Intel launches Xeon E5-2600/1600 v3 processors for data centres

Intel has introduced the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600/1600 v3 product families to address the rapidly evolving needs of data centres. The new processor families provide performance increases of up to 3x over the previous generation1, improved energy efficiency and enhanced security.

Source: Intel. The new Xeon E5-2600 v3.

The processors will be used in servers, workstations, storage and networking infrastructure to power workloads such as data analytics, high-performance computing, telecommunications and cloud-based services, as well as back-end processing for the Internet of Things.

“The digital services economy imposes new requirements on the data centre, requirements for automated, dynamic and scalable service delivery,” said Diane Bryant, Senior VP and GM, Data Center Group at Intel. “By enabling the re-architecture of the data centre, Intel is helping companies fully exploit the benefits of cloud-based services.”

RK Hiremane, Datacenter Regional Marketing Manager, Asia Pacific, Intel noted that modern data centres need to scale on demand, be low cost, yet highly efficient, and deliver consistently. "Businesses must have visibility into what's happening in the data centre," he said. 

The new processors will feature sensors and telemetry to measure key metrics for CPU, memory and I/O utilisation. With the addition of thermal sensors for airflow and outlet temperature, the visibility and control has increased significantly compared to the prior generation. The data captured can be used for any software-defined infrastructure (SDI) orchestration solution to maximise data centre efficiency for a lower total cost of ownership.

According to Hiremane, various companies making use of the new processors for a variety of applications have seen significant improvements in performance. Kakadu Software in Australia, for instance, saw a 1.47x benefit for workloads over the previous generation of servers they were using. RiverSilica Technologies in India has reported up to 42% performance improvements.


Both Chunghwa Telecom and Foxconn have been positive about the Intel Power Thermal Aware Solution enabled by the telemetry and sensors in the Xeon E5 v3 processors. Ruey-Chang Hsu, VP of Network Department, Chunghwa Telecom said: "Integrating and testing with Intel's latest Power Thermal Aware Solution powered by Intel's Xeon E5 v3 processor into Chunghwa Telecom's Intelligent Energy Network has proven satisfactory to enable dynamic cooling, real-time management and optimisation for efficiency and reduction of the overall operation cost of the cloud data centre."

"Our testing with Intel's Power Thermal Aware Solution... has shown us that we can in real time monitor an dmanage our Guiyang green data centre. We're excited about the feasibility and the integration of this data centre-optimised solution with our management system to dynamically monitor and manage for energy efficiency," said Ed Wu, CEVP, Foxconn Technology Group.

Starting today, system manufacturers around the world are expected to announce Intel Xeon processor E5 v3-based platforms. These manufacturers across servers, storage and networking include Bull, Cray, Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, Huawei, IBM, Inspur, Lenovo, NEC, Oracle, Quanta, Radisys, SGI, Sugon and Supermicro.

A server refresh is just the right time to upgrade from Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 R2 as well, commented Microsoft Asia Pacific's Modern Datacenter Lead, Vasily Malanin. The server operating systems will no longer be supported by Microsoft as of 15 July 2015, but there is still enough time to spare to complete a migration, he said. 

He disclosed that 37 critical updates were released in 2013 for Windows Server 2003 and 2003 R2, indicating that the operating systems will require patching well after their end of support cycle. "A misconception with customers and partners is that migrating to the public cloud or virtualisation can help resolve security concerns. This is not true. They still have to migrate to a newer version. The more you delay the more critical it becomes," he said.

According to Malanin, businesses which are unable to upgrade can opt for a custom support agreement from Microsoft, but the cost of the subscription doubles after the first year. Such businesses can also consider isolating the servers running the OS. More than seven in 10 (73%) of Singapore companies using Spiceworks tools were running at least one instance of Windows Server 2003 in June 2014.

Vincent Oh, Regional SE Director, SEA and India, McAfee, part of Intel Security, added that it is critical that servers in cloud environments are secured. "Businesses must be able to extend workload security into the cloud," he said. An ideal server security solution, such as that provided by McAfee, would be able to monitor and protect all workloads and ensure compliance, he added.  

About the Intel Xeon E5 2600 v3 family

With up to 18 cores per socket and 45MB of last-level cache, the Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3 product family provides up to 50% more cores and cache compared to the previous generation of processors. The Xeon E5-2600 v3 product family also increases virtualisation density, allowing support for up to 70% more VMs per server compared to the previous generation processors2, which helps to reduce data centre operational expenses. Memory bandwidth-constrained workloads will gain up to 1.4x higher performance compared to the previous generation3 with the support of next-generation DDR4 memory. 


In addition, an extension to Intel Advanced Vector Extensions (Intel AVX2)4 doubles the width of vector integer instructions to 256 bits per clock cycle for integer-sensitive workloads and delivers up to 1.9x higher performance gains5, while Intel Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions (Intel AES-NI) have also been enhanced to accelerate data encryption and decryption by up to 2x without sacrificing application response times6. 

The Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 product family also has a new cache monitoring feature to enable orchestration tools to place and rebalance workloads intelligently, resulting in faster completion times. This feature can also pinpoint performance anomalies due to competition for cache resources in a multitenant cloud environment. 

