Intel Xeon E-2100 Processors Released, Succeeds Xeon E3

[edwaleni]

Reading some of the analysts across the spectrum and the consensus is this is just another splitting of the SKU's to meet some niche market. People who want workstation like performance but don't want the high end socket requirements that comes from Xeon Gold/Silver/Platinum/Latinum SKU's. Xeon-D will continue to be marketed to the datacenter crowd (like Facebook) who like the lower power profile to keep ARM vendors at bay.

OEM's used to deal with this a few years ago by dropping a desktop CPU in a board with a high end GPU and some rudimentary RAID and call it a "workstation". When people saw through this, they (Dell, Lenovo) then rolled out CTO build to order SKU's to resellers where they could drop what ever CPU/GPU combo the customer wanted (Always server class Xeon).

I think what is getting the goat of the technically minded, is that Intel is using some common pre-existing socket types, but forcing OEM's to whitelist to keep end users from cross-pollinating their CPU's. While biz users usually buy by system and CPU generation, HEDT/Power/Workstation class users like to extend their value a bit more. Intel strategy here is to try to get something to offer them and keep them away from server class Xeon's for what they consider desktop work and suppress any arbitrage by letting them buy low and upgrade later high. If you want high capability then Intel thinks you should act like large corporate and purchase in whole.

I still remember the kurfuffle when HP was about to release a BIOS update that allowed Ivy Bridge Xeons to run on Sandy Bridge planars. Intel put the kabosh on it. That was the beginning of what we see now.

Honestly I am not sure why Intel just bans sockets completely at the low end, and leave it at the high end server level where the margins are better.

[grok]

Hasn't always Xeon E (E3) been more or less an ECC-version of current desktop CPU? So it's not so surprising with the 64 GB limit. Of course, 128 GB or so would have been very nice.

Of course it's that. This is a variant of i7-8700.
I wonder why people are crying over this.

"optane memory support" -> this does not refer to Optane DIMM, but just Optane SSD on M.2. Which doesn't really need special support, this just means the motherboard allows you to use it as a caching drive "40 lanes" -> lazy reporting and coder explained it

2MB L3 per core : well, too bad, buy some high end IBM server maybe?

64GB RAM : don't upgrade to this if you have 64GB RAM and want more. But Samsung announced higher density DDR4 and there's a possibilty these systems (along i7 6700K, 7700K, Ryzen 3/5/7) might support 128GB in the end though Intel's data sheet will keep saying 64GB. Like using 48GB RAM on an i7 920.

[coder]

Reading some of the analysts across the spectrum and the consensus is this...

You don't need any analysts, because this is exactly the same as the "E3"-series Xeons, before. As grok and others have said, these are just their mainstream desktop CPUs with vPRO and ECC support not disabled and an artificial dependency added on the new C246 motherboard chipset.

Here's some non-lazy reporting, which includes a map of their old & new market segmentation (hint: same segments, different names):

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12199/intel-launches-coffee-lake-xeon-e-entry

[ChamPro]

Michael, have you heard anything about the availability of this product line? It's fits very well as a step up from the Atom line (Denverton currently) for us home server people.
Since it was released in June, I would expect to see parts available now, but even the systems from OEMs aren't quite purchasable (Lenovo, HP, and Dell have workstations with the E-2124G as a CPU).

[coder]

Michael, have you heard anything about the availability of this product line? It's fits very well as a step up from the Atom line (Denverton currently) for us home server people.
Since it was released in June, I would expect to see parts available now, but even the systems from OEMs aren't quite purchasable (Lenovo, HP, and Dell have workstations with the E-2124G as a CPU).

Here's a Xeon E-2124 that's in stock:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16819117984

I suggest you also consider i3 - especially now that they have 4 cores.

https://ark.intel.com/products/126689/Intel-Core-i3-8350K-Processor-8M-Cache-4-00-GHz-

Here's a list of all Intel CPUs with ECC-support, which you can further restrict by core count, socket type, etc.

https://ark.intel.com/Search/Feature...ECCMemory=true

Ryzen is also a promising option for home-servers, given its ECC-support. I will be looking at the 12 nm refresh of their APUs.

[ChamPro]

Here's a Xeon E-2124 that's in stock:

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16819117984

I suggest you also consider i3 - especially now that they have 4 cores.

https://ark.intel.com/products/126689/Intel-Core-i3-8350K-Processor-8M-Cache-4-00-GHz-

Here's a list of all Intel CPUs with ECC-support, which you can further restrict by core count, socket type, etc.

https://ark.intel.com/Search/Feature...ECCMemory=true

Ryzen is also a promising option for home-servers, given its ECC-support. I will be looking at the 12 nm refresh of their APUs.

