Intel unveils 8-core Nehalem-EX Xeon processor

Intel officially took the wraps off its Nehalem-EX processor this week, which will come with up to eight processing cores. The chip behind the next iteration of Intel's Xeon server line is scheduled to go into production in the second half of this year. It is also expected to make appear in high-end server systems by early next year.

With eight cores, the Nehalem-EX processor will support 16 threads, effectively doubling the work that can be done on each core. As such, Intel has opted to pack the chip with I/O so that it can crunch numbers unimpeded. Each processor comes with four "QuickPath" Interconnect (QPI) links, two integrated memory controllers as well as 24MB of cache. As a result, it will also be able to handle up to 16 memory slots per processor socket. With scalability up to eight sockets connected via QPI, this adds up to a lot of memory indeed.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Ars Technica
- check out this article at CNET News

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