14 DAY TRIAL // Set to take the place of the company's current flagship processors, the eight-core Sandy Bridge-EP CPUs are expected to arrive in about six months’ time, according to an Intel official. This places the launch in late Q3 or early Q4 2011.
Sandy Bridge-EP processors are based on the architectural changes introduced by Intel with its Sandy Bridge CPUs and feature improved IPC as well as lower power consumption.
The chips are destined to make their way into 1-way and 2-way servers which use the Patsburg chipset and the LGA 2011 socket.
According to PC Gamers Hardware, the source of this news story, no details regarding the actual clock rates of the chips were provided by the company's official.
However, from past leaks, we do know that Sandy Bridge-EP processors pack as much as 40 PCI Express 3.0 lanes and use a quad-channel memory controller which supports memory speeds of up to 1600MHz. In addition, the chips feature AVX and Hyper-Threading support.
Together with these new processors, Intel will also launch the Patsburg chipset, which will be available in no less than four different SKUs.
Just like the current P67 and H67 controllers, Patsburg is actually a simple PCH (platform controller hub) and connects to the processor via a DMI 2 interface which delivers four lanes worth of PCI Express 2.0 bandwidth.
All the SKUs include support for up to 14 USB 2.0 ports, four SATA 3Gbps ports, two SATA 6Gbps ports, ONFi interface as well as up to eight PCI Express 2.0 lanes and HD audio, and the only difference between them is the type and number of storage interfaces supported.
The first Intel branded motherboards based on these chipsets are expected to arrive in the second half of 2011 and are code-named Siler and Thorsby, according to a leaked Intel roadmap.