Intel Expects Xeon 5500 To Transform Internet
Based on Intel's Nehalem microarchitecture, the new Xeon 5500 processors have showcased groundbreaking advances in performance, virtualization and workload management, according to Intel Senior Vice President Patrick Gelsinger. "As the Internet expands toward our vision of 15 billion connected devices by 2015, the Xeon 5500 will also be a foundational technology for the transformation of Internet infrastructure," he said.
The industry is currently aligned on a cloud-computing vision in which applications are served from optimized hardware -- making them available on demand and scalable, Gelsinger noted. "Executing to this vision requires underlying technology that incorporates the adaptability, capability, and intelligence of our newest Xeon processor," he said.
More than 230 systems based on the Xeon 5500 processor are already in the works at more than 70 system manufacturers around the world, including Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Sun Microsystems, and others. One reason is that Intel is making "a big play" when it comes to processor power consumption, said Matthew Wilkins, a principal analyst at iSuppli.
"Successive generations of microprocessors are now delivering more performance and consuming less energy," Wilkins said. "If your organization runs a data center or server farm with hundreds, even thousands, of systems or microprocessors, moving to newer, more efficient microprocessors can deliver cost savings through a reduction of power consumption."
The Xeon 5500 integrates automated energy-efficiency enhancements that provide users with greater control of energy expenditures. For example, achieving a processor idle power level of only 10 watts will enable a 50 percent reduction in system idle power compared to the previous chip...
