Intel launches its new Xeon E7 v4 chips, ups the ante for advanced analytics in real-time decisions

Intel launches its new Xeon E7 v4 chips, ups the ante for advanced analytics in real-time decisions

Intel has launched its new Xeon processor E7-8800 and 4800 v4 series. With the new processors, Intel has up the ante, in terms of performance, reliability and security, for advanced analytics in real-time decisions. The exact model processor model numbers haven’t been released yet; however, there are a number of key improvements to the latest version of the Intel Xeon E7 processors. For a start, the new Broadwell-EX processors have shifted to the 14nm process technology whereas the previous generation Xeon E7 CPUs were on the 22nm one.

Also, Intel claims the new crop of CPUs have the "largest memory capacity per socket", up to 24TB memory support. This is because the Intel Xeon E7 v4 platform supports up to 3TB per CPU socket, and now, the platform supports up to 8 sockets. With third party node controllers, the Xeon E7 v4 socket support can be scaled up to 64 sockets! Besides using the new 14nm process technology, the number of cores for the Xeon E7 v4 CPUs have been increased to a maximum of 24 cores per socket, coupled with up to 60MB of Last Level Cache (LLC), an increment of 15MB over their previous generation counterparts. With Hyper-Threading technology, the new Xeon E7 processors’ multi-threading support has been increased to 48 threads per socket.

In order to support such large amounts of system memory, the Xeon E7 v4 CPUs now support 3DS load-reduced DIMMs. This allows for near real-time processing of in-memory workloads, thereby improving the performance and output for real-time data analytics. Such performance outputs are critical to certain market segments who rely on such data analytics to keep the operations running smoothly; they include the banking, power grid, telecommunication, and traffic control market segments.

The Intel Xeon E7 v4 CPUs are socket compatible to the v3 ones, so upgrade options are easier. Also, Intel also counts on a broad ecosystem support for its Xeon E7 family as it counts a large number of hardware and software services providers that provide a wide array of Xeon E7 hardware. They range from rack mount servers, which support 2- to 8-socket Xeon E7 configurations, to tower servers, with 16-socket or more configuration that operate mission critical systems.

(Source: Intel)