ASUS, the leading producer of servers and workstations, recently announced the availability of its latest 5U pedestal and rack-mountable servers and workstations-the ASUS TS700-E6/RS8 and TS500-E6/PS4. Both are based on Dual and Quad-Core Intel Xeon Processor 5500 series platforms with DDR3 memory and PCIe 2.0 support. They also feature additional expansion slots which can also be used for a dedicated graphics card, a MIO network card and other expansion options for personal workstation use-providing customers with high flexibility, reliability, storage capacity and expandability.

Water-cooling specialist Swiftech expanded its lineup with the Apogee GTZ Ci7 CPU water block. From its name, one can infer that it specifically supports the Intel LGA-1366 socket (Core i7 and Xeon 5500 series). The frame that holds the block has the appropriate mount holes for LGA-1366. A bolt-through retention mechanism is bundled. The block itself is near-identical in specifications to the original Apogee GTZ. The CPU copper contact base is lapped, and has a matrix of 225 micron copper pins to boost surface area of heat dissipation. The housing is Delrin-made. Options for 1/2" and 3/8" hose barbs are provided. A tube of Arctic Silver Ceramique is bundled. It is priced at US $69.99.

ASUS, a leading producer of innovative server and workstation solutions, today announced three cutting-edge solutions designed to address the specific needs of SOHO and Business Enterprises. First in the line-up is the ASUS P6T7 WS SuperComputer motherboard, which provides users with sublime graphics capabilities and flexible high speed data input/output. Next is the ASUS RS700D-E6 Duo Nodes 1U Server, which features independent power supplies for superb reliability-giving business owners complete peace of mind-while offering exceptional space savings in the form of 4 + 4 hot-swappable 2.5-inch SATA/SAS hard disk drives. Finally, the ASUS Z8NA-D6 is the world's first slim dual processor server and workstation motherboard, making it the best workstation foundation for all forms of businesses.

Intel Corporation today previewed a new Intel Xeon processor codenamed "Nehalem-EX." The processor will be at the heart of the next generation of intelligent and expandable high-end Intel server platforms, which will deliver a number of new technical advancements and boost enterprise computing performance.

In production later this year, the Nehalem-EX processor will feature up to eight cores inside a single chip supporting 16 threads and 24MB of cache. Its performance increase will be dramatic, posting the highest-ever jump from a previous generation processor.

Having successfully established the Nehalem architecture-derived Core i7 series as the industry's fastest consumer processors available, and recently propagating the architecture to two-socket Xeon series for servers and high-end workstations, Intel is set to push up parallelism two-fold with the Nehalem-EX 8-core enterprise processor. The company will detail this new line of chips next week, although a commercial-launch can be expected only in late 2009 or early 2010.

The new chip will succeed the company's own Xeon E7000 "Dunnington" series 6-core processors, for having the highest available parallelism per socket. The 8 physical x86-64 processing cores will further feature HyperThreading technology, sending the logical-processor count to 16 threads per socket. Each processor packs 2.3 billion transistors. The processor will further be designed for systems with more than two sockets per board. Currently although server-builders sell 1U and 2U servers with more than two Nehalem quad-core processors, the system is designed by using two (or more) two-socket mainboards interconnected using Infiniband. The announcement will be made on May 26, in an address headed by Boyd Davis, Intel's general manager of Server Platforms Marketing Group.

Soon after becoming the first to be out with a portable desktop alternative featuring the Intel Core i7 processor, SmoothCreations dished out another of its kind, this time a portable workstation named Bulldozer. The company is looking to target two classes of consumers with this product: gamers, and graphics professionals, who will take advantage of its hardware for high-definition gaming or CAM/CAE/CAD, medical imaging, forensics, government or military use. The applications are broad thanks to the hardware, which just might come at the expense of a little portability.

