Intel has finally launched their next-gen Broadwell-EP Xeon E5-2600 V4 family for workstation and data center platforms. The new CPU lineup makes use of the 14nm core architecture, featuring increased core count, core IPC improvements and better performance per watt compared to last generation workstation family (Xeon E5 V3).

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Intel Broadwell-EP Xeon E5-2600 V4 - The Most Advanced Workstation and Data Center Family To Date

The Broadwell-EP family is based on the Broadwell architecture which is a highly scalable design. It is built to accommodate low-energy 4.5W SKUs and all the way up to 160W workstation chips that are launching today. The Broadwell-EP family comprises of several SKUs with the flagship product featuring the highest core count for any Intel processor to date.

The new family delivers up to 44% better performance in application benches used to test out the next-gen processors. The scalability of the new family allows Intel to offer several dies on the same chip architecture which has been the scheme since the last generation of E5-2600 families.

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The platform details mentioned by Intelindicate that Broadwell-EP utilizes the latest 14nm process node and features 20% more cores and 20% more LLC (Last Level Cache). We had previously mentioned that Intel’s Broadwell-EP platform will leverage from faster 2400 MHz DDR4 ram which is now available in the market, offering greater I/O throughput. New features also include new, increased resource monitoring and allocation capabilities. Some of these new technologies will allow better compatibility with data center Orchestration and Virtualization.

New Intel Xeon platform. Designed to support up to 22 cores and memory speeds of up to 2400MT/s, the new Intel Xeon® E5-2600 v4processor offers up to 25 percent performance gainsfor HPE ProLiant Gen9 servers. The Intel® Xeon E5-2600 v4 processors include virtualization enhancements, added security and improved orchestration capabilities to help customers better manage shared platform resources. With these new processors, HPE has achieved several new #1 server benchmark performance positions in multiple categories, including results with Industry-First Big Data TPC Express Benchmark Big Bench (TPCx-BB),SPECjbb2015-Composite, SPECjbb2015-Distributed,and TPC-H.Fast data transfer with high-speed DRAM in multiple configurations. HPE DDR4 2400 MHz memory is available in a variety of capacities starting at 8GB. For highest performance environments, HPE 128GB LRDIMMs offer extra density that delivers up to 23 percent better performance.State of the art solid state drives (SSDs). HPE NVMe SSDs are compact, economical and offer up to 2TB of storage in a flexible package that includes Express Bay for front access to drives that are designed for big-ticket jobs, including online transaction processing, business intelligence and Big Data analytics.Smart authentication. Adding TCG Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 specification 1.16 to HPE ProLiant Gen 9 servers provides a tamper-resistant environment to prevent unauthorized access to servers. TPM supports Microsoft BitLocker, which securely stores authentication elements, such as passwords and encryption keys.HPE Application Migration to Cloud Solution. Secure, tested and validatedreference architecture delivered by HPE Technology Services experts to help customers migrate on-premises applications to a private cloud.

The entire family will be compatible with existing platforms and will run across the consumer and workstation class boards based on the LGA 2011-v3 and R3 sockets (C612 and X99 Chipsets).

Intel's Xeon E5-2600 V4 Chips Feature An Insane 7.2 Billion Transistors on a 456mm2 Die

Talking about technical details, the Broadwell-EP Xeon E5-2600 V4 is an insane family with up to 7.2 billion total transistors packed inside a 456mm2 die. It should be noted that the last flagship chip in the Haswell-EP lineup in 2014 featured a maximum of 18 cores with 5.69 Billion transistors on a massive 662mm2 die. The 14nm process allows Intel to significantly cut down the die size while increasing both transistor count, core count and the IPC performance.

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Image Credits/Source: Computerbase

The Broadwell-EP family has three die variants. The most basic variant can accommodate 4 to 10 cores on a 246 mm2 die with 3.4 Billion transistors. The next die can feature 12 to 15 cores on a 306mm2 die with 4.7 billion transistors. The last die is the flagship one which comes with 16-24 cores and technical specifications have been detailed above. Do note that the Broadwell-EP flagship variant which is detailed below comes with a maximum of 22 cores while the flagship Broadwell-EN lineup for enterprise platforms will come with 24 14nm Broadwell cores.

Intel Xeon E5-2699 V4, The Flagship Broadwell-EP SKU

The top brass in the Broadwell-EP family consists of the Xeon E5-2699 V4 and the Xeon E5-2698 V4 processors which feature improved specifications over their predecessors in terms of core count. First up, we are looking at the flagship offering in the family known as the Xeon E5-2699 V4 which features the highest core count Intel has offered to date.

Image Credits/Source: Anandtech

With 22 cores and a multi-threaded design offering 44 threads, the chip packs insane CPU performance. With 2.5 MB cache scattered across each core, the die packs 55 MB L3 cache and is clocked at a range of 2.2 GHz base clock and up to 3.6 GHz boost clock. The entire chip has a TDP of 145W with workstation offerings of the chip going up to 160W. The new processors also deploy the latest AVX/AVX2 instructions with up to 22 levels of boost clocks.

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Intel Broadwell-EP Lineup: