Intel Corporation introduced 17 enterprise-class processors today, led by the Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series. They are Intel’s most revolutionary server processors since addressing the market with the Intel Pentium® Pro processor almost 15 years ago.
The new enterprise-class chips can automatically adjust to specified energy usage levels, and speed data center transactions and customer database queries. They also will play a key role in scientific discoveries by researchers who use supercomputers as their foundation for research, all whilst delivering great energy efficiency for reduced electricity costs.
The Intel Xeon processor 5500 series, previously codenamed “Nehalem-EP,” offers several breakthrough technologies that radically improve system speed and versatility. Technologies such as Intel® Turbo Boost Technology, Intel Hyper-Threading Technology, integrated power gates, and Next-Generation Intel Virtualization Technology (VT) improved through extended page tables, allow the system to adapt to a broad range of workloads.
“The Intel Xeon processor 5500 series is the foundation for the next decade of innovation,” said Patrick Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group. “These chips showcase groundbreaking advances in performance, virtualization and workload management, which will create opportunities to solve the world’s most complex challenges and push the limits of science and technology.”
Fifteen Billion Connected Devices:
As use of the Internet expands toward Intel’s vision of 15 billion connected devices, the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series will also power an upcoming transformation for the Internet’s infrastructure. The high-tech industry has rallied around a goal to run applications from optimized processors and computing hardware that are available on-demand and scalable to the masses. Often called cloud computing, this vision could flourish helped by the adaptability, capability and intelligence of the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series.
Greatest Intel Xeon Performance Leap in History1:
With over 30 new world records2 the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series establishes new standards for two-socket performance while delivering gains of more than double the previous- generation Intel Xeon processor 5400 series.
Fujitsu’s PRIMERGY* server platforms set records for SPECint*_rate_base2006 and SPECfp*_rate_base2006 with scores of 240 and 194, respectively. The HP ProLiant DL370 G6 server, on the TPC*-C benchmark, shattered the previous record with a score of 631,766 tpmC using the Oracle 11g database. Using the SAP*-SD benchmark, the IBM System x* 3650 M2 server set a record with a score of 5100 SD users. Cisco delivered an outstanding result on SPEComp*Mbase2001, a high performance computing benchmark which helps evaluate performance of OpenMP applications, that was 154 percent better than previous generation 5400 series. On the SPECpower*_ssj2008 benchmark, which measures energy-efficient performance of servers, a Xeon 5500 series-based Verari Systems VB1305 server platform smashed the previous world record with a score of 1943 ssj_ops/watt. Using the VMmark* benchmark, which measures virtualization performance, several Xeon 5500 series-based platforms shattered the previous record by as much as 150 percent versus the previous-generation Intel Xeon processor 5400 series, including a Dell* PowerEdge R710 platform score of 23.55@16 tiles.
Dynamic Leaps in Intelligence:
Whether businesses are running high-capacity transactions or simulations, or researchers are striving to discover new energy resources or distant galaxies, computers based on the adaptable Intel Xeon processor 5500 series will play a big impact. Equipped with triple the memory bandwidth of previous server processors, Intel Xeon processor 5500 series-based platforms effortlessly manage a variety of workloads and conditions. A new feature, Intel Turbo Boost Technology, increases system performance based on the user’s workload and environment, dynamically boosting the clock speed of one or more of the individual processing cores.