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.

[franzhaenel]

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.

[Weasel]

Only 64GB max ram, only 40 PCIe lanes, only 2MB of cache per core. Same thing they have been selling us for the past 4-5 years. And, of course, it probably also "features" Meltdown and Spectre.

Intel is giving every chance for AMD to kick its ass once they start shipping Ryzen 2 based on GloFo's 7nm process. Just hope AMD won't drop the ball.

How do you expect them to increase the cache when the process node is the same (14nm)? There's no "architecture optimizations" available with the cache, literally all that matters is the node used. You think tech is magic or what?

People really love to whine about pointless crap all the time.

Here's a solution to your low memory/caching troubles: stop using pathetically bloated inefficient software.

[riklaunim]

For anyone that wants to complain about the support for "only 64GB" of ram, I think they are missing the point, these cpu's support Optane DIMM, which I believe will be a transformative technology once it arrives.

Optane is a cookie while most people want a pie. There will be a lot of uncertainty on how it will work for give workload and thus if it's worth it.

[coder]

40 lanes of PCI Express

This is Intel misinformation. The actual CPU supports 16 lanes + a x4 DMI 3 connection, just like Coffee Lake desktop CPUs. The way they reach the "40" number is by putting a big switch in the chipset that fans out the x4 DMI3 lanes to x24.

The total bandwidth between these 24 lanes and the CPU/memory is still limited to x4, so don't think you're going to have a big NVMe RAID in this thing or adding 100 Gbps NICs, etc.

[starshipeleven]

Seems they are splitting the low end in two. There is the 16 core Atom which has the server features stripped off (for appliances they say), and now there is the E3, which retains the feature set but is crippled with low specifications.

If that means lower pricing, I could allow that. Knowing Intel, it's not going to lower prices that much.

[edwaleni]

Seems they are splitting the low end in two. There is the 16 core Atom which has the server features stripped off (for appliances they say), and now there is the E3, which retains the feature set but is crippled with low specifications. The Xeon-D, which was the low power server chip that could, but Intel wanted a kings ransom for it (to protect Xeon E5) and was fabbed along side the last gen Atom, which has been cancelled.

Why do I feel like I am watching General Motors and their product blunders in the 1980's all over again?

Next thing you know Intel will open a fab for the "low end" CPU market and call it Saturn, (cough, cough) sorry, they already did, it was called Atom.

[Spooktra]

For anyone that wants to complain about the support for "only 64GB" of ram, I think they are missing the point, these cpu's support Optane DIMM, which I believe will be a transformative technology once it arrives.

[mbello]

Only 64GB max ram, only 40 PCIe lanes, only 2MB of cache per core. Same thing they have been selling us for the past 4-5 years. And, of course, it probably also "features" Meltdown and Spectre.

Intel is giving every chance for AMD to kick its ass once they start shipping Ryzen 2 based on GloFo's 7nm process. Just hope AMD won't drop the ball.

[zxy_thf]

> Up to *64GB* DDR4 ECC 2666MHz (according to https://newsroom.intel.com/news/new-...-workstations/)

was expecting 128GB.
Well, bye-bye.