Intel has just released a new platform for servers. The Truland platform is based on the E8500 chipset and a new range of Xeon MP.
For quadri-processor platforms, this chipset includes two distinct FSB667 instead of a unique FSB400 bus. Thanks to this new configuration it features a much bigger bandwidth of 10.6 GB /s. It will be able to work with future Xeon MP dual core Paxvill expected during Q1, 2006.
It also supports a grand total of 28 PCI Express lines with 3 PCI Express x8 slots and 1 PCI Express x4 slot. It is also possible to connect it to 4 XMB (eXternal Memory Bridge) which supports each two memory channel able to welcome 4 DIMM (DDR-266, DDR-333 or DDR-400). The E8500 connects to each XMB via a bus able to reach simultaneously 2.67 GB /s for writing and 5.33 GB /s for reading.
5 Processors based on the Prescott architecture and consequently including SSE3 instructions, the EM64T and energy saving functions are available. Intel has developed the cache L3 and it is now possible to reach up to 8 MB:
- Intel Xeon MP 3.33GHz, 8 MB of cache L3 : $3,692
- Intel Xeon MP 3.00GHz, 8 MB of cache L3 : $1,980
- Intel Xeon MP 2.83GHz, 4 MB of cache L3 : $1,177
- Intel Xeon MP 3.66GHz, 1 MB of cache L2 : $963
- Intel Xeon MP 3.16GHz, 1 MB of cache L2 : $722
All of this clearly improve gains due to the improvement from 1 to 4 CPU. This area was so far strongly dominated by the Opteron because of the platform architecture. Intel announced that previously this type of improvement would increase performances by x3.22, x3.52 under SPECfp and SPECint and that now it is possible to reach x3.56 and x3.96.
Why wouldn’t you choose an A3 printer for the price of a high end A4 ? In your own home you could print wide format, posters, maps, etc. Here we tested the Canon i6500 and HP Deskjet 9300.