Intel launches Skylake Xeon E3-1200 V5 Greenlow chip family

Although we all get rather excited when companies like Intel launch their new-generations of consumer grade hardware, we aren't the only target audience for new CPU technology. Indeed, there's also a large enterprise sector to cater to, which is often where Intel aims its Xeon processors. That's exactly what's happened with the new launch of the Xeon E3-1200 V5 Greenlow line, which is now available for servers and workstations around the world.

There's a full 11 processors in the range, with three more expected next year. While performance will of course vary across the range, they all support up to 32GB of video memory, as much as 64GB of DDR4 system memory, up to 20 third generation PCIExpress sockets, 10 USB 3.0 ports and 14 USB 2.0 ports, as well as a full eight SATA III ports.

The first line up of Greenlow hardware can be broken down into three stacks, the first of which is characterised by its lack of an internal graphics core chip (thanks WCCFTech). The second, will have a traditional Intel iGPU, while the third will come with its much higher end Iris and Iris Pro GPU, supporting the performance enhancing eDRAM which was previously only available in socketed form in the Broadwell range of processors.

All of the processors, regardless of stack – save for those designed with datacentres in mind – use the LGA 1151 socket. This is significant because it means that none of the Xeon chips will work with Intel's 100 series chipsets and will instead work only with the C232 and C236 chipsets.

In terms of clock speeds, cache and TDP, the line up is as follows:

GT0 – No graphics- LGA 1151

• Xeon E3-1280 V5: quad core, 3.7GHz base (4.0GHz boost), multi-threaded, 8MB of L3 cache, TDP of 80w.
• Xeon E3-1270 V5: quad core, 3.6GHz base (4.0GHz boost), multi-threaded, 8MB of L3 cache, TDP of 80w.
• Xeon E3-1240 V5: quad core, 3.5GHz base (3.9GHz boost), multi-threaded, 8MB of L3 cache, TDP of 80w.
• Xeon E3-1230 V5: quad core, 3.4GHz base (3.8GHz boost), multi-threaded, 8MB of L3 cache, TDP of 80w.
• Xeon E3-1220 V5: quad core, 3.0GHz base (3.5GHz boost), 6MB of L3 cache, TDP of 80w.

GT2 – Standard GPU – LGA 1151

• Xeon E3-1275 V5: quad core, 3.6GHz base (4.0GHz boost), multi-threaded, 8MB of L3 cache, TDP of 80w.
• Xeon E3-1245 V5: quad core, 3.5GHz base (3.9GHz boost), multi-threaded, 8MB of L3 cache, TDP of 80w.
• Xeon E3-1225 V5: quad core, 3.6GHz base (4.0GHz boost) 6MB of L3 cache, TDP of 80w.

Low-Power – LGA 1151

• Xeon E3-1260L V5: quad core 2.9GHz base (3.9GHZ boost), multi-threaded, 8MB of L3 cache, 45w TDP, no graphics.
• Xeon E3-1240L V5: quad core 2.1GHz base (3.2GHZ boost), multi-threaded, 8MB of L3 cache, 25w TDP, no graphics.
• Xeon E3-1235L V5: quad core 2.0GHz base (3.0GHZ boost) 6MB of L3 cache, 25w TDP, GT2 graphics.

Along with the above more standard CPUs, Intel's BGA socket Skylake products have been detailed to some extent, though won't be available until sometime in 2016.

GT4e (Iris Pro with 64MB of eDRAM) – BGA

• Xeon E3-1585 V5: quad core, clocks TBD, multi-threaded, 8MB of L3 cache, 65W TDP.
• Xeon E3-1585L V5: quad core, clocks TBD, multi-threaded, 8MB of L3 cache, 45W TDP.
• Xeon E3-1565 V5: quad core, clocks TBD, 6MB of L3 cache, 35W TDP.

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KitGuru Says: Although the Skylake line hasn't really blown the roof off of the CPU industry, it continues to make high-speed processing more energy efficient, which has been much more of a drive in recent years. Still, I think we're all a little more excited to see what comes out of the next tick cycle.

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