The Bulldozer features a 17-inch screen with a native resolution of 1900x1200 pixels. Under its hood is a Core i7 (models 940 or 965 XE) or Xeon X5580 processor. Up to 16 GB of memory can be opted for, along with up to 1.5 TB of storage thanks to three SATA HDD bays. A Blu-Ray combo drive provides removable storage. Connectivity options include WiFi, Gigabit Ethernet, and Bluetooth 2.0. Graphics is care of NVIDIA Quadro FX 3700 with 1 GB of memory. Depending on the application, 64-bit Windows XP, Windows Vista, or RedHat Linux could be opted for. Its pricing is not known.

GeIL wants to be the first manufacturer touting the term "hexa-channel" (6-channel) DDR3 memory. While machine architectures using 6-channels (384-bit wide) memory interfaces don't exist, dual-Nehalem Xeon machines use two triple-channel memory arrays. It's a play of the word "6-channels" there. In any case, GeIL is now selling DDR3 memory in kits of six modules. Its lineup spans across three of its main memory product-lines: Value, Ultra, and Gaming series. The kits are available in a variety of configurations that include specified DRAM speeds, and timings, as listed by the table below. The kits come backed by the company's lifetime warranty.

AMD finally stepped out of its shell after Intel's launch of its newest line of Xeon processors based on the Nehalem architecture. In an interview with TechPulse 360, AMD's Pat Patla and John Fruehe took on Intel's recent marketing drive for Nehalem Xeon products. The conversation revolved mainly around the issues of platform costs, and the features the new Xeon processors introduce (or reintroduce) to the server/enterprise computing industry, namely the company's proprietary FSB-replacement, QuickPath Interconnect, and HyperThreading.

The two first took on Intel's marketing, particularly on its material that said that the slowest Nehalem Xeon chip was faster than the fastest Opteron chip, saying that Intel's statements weren't backed by real figures. The two also alleged that Intel's server platform was too expensive and delivered lesser value in an ailing state of the economy. Perhaps the most audacious statement from AMD since the somewhat famous "only real men have fabs" statement by Jerry Sanders III, came from this interview, where AMD responded to a question on HyperThreading saying that "real men use real cores". "We've got real cores across our products. HyperThreading is basically designed to act like a core except that it only gives 10 to 15 percent performance bump for real applications workload." they said. Is AMD making a real point, or fighting fire...erm marketing with marketing? Find out in this interview.

Our friends at TCMagazine have just posted an updated chart of Intel's Core 2 and Xeon processors that reveal two new CPUs, and some interesting price reductions. The new socket LGA775 Core 2 Quad Q8400 and Q8400S processors are both made using 45 nm technology, feature a frequency of 2.66 GHz, a 1333 MHz FSB and 4 MB of L2 cache. The S model has a TDP of 65W while the normal Q8400 has 95W TDP. Both processors cost $183 and $245 respectively.

Micron Technology, today announced that its suite of DDR3 server memory modules are validated with Intel's next-generation Intel Xeon processor chips. Micron's validated 1, 2, 4 and 8-gigabyte (GB) DDR3 modules are performance-driven, delivering speeds of 1066 megabits per second (Mb/s) and 1333 Mb/s, greatly increasing server throughput. Additionally, Lexar Media, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Micron, has validated its corresponding Crucial-branded modules, leveraging Micron's award-winning DDR3 memory.

Thanks to the addition of the new Quad-core Intel Nehalem Xeon processors series 5500, the updated Xserve announced today delivers up to twice the performance of the previous system. For those not familiar with the term Xserve, this is the name of Apple's first 1U rackmount line of servers. It was first introduced in 2002, and thanks to this update now it is available with up to two 2.93 GHz Intel Xeon processors, up to 3 TB of hot-plug internal storage using various hard drive modules and up to 32 GB of 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC memory on 8 slots. Starting at $2,999, Xserve includes an unlimited client license for Mac OS X Server version 10.5 Leopard and enough power to become your file or web server. For the full tech specs, please click here.

