Intel preps new Xeons for March 16 launch

The word on the street is that chip maker Intel will finally get around to launching its new Xeon processors on March 16, and AMD will follow up with its new Opterons sometime near the end of the month. Let the marketeering begin. It is unclear at this time if Intel will launch both the six-core "Westmere-EP" processors for …

[Nate Amsden]

funny timing

Just a few days ago I wrote a blog entry dreaming about what I called a "48 all round" system which has 48 cpu cores, 48 dimm sockets and 48GBps of networking(4x10GbE and 2x4Gbps Fiber) on a single full length blade(preferably HP c class)for use with vmware.

Certainly not a creative way of using it, so I won't bother submitting it just thought it was interesting timing.

http://www.techopsguys.com/2010/02/28/fourty-eight-all-round/

[Anonymous Coward]

Itanium is in a whole word of hurt

I would use the 48 core system to run HP-UX and replace all of our superdomes which have crappy virtualization software. Integrity Virtual Machine is awful. The overhead is insane and the support of Windows and Linux is a joke. I am sure AMD would love to beat Intel at its own game here. Oh thats right sorry HP-UX only runs on HP's Itanium machines and even though they are made by Intel are a completely different chip.

I guess i will have to dump HP-UX for RedHat which apparently will not be supported on HP in the future (V6) so it will be IBM who gets my business.

[Anonymous Coward]

Redhat support and Itanic rant (@ac 16/03 18:43)

Redhat support will continue for HP x86 servers (including blades), but Redhat will stop supporting HP integrity servers.

If only Intel would have lowered the prices for Itanic chips, they were what the server (and desktop industry) needed at the time, a clean break from x86. But now, they're a dying dinosaur, about to go extinct.

[JF-AMD]

I hope you like slow cooking ;)

If you are planning on turning a 4P server into a grill, good luck. At last week's analyst event we showed off the power consumption of our Magny Cours processors. Side by side, the 12 core was at about the same power consumption levels as the 6-core Istanbul at 20%, 60% and 100% utilization. It idle the 12-core was actually lower at the wall.

If you want to grill, that new 130W Beckton might be just the ticket. And with a memory buffer (like the old FB DIMM) soldered down on every memory channel as well, you can get a real good diner-style griddle going.

Hash browns anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really Amazing!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/luurv_32.png

If you stop to think back a mere 5 years... would you even think this possible? Sometimes me thinks that we take too much for granted. Now an above average Joe/Josephine can get a near super computer for less than the price of the car.

Then the next geek asks, 'But can it play COD II??" and ruins the moment.

[I. Aproveofitspendingonspecificprojects 1]

How about

Running that Windows ap what was it called advisa awf...

Vista.. gottit.

I should be able to right?

[Michael H.F. Wilkinson]

Or simply

run Crysis?

[Nater]

I'd rather have a Beckton...

It's hard to tell what kind of power draw/heat output AMD chips have since they switched to using 'make believe' numbers on their server chips awhile back. In reality, they'll probably suck down a little less power than a Xeon 76xx but with lower performance. The memory buffers? Those are a necessity when you're dealing with 16 DIMM slots per processor. That 4S Tyan motherboard AMD is giving away, it has 16 DIMM slots on the entire motherboard. At least intel isn't requiring them on systems that don't need them (Nehalem-EP/Westmere-EP).

The Magny Cours Opterons seem like a real kludge compared to the Beckton Xeons. It's pretty funny that AMD launches an MCM chip after berating intel for their non-monolithic quad core design for so long (when AMD only had dual cores). That said, the new Opterons will probably be a quite competitive kludge. intel took their sweet time with Beckton, no doubt because of the system's complexity. I wonder how far out the supposed 'Eagleton' processor is? It packs 12-cores/ 24-threads and 36MB of L3 cache onto one continuous die that fits into the same LGA1567 socket.

[Nater]

Oh, and Crysis

Seriously, get over it. It's not too much to ask a Core i5 750 with an HD 5870 to run Crysis at 1920x1200 with high levels of visual quality. I have no trouble running the game with a Q6600 and GTX 275 on a 24" panel. The reason Crysis was so hard to run for so long was due to AMD's lack of a competitive product and nVidia resting on it's laurels because of it.