Good ideas. It looks like most of the available processors with ECC support are non-G Xeon E or a F variant of the i3, both of which don't have graphics.
I'm out of luck for now if I want a 6 core chip with graphics that supports ECC. Unless I go to a Xeon D, which brings a whole new set of problems with embedded CPUs that I'm trying to get away from (I'm moving up from a Atom C2xxx).

The i3-8350K is the best option if I don't want to wait: similar clock speed and graphics, but only 4 cores. A higher TDP, but you still get AVX2. On the up side, it is quite a bit cheaper (about half of the cost of a E-2146G).

[ChamPro]

Good ideas. It looks like most of the available processors with ECC support are non-G Xeon E or a F variant of the i3, both of which don't have graphics.
I'm out of luck for now if I want a 6 core chip with graphics that supports ECC. Unless I go to a Xeon D, which brings a whole new set of problems with embedded CPUs that I'm trying to get away from (I'm moving up from a Atom C2xxx).

The i3-8350K is the best option if I don't want to wait: similar clock speed and graphics, but only 4 cores. A higher TDP, but you still get AVX2. On the up side, it is quite a bit cheaper (about half of the cost of a E-2146G).

Another option would be buy an I3-8100 for now... currently $116 on NewEgg. And upgrade to the E-2146G when available. Though the benchmarks pitting the two against each other are a little sad.

[coder]

Good ideas. It looks like most of the available processors with ECC support are non-G Xeon E or a F variant of the i3, both of which don't have graphics.

Uh, all Xeons support ECC. Plenty of i3's with graphics, too. You just need to add the filter for FCLGA1151:

https://ark.intel.com/Search/Feature...rted=FCLGA1151

Dual core (but many have higher clock speeds):

https://ark.intel.com/products/97455...ache-3-90-GHz-
https://ark.intel.com/products/97458...ache-4-00-GHz-
https://ark.intel.com/products/97484...ache-4-10-GHz-
https://ark.intel.com/products/97527...ache-4-20-GHz-

Quad core:

https://ark.intel.com/products/12668...ache-3-60-GHz-
https://ark.intel.com/products/12994...ache-3-70-GHz-
https://ark.intel.com/products/12668...ache-4-00-GHz-

I'm out of luck for now if I want a 6 core chip with graphics that supports ECC. Unless I go to a Xeon D, which brings a whole new set of problems with embedded CPUs that I'm trying to get away from (I'm moving up from a Atom C2xxx).

What do you mean out of luck? You've no doubt seen these...

https://ark.intel.com/products/13485...p-to-4-70-GHz-
https://ark.intel.com/products/13486...p-to-4-70-GHz-
https://ark.intel.com/products/13486...p-to-4-50-GHz-

The i3-8350K is the best option if I don't want to wait: similar clock speed and graphics, but only 4 cores. A higher TDP, but you still get AVX2. On the up side, it is quite a bit cheaper (about half of the cost of a E-2146G).

Google shopping has 5 hits for the E-2146G, although I agree that the i3-8350K is a tempting alternative. If you're going to use it for something like a fileserver, I doubt you'll miss the extra cores.

I have a dual-core Haswell i3 in a SSD-based fileserver I'm upgrading to 10 Gigabit. Should be interesting.

[coder]

Another option would be buy an I3-8100 for now... currently $116 on NewEgg. And upgrade to the E-2146G when available. Though the benchmarks pitting the two against each other are a little sad.

Perhaps you could even find an i3 or Pentium/Celeron Gold on ebay.

Do note that the LGA 1151 motherboards either support Sky/Kaby Lake or Coffee Lake, but not both! So, that's your first decision.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_1151

If you want to buy new, I think the cheapest Coffee Lake CPU with ECC support is a Celeron G4900, for a list price of merely $42.

https://ark.intel.com/products/12948...ache-3-10-GHz-
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117871

[ChamPro]

Perhaps you could even find an i3 or Pentium/Celeron Gold on ebay.

Do note that the LGA 1151 motherboards either support Sky/Kaby Lake or Coffee Lake, but not both! So, that's your first decision.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_1151

If you want to buy new, I think the cheapest Coffee Lake CPU with ECC support is a Celeron G4900, for a list price of merely $42.

https://ark.intel.com/products/12948...ache-3-10-GHz-
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117871

Thanks for the tips. I did end up buying the I3-8100 for now, until the Xeon E-21xx are actually available.
Those 5 "available" stores for the E-21xx chips on Google Shopping/Products are all bunk (the high end E-2186 is out of my price range). I've tried buying from them and they just take your money and say they'll "ship when available". Even MacMall/PCM/TigerDirect, which is kind of sad.