Intel's 'Penryn' to launch 11 November

Seven 45nm Xeons on the cards

By Tony Smith • Get more from this author

15th August 2007 00:02 GMT

Intel's anticipated 45nm chip design, 'Penryn', looks set to be formally launched on 11 November, reports citing the chip giant's own website claim. More are coming in Q1 2008.

Some seven Xeon CPUs are listed: the 2.00GHz E5405, the 2.33GHz E5410, the 2.50GHz E5420, the 2.66GHz E5430, the 2.83GHz E5440, the 3.00GHz E5450 and the 3.16GHz X5460. All seven chips operate on a 1333MHz frontside bus.

The site doesn't explicitly identify the processors as Penryns, but the giveaway is that they're all listed as containing 12MB of L2 cache, a key element of the Penryn quad-core architecture. Penryn is essentially a die-shrink of today's Core 2 architecture, but the design does incorporate a number of performance-improving tweaks and, crucially, 6MB of L2 cache shared between each core pair. The Xeons listed on Intel's website are therefore quad-core CPUs, manufactured by combining two dual-core Pentryns in a single package.

Intel CPUs prefixed with an 'E' have a TDP 80W, while 'X'-prefixed parts consume up to 120W of power. The company has already said Penryn processors will fit the same thermal envelopes as current Core 2-based chips.

The site also lists a pair of low-voltage Xeons - the 2.33GHz L5410 and the 2.66GHz L5430 - as scheduled to be launched in Q1 2008. Again, these two parts run on 1333MHz FSBs and contain 12MB of L2 cache - they too are quad-core parts, with a TDP of 50W.

Since the website is dedicated to dealers, the chips listed are all boxed rather than the tray-mounted packages Intel sends out to computer manufacturers.

No prices are given for the Penryns, but website DailyTech reckons we're looking at $209 to $1172 running up the sequence of CPUs due to be launched on 11 November.