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 don.clark@wsj.com
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