Super Micro Computer, Inc., a leader in application-optimized, high-performance server solutions, today launched a comprehensive new line of server and workstation solutions specially designed to support the Intel Xeon Processor 5500 series (formerly codenamed Nehalem). Supermicro has started shipping its new 2U Twin2 ("Twin Squared" with four hot-pluggable DP nodes), newly invented Twin GPU 1U server/workstation, the award-winning 1U Twin, SuperBlade, flexible Universal I/O (UIO) server, SAS2 storage systems, as well as its strong line of traditional application-optimized server solutions. Featuring the highest efficiency in the industry power supplies (93%+), cooling subsystems and motherboard designs, Supermicro solutions set a new record for the best performance-per-watt (375 GFLOPS/kW) and also deliver the best performance-per-dollar and performance-per-square-foot.

Based on the company's latest application-optimized Server Building Block architectures, Supermicro maximizes the new Nehalem technology, which includes QPI (Intel QuickPath Interconnect) for up to 6.4GT/s, Integrated DDR3 Memory Controller, multiple power envelops, and Intel Turbo Boost Technology, to provide the industry's highest performing and most optimized new generation server solutions.

Intel Corporation introduced 17 enterprise-class processors today, led by the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series. They are Intel's most revolutionary server processors since addressing the market with the Intel Pentium Pro processor almost 15 years ago.
The new enterprise-class chips can automatically adjust to specified energy usage levels, and speed data center transactions and customer database queries. They also will play a key role in scientific discoveries by researchers who use supercomputers as their foundation for research, all whilst delivering great energy efficiency for reduced electricity costs.

Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced it is shipping both 1333- and 1066MHz DDR3 server memory modules validated by Intel for use on its Xeon processor-based motherboards. Kingston's registered ECC server DIMMs and unbuffered ECC DIMMs are optimized to take advantage of the triple-channel architecture for Intel's newest server platforms using the new Nehalem-based Xeon processors.

The 1333- and 1066MHz DDR3 server modules are available immediately. Kingston server memory is backed by a lifetime warranty and free, 24/7 technical support. For more detailed information visit www.kingston.com. For Intel validation information visit this page.

Intel expanded its enterprise-grade Xeon processor lineup with three new models under the Xeon UP series. Built on the 45 nm High-K process, at least two of these new chips boast of high energy efficiency. First up, is the X3380 quad-core chip that has 12 MB of L2 cache, 1333 MHz FSB, and 3.16 GHz of clock speed. Its TDP is rated at 95 W.

The second chip introduced, the L3360 quad-core runs at 2.83 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB, 12 MB of cache, but a reduced TDP rating at 65 W. Lastly, a high-speed yet energy-efficient L3110 dual-core chip runs at 3.00 GHz, comes with 6 MB of cache and a 1333 MHz FSB, with its TDP rated at 45 W. The X3380, L3360 and L3110 are priced at US $530, $369 and $224 respectively, in 1000-unit tray quantities. Intel also introduced the single-core 1.6 GHz Atom Z530 processor that sells for around $70 each, in bulk.

A notable inclusion of perhaps every processor-in-box product, apart from the processor, cooler and documentation, is the case-badge for the processor. The case-badge is a small sticker that shows the company logo for the processor installed in the PC. Intel is reportedly designing new logos (in effect case-badges) for at least 14 of its products. The logos, most of which are rounded-rectangle shaped seem to have been designed to give the processor box a new look, also indicating perhaps that the company is designing new packaging material as well, that use the new logos.

Intel has large volumes of Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad and Xeon processors in the making, that Intel feels need new clothing. Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad, get the distinct chrome-blue colour that one can find in the Core i7 (non-XE) logo. Core 2 and Core i7 logos look similar at the first glance. Core 2 Extreme gets the chrome-black colour the Core i7 XE logo has. All Centrino series badges stick to the silver-white colour scheme. The logo designs have small inlets on the top-right corner that have small portions of the die-shot. Core 2 and Centrino logos have die-shots of a portion of the Penryn core, while the Core i7 logos use those of the Bloomfield core. Interestingly, Xeon keeps its current logo, as well as a new one with chrome-slate colour, and design of the current Core i7 logo, perhaps making it clear the Xeon processor is based on the Nehalem architecture. The new logos will be effective from Q2 2009.

