Nehalem-EX has been in the news quite a bit over the past several months. 

First, in May, Intel described how Nehalem-EX will be at the heart of the next generation of intelligent and expandable high-end Intel server platforms, delivering a number of new technical advancements (Intel Nehalem Architecture, Quick Path Interconnects, 16 threads, 24MB cache, new RAS features like MCA-Recovery, 16 DIMM slots per socket, 128 threads on 8 Socket systems) and boost enterprise computing performance (the greatest gain in generational performance ever seen at Intel.)

Next at IDF in September Intel described how Nehalem-EX would deliver a bigger generational performance improvement than that delivered by the Intel Xeon 5500 processor (including a 3X Nehalem-EX gain in database performance); a large shift in Xeon scalability with over 15 >8S systems anticipated and expandability for the most data demanding enterprise applications, the addition of about 20 RAS capabilities traditionally found in the Intel® Itanium processor family – along with a demonstration of MCA-Recovery. IBM announced their upcoming BladeCenter products that will support 4S Nehalem-EX blades and Super-Micro announced a 1U box, specifically targeted at HPC.  Staying on the HPC theme, Mark Seager from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was also quoted with stating that “Nehalem-EX allows us to invest in science, not the computer science of porting and adapting software to new architectures, but real science.  Nehalem EX is an innovative SMP on a chip solution that provides us access to a “super node” … The result is an astonishing new level of performance.”

And Oracle Open World on October 13^th, the drumbeat for Nehalem-EX continued.  Michael Dell in his Oracle Open World Keynote today discussed how Nehalem-EX will provide a true leap in performance, with up to 9x the memory bandwidth and 3x the database performance vs. prior generation.  And he mentioned that Dell’s unique implementation of the memory architecture will allow the most cost effective scaling, with 4S systems up to 1TB of DRAM (64 Dimms x 16GB Memory sticks) enabling customers to run their entire database in system memory.  He also mentioned that standard based systems are driving new efficiencies with applications like Oracle, where Dell’s data shows Oracle apps run better on x86 vs. proprietary architectures, up to 200% better.  Check out this short video from the keynote and watch what Michael Dell had to say. 

Keep your eyes on the Server Room for more Nehalem-EX news as it comes between now and launch.  And visit the Intel booth at South Moscone Booth #1621 to learn more.

Bryce

A MONSTER CHIP IS COMING. The next generation of MP processor is targeted for production later this year, and by all accounts it is going to be a monster. Nehalem-EX is part of the Nehalem family of processors, but compared to its siblings it has the highest cores/threads count, largest shared cache, highest CPU-to-CPU bandwidth, highest I/O bandwidth, highest memory capacity, highest memory bandwidth, greatest scalability, and highest level of Reliability/Availability/Serviceability. It’s expected to bring a gargantuan, unprecedented leap in capabilities and performance--the biggest leap in all of Xeon product history.

IT’S TARGETED AT “BIG BOXES”. Big box servers are multiprocessor systems using the most capable processors and platform components. These systems are targeted at applications and usages that require the largest memory footprints, the highest amounts of single-box processing power (for workloads that don’t decompose well into lots of independent threads) and/or advanced levels of RAS. Such systems are typically the best choice for large databases, ERP apps, Business Intelligence apps, large-scale server consolidation and business-critical virtualization, mission critical applications and large scale high performance computing.

IT USES THE SAME PROCESSING TECHNOLOGY AS THE SUCCESSFUL XEON 5500, BUT MORE OF IT. Just like with Xeon 5500, the Nehalem micro-architecture brings improved single-threaded performance via IPC (Instructions per Clock) enhancements and Intel’s Hi-k 45nm manufacturing process. Greater multi-threaded performance comes via Hyper-Threading and more cores. But while the Xeon 5500 has up to 4 cores/16threads per socket, the Nehalem-EX monster doubles that to 8 cores/16 threads.

HAS A BEEFIER MEMORY AND INTERCHIP COMMUNICATION SUBSYSTEMS. Monster thread processing capabilities require monster size feeding to bring out the best performance. Nehalem-EX’s raw processing potential is made viable by a heavy duty memory subsystem and inter-chip communication system.

Nehalem-EX has 24MB of shared level 3 cache--that’s 50% more than the current Xeon 7400 and 200% more than Xeon 5500. The memory channel bandwidth was increased to 9-times that of Xeon 7400. And it’s all attached to up to 16 DIMM slots per socket (that’s 64DIMMs slots for 4 sockets)—double the current generation of Xeon 7400.

In a multi-socket system, processors need to communicate with each other in order to most efficiently coordinate their shared workload. They also need lots of I/O bandwidth. Nehalem-EX has four QuickPath Interconnects on every socket--double that of Xeon 5500. The four QPI links enable Nehalem-EX processors to be directly connected to each other in a 4 socket system. This offers significant performance advantage over a so-called ring architecture wherein some processor-to-processor communication must go through an intermediary processor. The extra QPIs also mean that there’s plenty of CPU to I/O bandwidth.

EXPECTED TO BRING THE GREATEST LEAP FORWARD IN XEON PERFORMANCE EVER. On key server performance benchmarks (e.g. SPEC_int_rate, SPEC_floating point_rate, TPC-C, etc) Xeon 5500 using Nehalem technology brought gains of over 100-200% greater than prior generation. Generational gains of this magnitude come along just about once a decade. Nehalem-EX’s generation-to-generation performance gains are expected to be substantially higher than those of Xeon 5500. We’ve already seen measured memory bandwidth of 9X vs. prior generation. That’s an early indication of the level by which new performance records will be set when this monster chip comes to market.

Related Topics:

NHM-EX Press Fact Sheet

NHM-EX May 26^th Press Briefing Video – condensed version

IBM 8Socket Demo Video

NHM-EX--A New Standard