Intel To Launch Xeon E7 Ivytown ?Ivy Bridge-EX? Processor With 15 Cores and 30 Thread

[Heinz68]

Intel has announced that they would soon launch their latest 15 core Xeon E7 Ivytown processor for high-end servers. Only a few month back at IDF13, Intel announced their latest Xeon E5-2600 V2 processors based upon the Ivy bridge architecture.

Intel To Launch Xeon E7 Ivytown ?Ivy Bridge-EX? Processor With 15 Cores

The Xeon E7 processors would be part of Intel?s Ivy Bridge-EX lineup which includes the flagship Xeon E7-8800 processor with 15 cores and 30 threads. Till now, Intel only had 12 cores and 24 threads on their Xeon E5 based Xeon E5-2697 v2 and Xeon E5-2695 v2 processors. While the flagship chip would debut under the Xeon E7-8800 branding, Intel would also launch several Xeon E7 8800/4800/2800 v2 based processors which will hit market soon.

Read more at WCCDtech

[zalbard]

It's a shame they are so expensive, I really need more parallel processing power.

[Zaxx]

Man...what a beasty cpu. heh...I wish I needed that much processing power.

[tajoh111]

I wish AMD's core were faster per core, Intel would be forced to give us more cores. One thing Intel has completely held back at with its consumer processors is the number of cores. We had quadcores 7 years ago and for the most part that's what Intel is still giving us today. When we want 6, they more than double the price.

AMD gave us 8 cores(or 4 depending on how we look at it) a while back but the problem is their 8 cores don't perform like 8 cores. AMD processors perform more along the lines of 3 of Intels cores with a little bit of overclocking to make up for the deficit for 90% of the tasks out there. I thought we were going to see piledriver shine with atleast battlefield 4, but they lose pretty badly to Intel processors.

Once something beyond 4 cores becomes mainstream, then maybe we can see more programming for it. But with Intel dominating this market and rightfully so, they have grown complacent with only giving 4 cores, when it should be more at this point. I don't think it cost's Intel that much to manufacture an extra couple cores. I think Intel spends most of its money on R and D and the Fab plant itself.

[NEOAethyr]

I didn't know they were coming out with a 15 core chip...
I knew of a 12 core.

Kinda odd though, you'de think it was a 16 core, I think it is..., but is yield that bad or are they holding back even on these parts?

@tajoh111
I don't think the avg person needs anything past a quad or a quasi 8 core, at least not right now.

It would be cool if we had 64 core chips right now though lol .
Or maybe 128, and 256 threads...
Past that you may need some os updates .

[naokaji]

Kinda odd though, you'd think it was a 16 core, I think it is..., but is yield that bad or are they holding back even on these parts?

Its likely three 6 cores with one each disabled, I'd suspect they are holding back to meet TDP targets rather than due to yields.

[Zaxx]

Bet it's got a truck load of cache too...

[bearcatrp]

Am waiting for MM to chime in on his pair he will be testing (hopefully).

[AliG]

Its likely three 6 cores with one each disabled, I'd suspect they are holding back to meet TDP targets rather than due to yields.

While that seems possible, I'm not sure I've ever heard of 3 dies slapped together before. I'm wondering if it's two 8 core cpus slapped together, but with one core disabled to improve yield. Eitherway 15 is still a rather odd number (no pun intended)

[zalbard]

While that seems possible, I'm not sure I've ever heard of 3 dies slapped together before. I'm wondering if it's two 8 core cpus slapped together, but with one core disabled to improve yield.

Most likely the case.

[OldChap]

I didn't know they were coming out with a 15 core chip...
I knew of a 12 core.

Kinda odd though, you'de think it was a 16 core, I think it is..., but is yield that bad or are they holding back even on these parts?

@tajoh111
I don't think the avg person needs anything past a quad or a quasi 8 core, at least not right now.

It would be cool if we had 64 core chips right now though lol .
Or maybe 128, and 256 threads...
Past that you may need some os updates .

I first heard about the proposal for a 15core cpu about a year ago so I doubt that yield is in question here. tdp target maybe.

I'm a pretty average guy, I just crunch a lot so I want MOAR COARZ

I also think it would be nice to see 32core and 64 core sooner rather than later or how about developing cpus that will run in multi processor mode so that all you need is motherboard(s) with lots of sockets

[lutjens]

This processor is basically the full meal deal, with all cores enabled (and hopefully all 37.5MB of cache as well). The existing 12 core chips are likely harvested versions of these. These processors will be very nice chips for servers, but their locked multiplier and BCLK straps unfortunately guarantee that their full potential will never be reached, which is truly sad.

A pity too, as I'd gladly pay their MSRP if they were unlocked. In their locked configuration, however, they are about as exciting as a Bugatti Veyron that has been detuned to 1/3 of its horsepower and governed to 55mph.

[hecktic]

This processor is basically the full meal deal, with all cores enabled (and hopefully all 37.5MB of cache as well). The existing 12 core chips are likely harvested versions of these. These processors will be very nice chips for servers, but their locked multiplier and BCLK straps unfortunately guarantee that their full potential will never be reached, which is truly sad.

A pity too, as I'd gladly pay their MSRP if they were unlocked. In their locked configuration, however, they are about as exciting as a Bugatti Veyron that has been detuned to 1/3 of its horsepower and governed to 55mph.

'

INTC has to make money...an unlocked version wont be seen for a while I think and the price tag will be sky high on those chips.

But anyways 15 core is a beast..... and if the motherboard is Dual CPU this means your getting 30 cores (or 32 cores total if it ends up being true that 1 core per physical chip is disabled taking it from 16 to 15 cores) which is just about at the 32 mark someone mentioned earlier. And if the board supports 4 CPUs (hey its possible...) then its 60 cores (or 64 cores depending on how it turns out to be) and that will be an enormous amount of raw CPU horse power!

