Intel Debuts New Scalable Processors

What An IT Salesperson Actually Does

It’s about that time again when everyone is talking cores, threads, and gigahertz.  Intel is starting to roll out their newest line of Xeon processors, which are being referred to as “scalable processors” powered by the new Skylake-SP core.

The existing architecture had limitations around the number of cores and threads that Intel has been trying to solve for several years.  Rather than simply adding iterative improvements to existing processors, this latest processor family from Intel has been re-architected from the ground up to improve performance, efficiency, and security.

Outside of changes to the architecture, Intel has also moved away from the E# naming convention in favor of a metal-based tiers: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Whether this new convention adds clarity or complexity is yet to be seen. I know what you’re thinking: “I have to learn a whole new naming convention all over again?!” But have no fear! Here is a quick breakdown of the new tiers, as well as a cheat sheet for deciphering full model numbers under the new system:

  • Platinum (8100 series)
    • Use Cases: Mission-critical applications such Enterprise resource planning (ERP), In-memory Analytics, Online Analytical Processing (OLAP), High-Frequency Trading (HFT), Machine Learning, Virtualization, Containers.
    • CPU Cores: Up to 28
    • Socket Configurations: 8+
    • Memory: Up to 12TB
  • Gold (6100/5100 series)
    • Use Cases: OLTP, Analytics, Machine Learning, Hadoop/SPARK workloads, server-side Java, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), High-Performance Computing (HPC), Virtualization, Containers.
    • CPU Cores: Up to 22
    • Socket Configurations: Up to 4
    • Memory: Up to 6TB
  • Silver (4100 series)
    • Use Cases: SMB workloads, Web front end, network & storage applications for organizations who are anticipating growth.
    • CPU Cores: Up to 12
    • Socket Configurations: Up to 2
    • Memory: Up to 1.5TB
  • Bronze (3100 series)
    • Use Cases: SMB workloads and basic storage servers.
    • CPU Cores: Up to 12
    • Socket Configurations: Up to 2
    • Memory: Up to 1.5TB

Unlike the ring architecture used on previous processors, Intel has developed a new mesh interconnect architecture which allows a shorter path for data to travel by increasing the number of pathways.  Intel states that the new processors are 1.65 times faster than its previous generation.  Another big improvement for performance and efficiency in the new Intel Xeon processors is the increase in the number of supported PCIe 3.0 lanes to a whopping 48 PCIe 3.0 lanes per processor!

Security has been a focus of this release.  Key Protection Technology, which makes it more difficult to retrieve encryption keys by keeping the operations for encrypting and decrypting directly on the processor rather than offloading them to memory, is another great feature of this latest technology. For a complete overview of the new system, Intel has created a comprehensive guide you can find here. We look forward to seeing these advances in tech in action!