Intel's mainstream market implementation of the Nehalem architecture will come in the form of monolithic quad-core a dual-core chips that have northbridge machinery integrated. Based on the Lynnfield (quad-core) and Arandale (dual-core) designs, Intel will place the processors on a common system design dubbed the "Ibex-Peak". The processors are likely to be branded as Core i5, Core i4 or even Core i3 depending on a lot of factors. Additionally, Intel plans enterprise variants of the said chips.

To seat these chips, Intel is designing new sockets: LGA-1155, LGA-1156 the two can be classified into the sockets for the desktop variants, with another LGA-1167 socket most likely to be exclusive for the Xeon variants. PCGH sourced some images from Intel's Design Development Tools (DDT) portal (found here), which tell that Intel names its new series of sockets as "socket H". Pictured below is a processor package viewed from its business-end. The other three you can see, are interposer-boards. These are devices that resemble the actual product packages that sit on the sockets. You can see a grid of leads over the "IHS" of the package. The leads serve to help in the technical development of products based on the package design, hence it is found on the DDT portal. It should give you an idea of what an LGA-1155, LGA-1156 and LGA-1167 processor should look like, sans the leads on the IHS. The images below in the same order. Finally, pictured much earlier, is the Ibex-Peak platform motherboard that demonstrates the design.

Intel pushed its performance supremacy lead further up with the introduction of the Nehalem micro-architecture. The introduction served as a milestone event in the company's history, where it sought to rearrange various components of the PC, by moving certain parts of the chipset to the processor package. In the months to come, with the introduction of the Ibex-Peak platform, the company hopes to migrate even more components from the system core-logic to the CPU package. A lot of engineering potential is unlocked due to the modularity of the various components of a Nehalem-derived CPU.

At the upcoming International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) event, Intel plans a decent set of technology demonstrations and papers. The advance program information document shed some light on Intel's itinerary. In session 3 held on February 9, Intel will present papers on its 8-core Xeon processor, following which is a session on 45nm IA processors. The session is on processors built with features characteristic of the Nehalem micro-architecture, in having integrated memory controllers, a coherent point-to-point interconnect, and up to 8 processing cores. Interestingly, the description included a note on the power consumptions, ranging from "sub-10W to 130W", which leads us to believe Intel to have plans on making derivatives of the Nehalem micro-architecture with some very low energy footprints. Another interpretation would be that a new breed of processors could have idle power consumptions as low as <10W. Currently the most energy-efficient Nehalem-based processor known to be in the works is the Xeon L5520 that has identical features to those of the Core i7 series while having a clock speed of 2.23 GHz and a rated TDP of a mere 60W.

Following the news which we covered here, Hexus.net has got hold of a slide which officially details Intel's new 8-core Enterprise Xeon processor. Codenamed Nehalem EX, it will feature 8 processing cores, with 2 threads per core, totaling 16 threads and as had been previously said, a transistor count of 2.3 Billion. This information was obtained as part of a pre-ISSCC conference call, but more information is expected to be officially announced at the start of the ISSCC on 8th February.

Sitting tight on the desktop and server performance thrones with the Core i7 and Xeon Dunnington series procesors, Intel is looking to carry on with its product launch-cycle with the introduction of octo-core (8 cores) enterprise processors later this year. The company is expected to detail the industry about this upcoming processor series as early as next month at the Solid State Circuits conference in San Fransisco between February 8 and 12.

The processor in question will be based on the Intel Nehalem architecture and will consist of eight x86 processing cores, a massive transistor-count of 2.3 billion, and will be built on the company's current 45nm manufacturing process. It will hold 24 MB of L3 cache, a quad-channel memory interface and QuickPath Interconnect system interface. Furthermore, it is aimed at quad-socket server platforms. Intel will keep this only upto a presentation level at the conference and not a launch. It is expected to start off with quad-core Xeon processors based on the new architecture later in this quarter.

Following periodic price-cuts for its Core 2 series desktop CPUs, Intel could be planning significant price-cuts for its Xeon series enterprise CPUs. This, according to Pacific Crest analyst Michael McConnell. The price-cuts are model-specific. According to McConnel, they are expected to range between 15 and 40% for quad-core Xeon processors and around 13% for dual-core models.