Its too bad a lot of the software dev are not catching up to this kind of processing power. But then again these chips are for server configurations not desktop haha although you can still use it as a desktop cpu

Personally I run complex financial modeling software along with a lot of other memory and cpu intensive applications so I may just try this chip out for my next upgrade.

I run multiple monitors also each running its own set of programs and tasks so this CPU should really help.

I bet it will cost like $4,000 hahaha

[lutjens]

'

INTC has to make money...an unlocked version wont be seen for a while I think and the price tag will be sky high on those chips.

But anyways 15 core is a beast..... and if the motherboard is Dual CPU this means your getting 30 cores (or 32 cores total if it ends up being true that 1 core per physical chip is disabled taking it from 16 to 15 cores) which is just about at the 32 mark someone mentioned earlier. And if the board supports 4 CPUs (hey its possible...) then its 60 cores (or 64 cores depending on how it turns out to be) and that will be an enormous amount of raw CPU horse power!

Its too bad a lot of the software dev are not catching up to this kind of processing power. But then again these chips are for server configurations not desktop haha although you can still use it as a desktop cpu

Personally I run complex financial modeling software along with a lot of other memory and cpu intensive applications so I may just try this chip out for my next upgrade.

I run multiple monitors also each running its own set of programs and tasks so this CPU should really help.

I bet it will cost like $4,000 hahaha

Intel definitely wouldn't sell fewer of these chips if they were unlocked, on the contrary, they would probably sell a few more. Not an earth-shattering amount more, but a few more, nonetheless.

I'm sure there will be neutered versions of this chip that will cost $4,000, but the fully-fledged flagship is going to go for much more than that price. I'm not sure what difference there is (if any) between this chip and the E7-8890 V2 that is slated to become the flagship of the Ivy Bridge-EX lineup, but the latter's MSRP is rumored to be north of $7,000 USD. Whatever the difference (again, if any...they may be the same chip with simply a new name) between them ends up being technologically will determine how much less the new chip will potentially be.

The best we can hope for as enthusiasts is a high TDP version (although such a version, if part of the production SKU stack, is highly unlikely to be the full 15C/37.5MB cache version). I do hope that I'm very wrong though and that Intel pulls out the stops and surprises us with something truly drool worthy.

[zalbard]

Intel has to keep people upgrading. And since there is no competition, they have to artificially limit their chips to make each new iteration more attractive.

I don't see them offering full performance versions.

[vitchilo]

Intel should AT LEAST fully unlock their top processor... hell when you pay 7k$ for a CPU, you deserve it.

[AliG]

Intel should AT LEAST fully unlock their top processor... hell when you pay 7k$ for a CPU, you deserve it.

I don't think this is aimed at general consumers lol. Eitherway, I'm sure if you called Intel you could probably get an unlocked one directly through them (it may end up being an engineering sample though)

[NKrader]

next question,

when is dave getting his pair?

[MadHacker]

is it possible that there are only 15 cores because they had to set aside a some die space for GPU?

[AliG]

is it possible that there are only 15 cores because they had to set aside a some die space for GPU?

I personally don't see it happening, considering none of the current E7 processors have an igp and last I heard their big project was eventually cancelled. However I wouldn't put it past them to strike a deal with NVIDIA to integrate a specialized GPGPU processor into to die. I have no idea how they would deal with the thermals and power consumption, but that would provide a tremendous amount of theoretical server performance.

[zalbard]

I personally don't see it happening, considering none of the current E7 processors have an igp and last I heard their big project was eventually cancelled. However I wouldn't put it past them to strike a deal with NVIDIA to integrate a specialized GPGPU processor into to die. I have no idea how they would deal with the thermals and power consumption, but that would provide a tremendous amount of theoretical server performance.

That's not happening, they already promote their own MIC arch as GPGPU.

Besides, Nvidia is more interested in ARM right now (Project Denver).

[kuroikenshi]

next question,

when is dave getting his pair?

I think the questions begs to be made as follows "when will Dave tell us about how well these bad boys overclock"?

[kuroikenshi]

I wish AMD's core were faster per core, Intel would be forced to give us more cores. One thing Intel has completely held back at with its consumer processors is the number of cores. We had quadcores 7 years ago and for the most part that's what Intel is still giving us today. When we want 6, they more than double the price.

AMD gave us 8 cores(or 4 depending on how we look at it) a while back but the problem is their 8 cores don't perform like 8 cores. AMD processors perform more along the lines of 3 of Intels cores with a little bit of overclocking to make up for the deficit for 90% of the tasks out there. I thought we were going to see piledriver shine with atleast battlefield 4, but they lose pretty badly to Intel processors.

Once something beyond 4 cores becomes mainstream, then maybe we can see more programming for it. But with Intel dominating this market and rightfully so, they have grown complacent with only giving 4 cores, when it should be more at this point. I don't think it cost's Intel that much to manufacture an extra couple cores. I think Intel spends most of its money on R and D and the Fab plant itself.

I hope you understand that this is SERVER CPU's news, not desktop CPU's.

Intel has been giving us quad core Xeons since Nov 2006, however things work differently in the commercial sector, when you say "when we want 6, they more than double the price". well I have many colleagues who do not run a single Xeon in their company, I also know some that run several. however I do not see the retail market saying they want six cores plus since most workloads are not optimised for it.

You're talking about AMD's bulldozer, I think you should look at opteron's magny-core processors which if you read the article properly state that they're still competitive in their industry which is where they're being sold.

[hecktic]

what is the expected price tag at launch ?

[zalbard]

what is the expected price tag at launch ?

An arm for the low-frequency version, and a leg for the high-frequency one.