Intel Xeon 5600 (Westmere) family

In the series of posts related to server configuration I reviewed the memory configuration for optimal performance. I figured that a short introduction to the 5600 family would be useful to better understand the considerations that will follow in my next post.   

About the Xeon 5600
Part of Intel Tick-Tock cadence, The Intel Xeon 5500 (Nehalem) was shrink and replaced by Intel Xeon 5600 (Westmere) family, to be followed by Sandy Bride next year which will introduce a new microarchitecture.
The 5600 is based on the new 32nm process used in chip manufacturing and offers better performance at lower power consumption.

The 5500 and 5600 series introduced a new concept in the Xeon family, they integrate a DDR3 memory controller, that allows via 3 channels, a direct connection to a dedicated memory, up to 3 DIMMs per channel. It also includes a link controller that handles the communication with the neighbor processor in what Intel calls QuickPath interconnect (QPI). the QPI allows up to 6.4GT/s in each direction per link.

For virtualization it includes the Extended VT-x, VT-c and the VT-d technologies.
The storage interface include a 6 ports SATA2 with software raid5.

Intel introduced to these processors a new acceleration technology called, Turbo Boost Technology, which automatically allows the processor to run faster then the marked frequency in cretin conditions. The max turbo boost frequency is dependent on the number of active cores within a processor.

 Figure 1: Xeon 5600 DP architecture

The Xeon 5600 platform advantages  

• Higher clock speeds
• More cores
• More cache
• More memory
• New instructions
• Supports Low voltage DDR3 (LDDR3)

The Xeon 5600 is available in the following configurations:

Processor Model	Processor Base Frequency	Cores	L3 Cache	Power	Intel ® QPI Speed	Max Turbo Frequency	Number of Threads
X5680	3.33 GHz	6	12MB	130 W	6.4 GT / s	3.6 GHz	12
X5677	3.46 GHz	4	12MB	130 W	6.4 GT / s	3.733 GHz	8
X5670	2.93 GHz	6	12MB	95 W	6.4 GT / s	3.333 GHz	12
X5667	3.066 GHz	4	12MB	95 W	6.4 GT / s	3.466 GHz	8
X5660	2.8 GHz	6	12MB	95 W	6.4 GT / s	3.2 GHz	12
X5650	2.66 GHz	6	12MB	95 W	6.4 GT / s	3.066 GHz	12
L5640	2.26 GHz	6	12MB	60 W	5.86 GT / s	2.666 GHz	12
L5630	2.13 GHz	4	12MB	40 W	5.86 GT / s	2.4 GHz	8
L5609	1.86 GHz	4	12MB	40 W	4.8 GT / s	1.866 GHz	4
E5640	2.66 GHz	4	12MB	80 W	5.86 GT / s	2.933 GHz	8
E5630	2.53 GHz	4	12MB	80 W	5.86 GT / s	2.8 GHz	8
E5620	2.4 GHz	4	12MB	80 W	5.86 GT / s	2.666 GHz	8

Table 1: Xeon 5600 configurations

Notice the interesting low voltage processors that are available in 40 and 60 watt versions. One possible application is to use them in a passively cooled chassis (i.e. without fans). 

Now that we've got the understanding of these basic elements, it is time to put things in to practice. In my next post we'll start configuring the idle server.