Intel Brickland and Grantley Platforms Exposed

We spoke of the Ivy Bridge-EX and Haswell-EX processors in the past, but we didn't have much to share about the Broadwell-EX, although the name did come up a few times.

Now, we can speak about not just these server and workstation processing units, but also of the Brickland and Grantley.

It's all thanks to the folks at VR-Zone, who somehow discovered what Intel would talk about at the upcoming "World is Intel" conference in Moscone Center in San Francisco, California (two weeks from now).

Brickland will last for quite a few years, as opposed to consumer desktop platforms that become “outdated” in 1.5-2 years on average.

Set to launch in the second half of 2013, alongside 22nm Ivy Bridge-EX CPUs, it will let servers and data centers easily scale beyond 8-socket systems.

Intel's QPI (Quick Path Interconnect or "Intel's Hypertransport") will make it possible, as it will move from version 1.0 to 1.1 and will integrate some features resulting from a collaboration with Cray, Inc.

Coupled with the scalable memory buffer in the CPUs (registered ECC DDR3-1600 to DDR4-3200), this all means that servers and workstations will easily outmatch those of today. We can only wonder what sorts of things will be done with Brickland and Xeon Phi PCI Express boards. There is a record number of PCI Express lanes.

The Grantley-EP platform will replace Romley-EP sometime after Brickland makes its appearance, after the Ivy Bridge-EP comes (in the next six months) and goes. Set to be paired with Haswell-EP, it will use the Wellsburg PCH chip and PCI Express 3.0 lanes, plus Thunderbolt, DDR4-2400 and DDR4-3200 memory. A new storage controller will be revealed as well, for better SAS/SATA transfers.

Currently, Intel is still marketing the Boxboro-EX, but it is an old platform, one that should have been replaced by Romley by now.