McConnel sees the price cuts as a response to excess inventories of Xeon processors, which is up 13% in Q4, worth up to US $3.85 billion. Another significant factor is AMD, which seems to be gaining market-share through HP, a major player with enterprise-computing. The new prices could be implemented by 18th of January.

Industry observer DigiTimes reports today that chip maker Intel is planning on launching new server Nehalem-EP and Nehalem-WS processors within the first quarter of 2009.

Intel is planning to launch Xeon 5500 (Nehalem-EP) and Xeon 3500 series (Nehalem-WS) server CPUs in the first quarter of 2009, according to sources at server makers. Intel will launch ten CPUs for the Xeon 5500 series: quad-core W5580 (3.2GHz), X5570 (2.93GHz), X5560 (2.8GHz), X5550 (2.66GHz), E5540 (2.53GHz), E5530 (2.4GHz), E5520 (2.26GHz), E5506 (2.13GHz), E5504 (2GHz) and dual-core E5502 with prices at US$1,600, US$1,386, US$1,172, US$958, US$744, US$530, US$373, US$266, US$224 and US$188 in thousand-unit tray quantities. For the Xeon 3500 series, Intel will launch three CPUs: quad-core W3570, W3540 and W3520 priced at US$999, US$562 and US$284.
In additional news, Intel is planning to phase out seven notebook CPUs including the Core 2 Extreme X7900 and X7800, and Core 2 Duo T7800 and L7700 in January next year.

Intel informed today that it will be phasing out a large number of server Xeon processors during the next eight months. That's mainly because of the forthcoing Nehalem platform and the new Core i7 processors. Intel also said that it is already producing more 45nm processors than 65nm chips, so it's time for some of the 65nm parts to drop off the charts. The list includes six dual-core Xeon processors with Woodcrest core, these are the 1.86GHz Xeon 5120, 2.66GHz 5150, 2.33GHz LV 5148, 1.60GHz 5110, 2.0GHz 5130, 2.33GHz 5140 and 3.0GHz 5160. The list continues with nine quad-core models with Clovertown core, the 1.86GHz E5320, 1.86GHz L5320, 3.0GHz X5365, 2.66GHz X5355, 1.60GHz E5310, 2.33GHz E5345, 2.0GHz E5335 and 2.0GHz L5335. Sales of different variations of these CPUs are also going to be phased out. The total count is 31 server models, that won't be produced anymore. Final customer orders for these processors can be submitted until April 23, 2009. Intel plans the final shipment of these processors for July 23, 2009.

As promised, today Intel sliced the prices of several of its Core 2 and Xeon processors, just before the Nehalem launch. Below is the list that describes best all price reductions.

After flaunting the P6T Series motherboards, and the monstrous Rampage II Extreme, ASUS decided to expand its Bloomfield CPU-supportive motherboard lineup with its workstation-class offerings. ASUS is known for bringing in workstation boards on desktop platforms. They have had Intel 975P based workstation boards, just as they had nForce 590 SLI boards. These desktop-thru-worksation platforms are usually single CPU socket platforms, with certain workstation features, such as PCI-X interface, enterprise-grade storage controllers, among other features that make them durable and suitable for mission-critical environments. They don't sport enterprise chipsets, and hence carry batch-leading desktop chipsets.

With Nehalem and the new Socket 1366, ASUS did just that, with the inclusion of two single-socket workstation boards. These motherboards, at the outset support the upcoming Core i7 processors, and have the potential to support Xeon processors that use the same socket, or even the same core. There are two models lined-up: P6T6 WS Revolution and P6T6 WS Pro. The P6T6 WS Revolution is the flagship board. It features six full-length PCI-Express slots, which might have variable number of available PCI-Express lanes, depending on the number of PCI-E cards connected. It features a 16+2 phase CPU power circuit. The board features the Tylersburg X58 chipset, along with an ICH10 series southbridge. There is passive cooling for the VRM area, northbridge, and a large southbridge block, that could be possibly cooling a supplementary PCI-Express switch chip. Storage options include Serial-attached SCSI (SAS), SATA II and e-SATA ports.