Intel releases six-core processors

Intel today claimed its new Xeon 7400 Series processors could increase performance by almost 50 percent.

The new processors in the 7400 series consist of seven 45-nanometre-manufactured processors, each with up to six processing cores per chip and 16 MB of shared cache memory.

“The arrival of these processors extends Intel’s lead in the high-end server segment,” said Tom Kilroy, Intel VP and GM of the Digital Enterprise Group.

“With new features such as additional cores, large shared caches and advanced virtualisation technologies, the Xeon 7400 series delivers record-breaking performance that will lead enterprises into the next wave of virtualisation deployments.”

Intel said that applications built for virtualised environments and data-demanding workloads, such as databases, business intelligence, enterprise resource planning and server consolidation, could experience “dramatic” performance increases.

“We’ve made some advancements to improve both performance in a virtualised environment, as well as improve the virtualisation capability that you’re able to do for some of the new virtualisation models, like Virtualisation 2.0,” said Shannon Poulin, Enterprise Marketing Director.

“We see the need for virtualised infrastructure growing at a rate that will probably be double or triple in a couple of years.”

Platforms based on these processors can scale up to 16 processor 'sockets' to deliver servers with up to 96 processing cores inside.

The 7400 series has already set new four-socket and eight-socket world records on key industry benchmarks for virtualisation, database, enterprise resource planning and e-commerce.

Intel said that the new range delivered 50 per cent better performance with up to 10 per cent reductions in platform power. Poulin said that developers would snap up this extra performance for better applications.

“As we deliver more performance on the platform, people are going to increasingly creative ways to utilise this performance," Poulin said.