At IDF15, an Intel spokesperson reassured the press that their Broadwell-EP lineup of Xeon E5-2600 V4 series processors is heading for launch in Q4 2015. The latest Broadwell-EP line of processors will be aimed towards the enterprise and workstation market that are configured in 1S and 2S platforms while the Xeon E5-4600 V4 (4S Platform) and Broadwell-EX/EN based Xeon E7-8800/4800 V4 (8S Platform) will possibly launch next year.

Image Credits: Computerbase

Intel Broadwell-EP Xeon E5-2600 V4 Headed For Launch in Q4 2015

The surprising thing about Broadwell-EP is that earlier this year, we started hearing reports from the industry that Intel might have delayed their Broadwell chips to be used in sever environments and instead focus on the mobility side while new Xeon chips will probably debut with the Skylake architecture. Those reports turned out to be false as Intel assures that the Broadwell-EP lineup will be out later this year. While talking to german web site, Computerbase, a company spokesperson told that Broadwell-EP processors will be the first workstation oriented, multi-core chips based on the latest 14nm architecture that made its debut with the Broadwell series of processors.

From previous reports, we know that Intel will still be using their Brickland and Grantley platforms for these new chips as they were supposed to span three generations of Xeon processors starting with the Ivy Bridge family. The Grantley platform which is made up of the C610 series PCH, Ethernet XL710 controller and the new Ethernet X550 controller (Sageville) will power the enterprise 1S, 2S and 4S solutions. There will additionally be DDR4 memory support as Intel makes a transition from DDR3 to DDR4 across their entire product stock from mobility processors, desktop processors and workstation/server class processors.

In terms of specifications, Broadwell-EP Xeon E5-2600 V4 processors will feature up to 22 cores while the EX series will feature up to 24 cores. The 22 core beast will feature a total of 44 threads and if we take 2.5 MB cache (per core slice) from Haswell-EP, we can expect to see up to 55 MB of L3 cache on these processors. The TDPs of the chips will range from 55 to 145 (160W Workstation only) and will be compatible with the Socket R3. The details seem to be true since it was already reported in a previously leaked slide from Intel which we covered a detailed report on. Broadwell-EP will feature up to 40 PCI-Express lanes and quad channel DDR4 memory support. They do sound nice but desktop users will have to stick with the four cores on Skylake for now. HEDT variants of the Broadwell-E family are expected to bring 6-8 core SKU configurations while Skylake-E that comes later in 2017 will push it to 10-12 core count on the HEDT platform.

For Skylake, Intel will finally move to a brand new platform known as Purely which will be a scalable and unified platform supporting all 2S, 4S and 8S chips in the Skylake-EP and Skylake-EN lineup. It will feature the Storm Lake Gen 1 architecture which is the name for Intel's next generation Omni-Path interconnect to be housed on this specific platform while the Lewisburg PCH will be powering the entire platform. We can expect up to 28 cores, 56 threads and an insane amount of cache on these processors that will feature 45-165W TDPs with 6 channel DDR4 memory support and 48 PCI-Express lanes per chip. An 8S platform housing these chips will end up featuring 228 cores, 448 threads and 560 MB of L3 cache. Nevertheless, we expect to hear more about the Broadwell-EP processor line later in Q4 2015.

Intel Xeon Workstation/Server/Enterprise Platform Specifications: