Intel Latest Platform X79 Enthusiast Chipset More Info

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The X79 is codenamed Patsburg-HEDT, and it’s going to be released on the LGA-2011 socket, something that we’ve already known for quite some time. It is said that Intel will demo X79 and some Sandy Bridge-E processors on Computex 2011 in Taipei, which will fall on May 31^st. However, we’ve some early info to share with you today.

AMD’s Bulldozer is said to be able to have 8 logical cores, and though Intel’s Xeon processors already have an 8-Core variant, it seemed that SBE (Sandy Bridge-E) will stay on the 6 cores and 12 threads pattern, for unknown reason. This is probably valid for launching, as Intel may perhaps introduce the 8-Core variants on later dates, like how they introduce 6-Core Core i7 processors sometime after X58 has fully saturated.

The cache level for SBE processor is said to be 32KB instruction and 32KB data for L1 cache per core, and 256KB shared instruction/data L2 cache per core, which is typical. What’s changed here is the 15MB L3 cache shared among all cores, up from the previous 12MB L3 cache.

Sandy Bridge-E CPU Feature Overview

• Up to 6 cores and 12 threads
• 32-KB instruction and 32-KB data L1 cache per core
• 256-KB shared instruction/data L2 cache per core
• Up to 15 MB L3 cache (up to 2.5 MB per core) shared among all cores
• Up to 40 PCIe Gen 3 Lanes (2×16 & 1×8)
• 4 lanes of DMI2/PCI Express 2.0 interface
• 4 Channels DDR3-1600 (1 DIMM per Channel)
• Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 (thermal control is the only limiter)
• 130W TDP
• LGA2011 Socket

Sandy Bridge-E SKUs :

• Sandy Bridge Extreme Edition : 6 cores / 12 threads, 3.3GHz clock, 15MB L3 cache (2.5MB per core), Max. OC
• Sandy Bridge E : 6 cores / 12 threads, 3.2GHz clock, 12MB L3 cache (2MB per core), Max. OC
• Sandy Bridge E : 4 cores / 8 threads, 3.6GHz clock, 10MB L3 cache (2.5MB per core), Limited OC

Intel X79 Express Chipset (Patsburg-HEDT) Overview

• 10 SATA 6Gbps ports with SAS capability
• 4 SATA 3Gps ports
• PCIe 3.0 x4 uplink for dedicated storage bandwidth
• 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes
• 14 USB 2.0 ports
• Integrated Gigabit Ethernet MAC (Lewisville PHY)
• Intel Rapid Storage Technology enterprise 3.0
  • SAS RAID support (0/1/10)
  • SAS Expander support
  • SATA RAID support (0/1/10/5)
  • Write Journaling
  • Open Source Linux support
• 100MHz BCLK
• Supports processor, memory and chipset overclocking
• Supports Intel Extreme Tuning Utility 3.0 (XTU)
• 8-layer PCB, 2oz copper recommended