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Some times ago Intel has announced the new generation CPUs for high performance and high sophisticated PCs. This is Haswell-E. Thanks to it a performance-hungry enthusiasts get the new processor microarchitecture, DDR4 support and eight cores in one chip. Also the platform and processor socket are changing. We take a look at all these essential transformations.
Moving up the Xeon product stack, the larger and more complicated the die, the lower the yield. Intel sells its 14-18 core Xeons from a top end design that weighs in at over five billion transistors, and we have had two of the 14C models in for review: the E5-2695 V3 (2.3 GHz, 3.3 GHz turbo) and E5-2697 V3 (2.6 GHz, 3.6 GHz turbo).
<p><span style="font-size: small;">As part of our Haswell-EP coverage, the next two processors on our test beds are both 12 core variants. The E5-2650L V3 is a surprising monster, giving 12 Haswell cores at 1.8 GHz with 2.5 GHz turbo for only 65W, while the E5-2690 V3 extends the power budget to 135W for all 12 cores at a 2.6 GHz base frequency.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://anandtech.com/show/8679/intel-haswellep-xeon-12-core-review-e5-2650l-v3-and-e5-2690-v3" target="_blank">Read more...</a></span></p>
During September we managed to get hold of some Haswell-EP samples for a quick run through our testing suite. The Xeon E5 v3 range extends beyond that of the E5 v2 with the new architecture, support for DDR4 and more SKUs with more cores. These are generally split into several markets including workstation, server, low power and high performance, with a few SKUs dedicated for communications or off-map SKUs with different levels of support. Today we are testing two 10 core models, the Xeon E5-2687W v3 and the Xeon E5-2650 v3.
The Devil’s Canyon processors unveiled this summer push the performance bar to a new level for the LGA1150 platform. What's more, Intel says packaging optimizations make the Core i7-4790K and Core i5-4690K a real treat for overclockers.
<p><span style="font-size: small;">LGA 1150 desktop processors lineup divides not only by families with different performance classes. They have some other grading – by projected power dissipation. Ordinary desktop processors have the most spreading, but there are many models with S and T letters in name which have artificially lowered TDP. Two examples of such CPUs we have reviewed.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/core-i5-4670s-4670t.html" target="_blank">Read more...</a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;">The launch of Haswell-E ushered in a triumvirate of new technology – a new CPU line, a new motherboard chipset and DDR4 memory. Today we focus on the new consumer motherboard chipset, X99, with motherboards from all four major manufacturers: the ASUS X99-Deluxe, the GIGABYTE X99-UD7 WiFi, the ASRock X99 WS and the MSI X99S SLI Plus. X99 represents the upgrade over the previous extreme chipset generation, X79, in several key areas in order to align itself better with the mainstream Z97 and Z87 platforms.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://anandtech.com/show/8557/x99-motherboard-roundup-asus-x99-deluxe-gigabyte-x99-ud7-ud5-asrock-x99-ws-msi-x99s-sli-plus-intel-haswell-e" target="_blank">Read more...</a></span></p>
Simply put, the new Intel Xeon "Haswell EP" chips are multi-core behemoths: they support up to eighteen cores (with Hyper-Threading yielding 36 logical cores). Core counts have been increasing for years now, so it is easy to dismiss the new Xeon E5-2600 v3 as "business as usual", but it is definitely not. Piling up cores inside a CPU package is one thing, but getting them to do useful work is a long chain of engineering efforts that starts with hardware intelligence and that ends with making good use of the best software libraries available.
While some sites previously reported that an "unknown source" told them Intel was cooking up a 14-core Haswell EP Xeon chip, and that the next generation 14 nm Xeon E5 "Broadwell" would be an 18-core design, the reality is that Intel has an 18-core Haswell EP design, and we have it for testing. This is yet another example of truth beating fiction.
Continuing our coverage of Intel’s 14nm Technology, another series of press events held by Intel filled out some of the missing details behind the strategy of their Core M platform. Core M is the moniker for what will be the Broadwell-Y series of processors, following on from Haswell-Y, and it will be the first release of Intel’s 14nm technology. The drive to smaller, low powered fanless devices that still deliver a full x86 platform as well as the performance beyond that of a smartphone or tablet is starting to become a reality. Even reducing the size of the CPU package in all dimensions to allow for smaller devices, including reducing the z-height from 1.5mm to 1.05 mm is part of Intel’s solution, giving a total die area 37% smaller than Haswell-Y.
I will be honest, after AMD did not update its FX processor line using the Steamroller architecture, I was not too hopeful for the brand to see anything new in 2014. But since the start of the year the 5 GHz turbo FX-9590 has been rereleased as a consumer part and today AMD is showing it can get four Piledriver modules down to 95W with a few frequency adjustments and cherry picking the dies. This is accompanied with price cuts for the eight-thread FX parts, which AMD is aiming squarely at similarly priced Intel i5 and i3 processors.