Turbo Boost

Intel has launched its first Nehalem-based Xeon chips for servers and
workstations, bringing increased performance and greater power
efficiency in the biggest overhaul of the Xeon platform for years. New
chips offer greater memory, bandwidth and power efficient processing.

Nehalem architecture is a fundamental break from earlier Xeon
processors, with an on-chip memory controller supporting a bandwidth
of up to 32Gbit/s and Intel's QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) in place of
the traditional system bus. Each Nehalem EP chip has two QPI links,
one connecting to the system chipset and the other between the two
processor sockets in a system. Each is capable of transferring
25Gbit/s.

Another feature of Nehalem called Turbo Boost helps make maximum use
of processor power. If the operating system requests more performance,
and the chip is within its thermal power constraints, it can ramp up
the clock speed for each individual core.


Nehalem products are coming up fast. Dell Cisco, Lenovo, HP and Sun
and many more are likely to introduce Nehalam systems shortly, if they
have not done already. Nehalem is a very nice upgrade for Intel in the
two-socket space. It has great performance, and great performance per
watt. Besides higher performance, Nehalem systems will consume up to
20 per cent less. energy which, combined with the need for fewer
servers, leads to reduced operating expenditure.

The first Xeon chips based on Intel's Nehalem architecture is expected
to be received very well.