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Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Nehalem-EX - 8 cores, 16 threads, 2.3 billion transistors, very cool!

By | May 27, 2009, 5:54am PDT

Yesterday Intel revealed details of next-generation server processor, code-named Nehalem-EX, and it’s pretty cool!

As you might have guessed, the Nehalem-EX is based on the Nehalem microarchitecture, which Intel debuted with the Xeon 5500 and Core i7 series of processors. While the Xeon 5500 and Core i7 processors feature 4 cores and 8 threads (thanks to Hyper-Threading), the Nehalem-EX series is kitted out with up to 8 cores and support for up to sixteen threads. To support the cores the Nehalem-EX has 24MB of cache.

  • Intel Nehalem Architecture built on Intel’s unique 45nm high-k metal gate technology process
  • Up to 8 cores per processor
  • Up to 16 threads per processor with Intel Hyper-threading
  • Scalability up to eight sockets via Quick Path Interconnects and greater with third-party node controllers
  • QuickPath Architecture with four high-bandwidth links
  • 24MB of shared cache
  • Integrated memory controllers
  • Intel Turbo Boost Technology
  • Intel scalable memory buffer and scalable memory interconnects
  • Up to 9x the memory bandwidth of previous generation
  • Support for up to 16 memory slots per processor socket
  • Advanced RAS capabilities including MCA Recovery
  • 2.3 billion transistors

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Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology.

Disclosure

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

All opinions expressed on Hardware 2.0 are those of Adrian Kingsley-Hughes. Every effort is made to ensure that the information posted is accurate. If you have any comments, queries or corrections, please contact Adrian via the email link here. Any possible conflicts of interest will be posted below. [Updated: February 23, 2010] - Adrian Kingsley-Hughes has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other actual/potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted so far on this blog.

Biography

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over a decade to helping users get the most from technology -- whether that be by learning to program, building a PC from a pile of parts, or helping them get the most from their new MP3 player or digital camera.

Adrian has authored/co-authored technical books on a variety of topics, ranging from programming to building and maintaining PCs. His most recent books include "Build the Ultimate Custom PC", "Beginning Programming" and "The PC Doctor's Fix It Yourself Guide". He has also written training manuals that have been used by a number of Fortune 500 companies.

Adrian also runs a popular blog under the name The PC Doctor, where he covers a range of computer-related topics -- from security to repairing and upgrading.

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RE: Nehalem-EX - 8 cores, 16 threads, 2.3 billion transistors, very cool!
ChodaBoy 1st Jun 2009
True! I believe one or more companies had wafer technology that allowed 3-D chips to be built by stacking wafers. There were vertical pathways for common things like power. Pretty darn cool, but also could run pretty darn hot.

3-D CPUs need integrated cooling, which I would guess would raise the cost.
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Um, that should be good enough I guess
no_zd_user_name 27th May 2009
nt
...3 months after PCs, just like Core i7 and the rest of the Intel C2D and C2Q line-up :))))
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Huh?
WarhavenSC 27th May 2009
I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure the Mac Pro had the Core i7 Xeons several months before any consumer PC ever had it. In fact, they were shipping the brand new Xeon i7s four weeks before they officially announced.
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True but....
Sephoroth Updated - 27th May 2009
The Mac Pro was the first to get Nehalem based Xeon CPUs but Apple's line of PCs still lack standard Core i7 consumer CPUs in any of their products (Xeon's are grotesquely overpriced for standard consumer needs) which have been available since November of last year. Considering Apple got them in March and it is currently still May, I do not see how it is even possible for it to have been several months as you have stated. HP released their z800 (which offers more powerful Nehalem generation Xeon CPUs not to mention better GPUs at the downside of a higher price tag depending on the configuration) 10 days after its presence in the Mac Pro.
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Rediculous statements
ccd1977@... 28th May 2009
"but Apple's line of PCs still lack standard Core i7 consumer CPUs in any of their products"

Most PC's still do as well.

"Xeon's are grotesquely overpriced for standard consumer needs"

This comment is poor. Just opinion. The MAC Pro is usually only purchased for one reason. Power. Still this is a much better platform than most servers.

The rest of your message is really just throwing out useless marketing information. Anyone can make this type of comment.

Please give something worth reading.
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Unlike your generic and flaky as pie crust name-brand PCs...

Just sayin'...

grin

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virtual knuckle-bump
unclefixer@... 27th May 2009
Coming atcha! happy

www.dfwsupergeek.com
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And that is why...
ShadowGIATL 27th May 2009
...they outsource manufacturing to the same people in China that build several other PCs.

