Intel launches new entry Xeon E-2100 chips and suddenly shows the future with new Cascade Lake Xeon chips. The top model has 48 cores and 12-channel memory. In order to achieve this, it takes several dies in one package.
Intel has announced the new family of Xeon chips for 2019. Cascade Lake is a major upgrade compared to the current lineup, to counter the emerging AMD Epyc chips. The top model gets 48 cores and 12 DDR4 memory channels per socket.
These chips are the top models that Intel places under the Cascade Lake Advanced Performance category. The new chips are a lot more powerful than the current generation with 28 cores and 56 threads. Intel applies exactly the same trick as AMD: multiple dies in one package and two packages per chip.
Hyperthreading
The change to multiple chips is a necessary choice for Intel. When dies get bigger, the chance of a malfunction increases. Using smaller dies helps, but Intel is still struggling too hard with its 10 nm process to take that step. The new Cascade Lake chips are all 14 nm.
The 12 DDR4 channels require a lot of connections, resulting in a gigantic chip. According to Ars Technica, the new Cascade Lake Xeon sockets will have a 5,903-pin connector, approximately 2,000 contact points more than AMD.
Read this: PortSmash: Intel processors leak sensitive data via hyperthreading
Remarkable: Intel only talks about the number of cores and not about the number of threads. Would Intel disable hyperthreading on future Cascade Lake Xeon chips? Today the news broke that there is a new leak that can abuse hyperthreading on Intel chips. On the other hand, Intel may want to focus on the number of cores first, and then come out with more details later.
Xeon E-2100
In the margin Intel also launches the last batch of E-2100 processors that are now available. These single socket chips are intended for small servers and offer up to six cores and twelve threads per chip. These are basically Intel Core chips that get a Xeon badge and support ECC memory. The chip also uses a server version of the chipset.
This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.