Intel Xeon 5600 Series

The new Intel Xeon ‘Westmere’ 5600 series is here. In the high-end segment of 5600 series, by using the smaller 32nm process Intel has increased the number of processor cores to six with 12MB of L3 cache, while maintaining TDP between 95W to 130W. Price starts at $996 for 2.66GHz Intel Xeon X5650 to $1663 for 3.3GHz Intel Xeon W5680. In this price segment, there is also 4-core Intel Xeon X5677 and X5567 but clocked at 3.46GHz and 3.06GHz respectively.

Disappointingly, Intel mid-range offering are all 4-cores, they are 2.66GHz E5640, 2.53GHz E5630 and 2.40GHz E5620 priced at $744, $551 and $387 respectively. Intel also has low TDP offering in 6-cores 2.26 GHz L5640 with TDP of 60W and 4-cores 2.13GHz L5630 and 1.86GHz L5620 with TDP of 40W priced at $996, $551 and $440 respectively. The L5620 has Hyper Threading disabled. Overall, Intel promises up to 40% better performance or up to 30% less power usage.