Makes sense.
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Amusing
caligula@... 29th May 2009
Given that I'm typing this on a Nehalem based Macintosh (a pair of
5550's) at the moment.

But don't worry, PC's will have an OS that takes advantage of all these
features, uh . . . Probably never.

Don't you poor saps still have to differentiate between 32bit and 64bit
native binaries?

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Intel needs to spec a backplane
Programmer1028 27th May 2009
It would be nice if Intel would speck out an 8x backplane that processor modules could plug into. That way multiple manufactures could build compatible modules and backplanes.

With QuickPath interconnects this is the next logical step in system design. As it is manufacturers will be building expensive, incompatible, and proprietary solutions that will result in low volumes and user frustration.
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Once these new Zeons are available Hp stock will soar! And probably bring back the Science Fair Competition with some fun for us tech interested persons. They have been the big player until Dell hit their market share with their Germany Based Alienware aquisition.
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This has nothing to do with Alienware
de-void-21165590650301806002836337787023 27th May 2009
This processor is (initially) aimed at the server market - primarily the virtualized server market.

FWIW, while I agree that HP have some great kit, Dell (and others) have a great range of servers too. I bought my first Dell PowerEdge in 1998 and it powered our website for over 8 years.
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What?
ShadowGIATL 27th May 2009
"They have been the big player until Dell hit their market share with their Germany Based Alienware aquisition."

Germany based Alienware? Alienware and Dell are both based in the US. Alienware is in Florida, and Dell in Texas. Also, Alienware doesn't compete with mainstream servers, they are focused on high performance gaming systems.

It might can be said that Alienware helped raise Dell up, but at the same time, I see signs of Dell dragging Alienware down. Just my take on it, although from personal experience.
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Obviously more monopoly stuff.
No_Ax_to_Grind 27th May 2009
I mean who do they think they are building a CPU that will bury AMD! Someone quick, whine to the EC...
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Little different today
LiquidLearner 27th May 2009
The complaint has nothing to do with the Core2 and newer CPUs. The complaint was related to Intel withholding processors, in the P2-4 days, from OEMs that built AMD systems with the Athlon processor. See, when the Athlon shipped, and throughout the entire lifespan of the P4, AMD had the superior processor technology without question. That scared Intel since all they could manage to pull together was the incredibly terrible NetBurst architecture. In fact you can note this by the fact that every tech that has been used since early in the Athlon life is now incorporated into the Intel CPUs.

x64 - check
Onboard memory controller - check
HyperTransport - check (quick path interconnect)

Intel used it's market power to try to shut AMD out of as many markets as it could. All that said, I currently run Core 2s in both my PCs at home because the Core 2 is better on its technical merits. The P4 was not and Intel's monopoly status is the only thing that allowed it to survive what would have killed any other hardware vendor given the competition.
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The EC refuses to accept real facts. When AMD was making a competitive CPU at a competitive price they gained marlet share (regardless of what Intel may have done). When they hit a road block and could not get the fab plant up to speed they lost everything.

Fact is, AMD can not compete based on products and price.
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I've said this repeatedly...
Spiritusindomit@... Updated - 27th May 2009
But the problem is that they made one nice
innovation and got full of themselves. They
stopped reverse engineering Intel's chips,
started assuming more cost, and released a less
polished, less efficient product for it.

Everyone, save the AMD fanboy,s realized this
and stopped buying them. Though, I do remember
the FX line, and that was anything but price
competitive.
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however that's neither here nor there. The biggest problem with the EC is it's so long after the fact. The damage is long done by Intel and no fine is going to change that. However I do find your comment amusing considering AMD hit 29.8% of the desktop market 1st quarter this year and 22% of the overall CPU market. That's even counting the fact Intel shipped 1/3 Atom CPUs, which AMD doesn't compete with.

And the Phenom 2 is a great CPU, better than the Core 2. Too bad the i7s and i5s are so dang fast.
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You assume Intel will stay relevant.
peter_erskine@... 27th May 2009
At the moment, the market for 16-thread CPUs is small and specialist. Intel would not survive on that alone. Either the user requirements, OSes and compilers must evolve, or else Intel must develop more new stuff in the space that's relevant to most people and most IT departments.
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Why would anyone assume...
ShadowGIATL 27th May 2009
Intel is not relevant, or will no longer be relavant in the near future? We are talking about a chip maker that has weathered all storms to date, and show no signs of fatigue.

Many processor companies have been pushed to the side, and only two major players stand in the arena now. One invented the platform for which the other builds its processors on.

