Ivy Bridge servers and more to come
Although Intel has yet to green-light products based on its Xeon E3-1200 v2 family of server processors, that hasn't stopped Dell jumping the gun and announcing plans to use the new chips, based on the 22nm Ivy Bridge architecture, to boost the performance and lower the TDP of its PowerEdge C5220 microserver platform.
Don't be fooled by the 'microserver' tag here. We're not talking about miniature small-business servers, designed to sit unobtrusively on the desk or a shelf, but high-density rack-mount hardware for use in shared datacentres. Indeed, the C5220 is based on a 3U chassis capable of accommodating 8-12 server 'sleds', each with a socket for one of the new processors plus four memory slots.
Despite the lack of an offical launch, there's little that's not already known about the Ivy Bridge Xeons, which will employ the same Tri-Gate transistor technology as desktop variants already in the wild. In addition, they will deliver essential server-like features such as support for ECC memory and on-chip virtualisation — plus, of course, 64-bit processing across multiple cores with HyperThreading.
Dell hasn't said which of the new v2 processors it will employ, but has indicated that low-power 17W and 45W implementations will be included, with the former likely to be dual core and the latter quad core. As a result, the company is claiming an up to 95 percent performance increase compared to previous-generation Xeons.
It also boasts up to 50 percent greater rack density, although that doesn't mean being able to slot more server sleds into the chassis. Rather you'll get the same processing power using slimmer sleds, with room for twelve of these compared to eight when the fatter sleds (needed to accommodate the heatsinks on higher wattage processors) are deployed.
Starting at $12,207 for a chassis and one sled, the PowerEdge C5220 with the new E3-1200 v2 processors will be available on May 22. Like other PowerEdge C servers, however, it won't be available online or through resellers. Neither is it likely to be the only product to get the Ivy Bridge upgrade, although we will have to wait for the official Intel launch on May 14 to find out what else Dell, and other vendors, have in store.
May 14 will also see the launch of the 4P Xeon E5-4600 plus the small-business Xeon E5-2400, which we've been testing here at ZDNet, so expect an exclusive preview of a new server based on this processor on the day.
Alan Stevens