X-bit labs

Intel Xeon "Nocona" Pricing Revealed.

Category: CPU

by Anton Shilov

[ 12/04/2003 | 06:03 PM ]

Our sources close to the world’s largest chipmaker Intel Corporation unveiled the pricing of Intel Xeon microprocessors based on Nocona core. The future chips made at 90nm nodes will be formally launched in the second quarter 2004 to boost the performance of Intel’s 2-way systems.

Following the most recent conceptions of its products introduction, Intel will offer a lineup of new Xeon DP microprocessors at different price-points, not just one or two chips. The listing of SKUs will include Xeon 1M at 2.80GHz, 3.0GHz, 3.20GHz, 3.40GHz and 3.60GHz.

The new Xeon 1M “Nocona” processors will be different compared to current Xeon 1M CPUs from micro architectural points of view. Firstly, Nocona’s L1 cache is two times larger compared to the current Xeon DP processors’ and equals to 16KB. Secondly, Nocona includes 16K uOps Trace Cache, a substantial improvement over current 12K uOps. Thirdly, 90nm DP products will make use of Prescott’s new, more efficient branch prediction mechanism. Fourthly, the new Xeon 1M microprocessors will feature SSE3 technology. Finally, the new Intel Xeon 1M “Nocona” is very likely to boast with enhanced efficiency of the Hyper-Threading technology. Additionally, all Nocona Xeon 1M chips will have 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus. All-in-all, the new processors for 2-way servers and workstations will be quite substantially faster than current Xeon 1M products at the same speed bins.

It is very important that the pricing of Intel’s older microprocessors for 533MHz and 400MHz PSB will waterfall once Xeon 1M “Nocona” rolled out. Take a look at the table representing Intel Xeon pricing after 90nm Xeon DP SKUs launch.

In addition to its Xeon 2M processor at 3.20GHz, Intel will also add Xeon 1M at 2.80GHz and Xeon 1M at 2.40GHz into its family of 0.13 micron chips for 533MHz QPB infrastructure.

Intel’s new 90nm Xeon processors for DP servers will be supported by E7710 (Lindenhurst) core-logic that brings 800MHz Quad Pumped Bus, dual-channel PC2700 DDR and PC2-3200 DDR-II SDRAM memory with ECC support, PCI Express x8 as well as PCI Express x4. Intel E7515 aka Tumwater core-logic coming in the same timeframe will add PCI Express x16 bus (PEG x16) for graphics cards to features brought by E7710 as well as some other peculiarities of solutions for workstations.