To say that Intel will fall because x86 is getting old seems a bit narrow minded, considering Intel invented x86 to get past previous limitations.

The irony is... AMD owes a great deal of its existence to Intel, and now they are competitors. From what I have seen, they tend to seesaw back and forth as far as who is on top with performance. AMD just hasn't managed to gain that much traction in marketshare.
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Intel staying relevant
ForgeAus 28th May 2009
I agree however I do think both Intel AND
compilers will evolve, Nehalem is great news, I
love my P4 Hyperthreaded processor, I havn't
needed to go Dualcore simply because of it,
although I'm starting to look at upgrades only
just now, a desktop nehalem-like Processor
would be the kind of thing I'd be waiting for
on the market, doesn't have to be 8 cores, heck
2 with Hyperthreading may be enough...

Also Microsoft are saying they believe the next
major innovation will be a software one, I have
yet to see it, but your statement that says
OSes and Compilers need evolution, kinda makes
me think this would be a good place to evolve
into... the trick isn't likely to be the
innovation this time, the trick is likely to be
successfully making it something everyone will
WANT to use, rather than just more marketing
hype or claims of ease of use, it actually has
to be both user-friendly and/or transparent,
and provide improvements on what is currently
used...

Intel IS relevant, and I don't think they're
about to remain static... of course I agree
that if this does happen, Intel will decline,
but hey, just because I don't know any AIX
boxes, doesn't mean Intel are useless...

the only thing I don't think is practical here
is the whole Moore's (spelling?) law, about
computing power doubling, practical limitations
may mean it can only double so far...

The goal is, as it always was, to create the
best processor, is Intel not doing this?
And will still work better than PCS, even with older processors...HAHAHAHAH
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... that doesn't even make sense...
Spiritusindomit@... 27th May 2009
Do you think these only go in the mac pro? You
might want to look into a little research.
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...It sounds like he is saying he is surprised Nehalem-EX will be faster than its predecessor.... Then again, his comment makes about as much sense as much of Apple's marketing.
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That is because...
ccd1977@... 28th May 2009
You are so narrow minded. You would make a really bad business person. Stay working at Subway.
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he meant to reply...
evilkillerwhale@... 27th May 2009
... to an earlier comment.
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Cant fit anymore cores!
pcguy777 Updated - 27th May 2009
There will be a limit soon with this amount of space (it seems a logical conclusion).

Whats next, stacking chips? (bigger fans?), or will all Mobos in a few years have 2 8core processors, and two cpu fans?

Its your call!

You saw it here first lol
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Actually, I saw it first in 1982.
Spiritusindomit@... 27th May 2009
nt
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RE: Can't fit anymore cores!
MadWhiteHatter 27th May 2009
I have two quad-core xeons. No matter how many cores you put on, a system will always perform better with multiple processors. That is, of course, assuming the software is written to take advantage of this.
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IMHO we still have a few generations to go before that happens.
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AMD loses again.
Spiritusindomit@... Updated - 27th May 2009
Like I've been saying forever, they need to go
back to reverse engineering intel chips and giving
us better products.

However, it's not cool that once again cores will
be sharing memory bandwidth.
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AMD never reverse engineered an Intel CPU!
marcfinnwilson@... 27th May 2009
AMD had a licensing agreement with Intel up until the 286, then AMD and Intel launched their own 386 designs all the way up until Intel launched it's Pentium 4 machine with RD-RAM, the Pentium 4 had a much higher "instruction prefetch" than ever before, the Intel processor was designed at clocking high but, not really for doing as many as AMD had got out on their lower clocked processor.
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What's the clock speed?
Norm_z 27th May 2009
There's been a trend to increase cores, but slow down the chips to keep them cool.

Only DBMS' and Web servers are multithreaded enough to keep so many cores busy.

Single threaded, CPU intensive workloads may run slower on new chips.

Perhaps independent, variable speed cores can be engineered to maintain speed and minimize heat/power.

Norm
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RE: What's the clock speed?
MadWhiteHatter 27th May 2009
I agree. With limitations on cache and heat, this will happen. Intel has taken some of the Centrino technology and built it into their chips though to get that variable speed. They now slow down on the cores not getting use.
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and the ones it does will be because they are so heavily multi-threaded.
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Virtualization
Frankmjr 27th May 2009
Don't forget virtualization. It is the perfect fit for the multi-core chips.
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Actually . . .
CobraA1 28th May 2009
"Only DBMS' and Web servers are multithreaded enough to keep so many cores busy."

Not quite true.

