The Intel Xeon E3-1285 v4 was a server/workstation processor with 4 cores, launched in June 2015, at an MSRP of $556. It is part of the Xeon E3 lineup, using the Broadwell-DT architecture with Socket 1150. Thanks to Intel Hyper-Threading the core-count is effectively doubled, to 8 threads. Xeon E3-1285 v4 has 6 MB of L3 cache and operates at 3.5 GHz by default, but can boost up to 3.8 GHz, depending on the workload. Intel is making the Xeon E3-1285 v4 on a 14 nm production node, the transistor count is unknown. The multiplier is locked on Xeon E3-1285 v4, which limits its overclocking potential.
With a TDP of 95 W, the Xeon E3-1285 v4 consumes a good deal of power, so decent cooling is needed. Intel's processor supports DDR3 memory with a dual-channel interface. The highest officially supported memory speed is 1866 MT/s, but with overclocking (and the right memory modules) you can go even higher. ECC memory is supported, too, which is an important capability for mission-critical systems, to avoid data corruption. For communication with other components in the system, Xeon E3-1285 v4 uses a PCI-Express Gen 3 connection. This processor features the Intel Iris Pro P6300 integrated graphics solution.
Hardware virtualization is available on the Xeon E3-1285 v4, which greatly improves virtual machine performance. Additionally, IOMMU virtualization (PCI passthrough) is supported, so that guest virtual machines may directly use host hardware. Programs using Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) can run on this processor, boosting performance for calculation-heavy applications. Besides AVX, Intel is including the newer AVX2 standard, too, but not AVX-512.