Intel Xeon E5, what do we know?

With more businesses adopting the cloud, it was only a matter of time until a chip was designed to cater for the high-performance computing required by cloud providers.

The Xeon E5 will take over from where the Westmere architectured x5600 CPU's left off. So far, Intel have only released a few details, keeping their cards close to their chest no doubt, but what do we know for certain?

1) Cores: The new chip will have upto 8 cores.

2) Hardware: With manufacturers chomping at the bit, Intel have already agreed in excess of 400 server designs which will encorporate the new technology.

3) Throughput: Expect to see a huge enhancement in the throughput inside E5 based systems due to the PCI-E bus built into the processor.

4) Competition: The E5 will go head to head with the recently announced AMD Interlagos chips which will have upto 16 cores and has recently started shipping to server makers.

5) Target audience: It will be aimed at x86 servers with between two and four sockets.


We don't know for certain any details around the likes of clock speed or cache but I would expect to see the first IBM systems encorporating E5 around Q1 next year.