-NI) have also been enhanced to accelerate data encryption and decryption by up to 2x without sacrificing application response times.
- New "per-core" power states dynamically regulate and adjust power in each processor core for more power-efficient workload processing.
Intel also noted that the Xeon E5-2600 v3 processors can be paired with the Intel Communications Chipset 89xx series featuring Intel Quick Assist Technology to enable faster encryption and compression performance to improve security in a wide range of workloads.
In addition, the new Intel Ethernet Controller XL710 family helps address the increasing demands on networks with capabilities to enable better performance for virtualized servers and networks. The flexible 10/40 gigabit Ethernet controller provides twice the bandwidth while consuming half the power compared with the previous generation.
"The digital services economy imposes new requirements on the data center, requirements for automated, dynamic and scalable service delivery," said Diane Bryant, senior vice president and general manager of the Data Center Group at Intel. "Our new Intel processors deliver unmatched performance, energy efficiency and security, as well as provide visibility into the hardware resources required to enable software defined infrastructure. By enabling the re-architecture of the data center, Intel is helping companies fully exploit the benefits of cloud-based services."
http://www.intel.com
