Intel says Woodcrest puts it back on top

New dual-core Xeon platform boosts performance and saves energy

Intel has introduced its dual-core Xeon 5100 series, the processor family it says will make it the leader for performance and power-efficiency.

Previously known by the Woodcrest codename, the chip line has long been touted as the product and attendant platform to restore Intel’s superiority over rival AMD and its hugely successful Opteron line.

With the release, Intel is targeting the sweet spot of volume servers, workstations, communications, storage and embedded markets.

The firm touted benchmarks promising up to 135 percent better performance and 40 percent improved power efficiency than earlier Intel parts. The 5100 will be offered at speeds up to 3GHz with 1333MHz front-side bus and 4MB of shared L2 cache

Woodcrest is built with Intel’s latest 65nm manufacturing process and FB-DIMM fast memory technology, and debuts the Core Micro-architecture that will also be the platform for forthcoming mobile and desktop processors.

The architecture includes Wide Dynamic Execution, offering more instructions per cycle, and an Advanced Smart Cache that allows one of the two cores to hog the shared memory cache if the other is idle. Another technology, called Smart Memory Access, has the ability to “hide” memory latency and bottlenecks, Intel said.

Pat Gelsinger, general manager of Intel’s Digital Enterprise Group, said Core “is a technical marvel that is driving a new era of power efficiency without compromising on what can only be described as eye-popping dual-core 64bit performance”.

In an unusually bullish statement, Intel said it expects the 5100 to be Intel’s “fastest ramping” – referring to the transition from availability to high volume sales – line yet. Over 150 manufacturers will offer the part in systems that can be ordered today, it added.

Among early users is Silicon Graphics (SGI), a veteran high-performance ser ver maker that is betting on the 5100 to help it battle its way out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

SGI is effectively taking an off-the-shelf Intel design in its new Altix XE line of Linux systems. “Our installed base said we were only addressing 20 percent of their IT needs and wanted cluster-type solutions,” said John Fleming, SGI server products manager. “We weren’t selling what they wanted. We want to expand beyond the technical high-performance computing market and look towards the technical enterprise.”