Intel shipped First Penryn Family CPUs based on 45nm Process, Up to 3.4GHz

Intel has begun to ship its new Penryn family of processors based on its latest 45nm hafnium high-k manufacturing process as we noted back in August. The first CPUs out of the block are the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 CPU, a quad core desktop model with enhancements such as a larger L2 cache and support for new Intel SSE4 media instructions, and the 5400 model line of quad-core Xeon server CPUs.

Apple has not used the "Extreme" model line of Intel CPUs except as a CTO in the 24" iMac but it has used the 5000 model server line in its Mac Pro and Xserve desktops. There are 15 new server dual-core and quad-core "Penryn" 45nm Hi-k Intel Xeon processors in the 5000 line. The 12 new quad-core chips boast clock speeds ranging from 2GHz up to 3.20GHz, with front side bus speeds (FSB) up to 1600MHz, and cache sizes of 12MB. The three new dual-core chips feature clock speeds of up to 3.40GHz, an FSB of up to 1600MHz, and cache sizes of 6MB. The 45nm Hi-k Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor 5400 series has set a number of "world records" on key industry-standard benchmarks.

Intel's 45nm Hi-k Xeon processors also extend performance-per-watt leadership by delivering an improvement of 38 percent over its previous-generation Quad-Core Xeon 5300 Series processors used in Apple's Mac Pro.

The move from 65nm to 45nm involves more than just a shrink of current chip designs. The processors include such additional features as:

• Intel Streaming SIMD Extensions 4 (SSE4)--47 new instructions that speed up workloads including video encoding for high-definition and photo manipulation, as well as key HPC and enterprise applications. Software vendors supporting the new SSE4 instruction set include Adobe(a, Microsoft and Symantec.
• Enhanced Intel Virtualization Technology -- Virtual machine transition (entry/exit) times are improved by an average of 25 to 75 percent through hardware with no changes to software required.
  
• Fast Division of Numbers – A fast divider roughly doubles the speed over previous generations for computations used in nearly all applications through a technique called Radix 16. The ability to divide instructions and commands faster increases a computer’s performance.
  
• Unique Super Shuffle Engine -- By implementing a wider 128-bit shuffle unit, performance significantly improves for SSE-related instructions that have shuffle-like operations. This feature will increase performance for content creation, imaging, video and high-performance computing.

The new Core 2 Extreme and the new 12 quad-core Xeon "Penryn" CPUs are shipping now for $209 (2.0GHz) to $1279 (3.2GHz) each for 1000. The three dual-core Xeon "Penryn" CPUs will ship in 30-45 days for $177 (1.86GHz) to $1172 (3.4GHz) each for 1000. Hopefully, we'll see the top end models in Apple's Mac Pro and Xserve before too long. [Bill Fox]