Combining both record performance and advanced efficiency features, the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 product family sets a new world record for server energy efficiency7 based on performance per watt. The processors are built using 22nm, 3-D Tri-Gate technology, cutting power consumption while boosting performance of transistors. The new “per-core” power states dynamically regulate and adjust power in each processor core for more power-efficient workload processing.

Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3 processors can be paired with the Intel Communications Chipset 89xx series featuring Intel Quick Assist Technology to enable faster encryption and compression performance8 to improve security in a wide range of workloads. Service providers and networking equipment providers can use the platform to consolidate multiple communications workloads onto a single, standardised and flexible architecture to speed up services deployment, reduce costs, and create a more consistent and secure user experience.

In addition, the new Intel Ethernet Controller XL710 family helps address the increasing demands on networks with capabilities to enable better performance for virtualised servers and networks. The 10/40 gigabit Ethernet controller provides twice the bandwidth while consuming half the power compared with the previous generation9.

The Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 v3 product family will be offered with 26 different configurations that range in price from US$213 to US$2,702 in quantities of 1,000. Intel Xeon processor E5-1600 workstations will be offered with six different configurations in prices ranging from US$295 to US$1,723. Click here for a price list.

1Source as of September 8, 2014. New configuration: Hewlett-Packard Company HP ProLiant ML350 Gen9 platform with two Intel Xeon Processor E5-2699 v3, Oracle Java Standard Edition 8 update 11, 190,674 SPECjbb2013-MultiJVM max-jOPS, 47,139 SPECjbb2013-MultiJVM critical-jOPS. Source. Baseline: Cisco Systems Cisco UCS C240 M3 platform with two Intel Xeon Processor E5-2697 v2, Oracle Java Standard Edition 7 update 45, 63,079 SPECjbb2013-MultiJVM max-jOPS , 23,797 SPECjbb2013-MultiJVM critical-jOPS. Source.

2Source as of September 8, 2014. New configuration: Hewlett-Packard Company ProLiant DL360 Gen9 with two Intel Xeon Processor E5-2699 v3, SPECvirt_sc2013 1614 @ 95 VMs. Source. Baseline: IBM System x3650 M4 platform with two Intel Xeon Processor E5-2697 v2, SPECvirt_sc2013 947.0 @ 53 VMs. Source.

³Source as of August 2014 TR#3044 on STREAM (triad): Intel Server Board S2600CP with two Intel Xeon Processor E5-2697 v2, 24x16GB DDR3-1866 @1066MHz DR-RDIMM, score: 58.9 GB/sec. New Configuration: Intel Server System R2208WTTYS with two Intel Xeon Processor E5-2699 v3, 24x16GB DR4-2133 @ 1600MHz DR-RDIMM, score: 85.2 GB/sec.

⁴Intel Advanced Vector Extensions (Intel AVX) provides higher throughput to certain processor operations. Due to varying processor power characteristics, utilising AVX instructions may cause a) some parts to operate at less than the rated frequency and b) some parts with Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 to not achieve any or maximum turbo frequencies. Performance varies depending on hardware, software, and system configuration and you can learn more at http://www.intel.com/go/turbo.

⁵Source as of August 2014 TR#3034 on Linpack. Baseline configuration: Intel Server Board S2600CP with two Intel Xeon Processor E5-2697 v2, Intel HT Technology disabled, Intel^® Turbo Boost Technology enabled, 8x8GB DDR3-1866, RHEL* 6.3, Intel MKL 11.0.5, score: 528 GFlops. New configuration: Intel Server System R2208WTTYS with two Intel Xeon Processor E5-2699 v3, Intel HT Technology disabled, Intel Turbo Boost Technology enabled, 8x16GB DDR4-2133, RHEL 6.4, Intel MKL 11.1.1, score: 1,012 GFlops.

⁶Source as of June 2014 on AES-128-GCM Encryption algorithm: Intel internal measurements using Intel Server Board S2600CW2S with two Intel Xeon Processor E5-2658 v3, DDR4-2133, CentoOS v3.8.4, Open SSL v1.0.2-beta1. Baseline Configuration: Intel internal measurements with two E5-2658 v2, DDR3-1866, CentoOS v3.8.4, Open SSL v1.0.2-beta1.

⁷Comparison based on SPECpower_ssj2008 results published (http://www.spec.org/) as of August 26, 2014. Sugon I620-G20 platform with two Intel Xeon Processor E5-2699 v3, IBM J9 VM, 10,599 overall ssj_ops/watt. Source (http://www.sugon.com/).

⁸Intel Communications Chipset 8920 (20Gbps) compared to Intel Communication Chipset 8955 (50Gbps) capable of up to 2.5x more encryption acceleration. Intel Communications Chipset 8920 (8Gbps) compared to Intel Communication Chipset 8955 (24Gbps) capable of up to 3x more compression acceleration.

⁹Source as of Aug 2014: Calculated Gb/Watt for 2@ Intel Ethernet CNA X520-DA2 Dual-port Twinax Typical Power 11.6W  2: 1@ Intel Ethernet CNA X710-DA4 Quad-port Twinax Typical Power 3.4W for a 222% increase in Gb/Watt (Typical).