It's also used for heavy graphics computation. Anything involving rendering of 3D graphics can never have enough power. Special effects and CGI movie making on the large business end all the way down to gaming and video on the consumer end - it all requires all of the power you can throw at it.

Scientific simulations are also another area where there's heave multithreading - and again, it scales all the way from serious simulations to make sure your next airplane flight is safe, all the way down to a physics engine for a game where it just looks pretty.

"Single threaded, CPU intensive workloads may run slower on new chips."

If a workload is CPU intensive, then I'd suggest that it be looked at for possible optimizations to run in a multithreaded fashion.
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You don't understand the technology.
Spiritusindomit@... 1st Jun 2009
The first point I'll make is that intel has
been seriously pushing parallel advancements
for years, and it's finally taking hold. Things
like parallel studio make it boneheaded for
software developers to introduce serious
performance gains into their applications

In the next 2-3 years, this is going to become
more and prevalent, and if you check AMD
processors vs intel, AMD processors suffer
major reductions in speed when performing even
well optimized tasks. Don't believe me? Run
valve's particle sim and see for yourself.
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I can't wait to get mine.
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Nehalem-EX Server oriented NOT Desktop
Ganjaman@... Updated - 27th May 2009
Sun Niagara T2 been out since August 2007 on 65 nm and to date there are systems with quad sockets readily available. Adrian - you need to take the blinders off - this is the IT industry not the Intel Industry. 8 threads per core, 64 threads per socket and the memory bw is more than 60GB/sec - all published specs at http://www.sun.com/processors/UltraSPARC-T2/datasheet.pdf Can you be a bit less biased? Try to include technology that "been there before" - at least a short comparison or give credit at the very least. I'm almost convinced that Intel Nehalem is the only 8 core processor in the universe!!
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Unfortunately
Frankmjr 27th May 2009
Unfortunately, Sun just had to be bought because of horrible sales. They have fantastic technology. So did DEC with the Alpha chips, or even Intel with the Itanium, which was pretty much the Alpha with Intel's name. The Intel chips are what Industry Standard Servers are based on and they are a commodity. These are the chips that he next generation of mainstream servers will be based on and the reason to be excited.
What starts on the server usually eventually reaches the desktop. My current desktop system is easily as powerful as servers a few years back. I *do* expect that there will eventually be a consumer version of this processor.

If Intel is doing it, then that means a consumer processor is likely to come out soon, as Intel makes consumer processors.
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Use your tech brain
BALTHOR 27th May 2009
There's no transistors in a CPU.It's all digital files.
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transistors in a cpu
unclefixer@... Updated - 27th May 2009
CPU's, like any electronic device, are made of transistors- they're just
not like the ones we used to pick up at radio shack to make guitar
practice amps and little project radios and things with.
Digital files are only good if they have something to run on, and the
hardware that allows digital files all go back to the basics in some
way. They're not the familiar transistors, but they are microscopic
layers of n and p type materials which have power applied and act as
gates, amplifiers, etc.
I don't like to criticize, but your "it's all digital files" statement really
looked a bit like "engaging the mouth before the brain had a chance
to check it." So before I lose it and say "wtf are you talking about" I'm
just going to say: Have a nice day!
www.dfwsupergeek.com
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PS- It's ok to goof sometimes,
unclefixer@... 27th May 2009
flub, etc... no one is perfect- but before saying something like "Use Your
Tech Brain"... make sure that what you're about to say is absolutely true.
You might want to google "how are CPUs made" or somthing of that
nature so you don't look like a dipsh*t.
Thanks again for your support! happy
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WHAT GOOD IS IT?
fm-usa 27th May 2009
In these times of poor economy, what good is it if you can't afford it?
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Many will because it will enable faster processing
Patanjali Updated - 27th May 2009
Just because many are having it tough doesn't mean EVERY one is without funds to improve what they do.

For some, it may enable replacing a multi-computer farm with one computer - that's enough of a gain to override the cost.
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Iphone with 128 threads
MeGaMiPs 27th May 2009
Yeah Crapple will do it right!
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Because they will need replacing every 10 seconds!
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Oh, baby, oh!
metilley@... 27th May 2009
That should rattle your bed all night long! I want one. Will it work in my laptop? How about Apple's next processor release for the MacBook Pro?
True! I believe one or more companies had wafer technology that allowed 3-D chips to be built by stacking wafers. There were vertical pathways for common things like power. Pretty darn cool, but also could run pretty darn hot.

3-D CPUs need integrated cooling, which I would guess would raise the cost.

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