Intel Unveils Latest Xeon Server Chip -- Update

By Don Clark 

SAN FRANCISCO-- Intel Corp. unveiled its latest microprocessor for corporate computing rooms, a new version of its Xeon chip that the company said offers up to three times the performance of prior models.

The company said its new Xeon E5-2600 v3, which comes in 26 variations, offers a series of enhancements that include core circuitry for up to 18 processors, compared with 12 processor cores in prior Xeons.

Intel since the 1990s has turned the x86 chip design that evolved from personal computers--also used by Advanced Micro Devices Inc.--into the overwhelming favorite for servers. The company's share of shipments of server chips stood at 97.8% in the second quarter, according to Mercury Research.

With further market-share gains in servers difficult, Intel is eager to take on other jobs in data centers. The company hopes to replace special-purpose networking and data-storage hardware with software applications running on Xeon chips--a trend called "software-defined infrastructure" that backers say can reduce costs and allow new applications to be deployed more quickly.

Diane Bryant, a senior vice president and general manager of Intel's data center group, told reporters at an event here that the move to software-defined infrastructure is both "critical and inevitable."

Intel's announcement comes as rivals are preparing to introduce new alternatives, including chips based on designs from ARM Holdings PLC that were originally used in smartphones. The offerings have arrived more slowly than expected, but vendors have disclosed plans to ship ARM-based server chips this fall.

Besides conventional computing features, Intel said the new Xeon models offer several new technologies to fetch data from other parts of a system more quickly than earlier products. Using new solid-state disk drives--which rely on flash memory chips--a system that incorporates the new Xeon can achieve a sixfold improvement in handling some kinds of computing jobs, Ms. Bryant said.

Besides standard chips, Ms. Bryant said Intel had delivered 20 models of the new chip in customized versions for specific unidentified customers. The new Xeon also includes specialized circuitry for handling jobs such as data encryption, offering up to a 30-fold speedup in handling a popular technology called SSL that is used to protect Web transactions, Intel said.

Intel said the chips range in price from $213 to $2,702 in quantities of 1,000 or more.

Write to Don Clark at [e-mail]

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