First Sandy Bridge Based Xeon Processors Detailed

Released at the start of the year, Sandy Bridge will slowly make its way into Intel's workstation and server processor line, the company recently posting the material declaration data sheets for the upcoming Xeon E3-1200 series CPUs that will feature its second generation Core micro-architecture.

The information published confirmed the E3-1200-series rumors that were first revealed in October of last year.

According to the CPU World website, the new chips should arrive sometime during the first quarter of 2011 and all are based on the quad-core version of the Sandy Bridge processor.

In addition, all of them incorporate 8MB of L3 cache (except the E3-1225 that has only 6MB) and support Intel's Turbo Boost technology that increases the operating frequency of the processors according to the application load.

With the exception of the entry-level E3-1220 and E3-1225, all the new processors pack Hyper-Threading support.

However, integrated graphics is enabled in just four of the nine Xeon CPUs, the E3-12x5 designation separating them from the rest of the processor line.

When the on-die GPU is activated, the Xeon chips have a 95W Thermal Design Power draw, just a bit over the power consumption of the E3-12x0 CPUs.

Pricing has not yet been announced, but the PCMicroStore online store has the processors available for pre-order, prices ranging from $272 for the entry-level Xeon E3-1220 cloaked at 3.1GHz, to $827 for the E3-1280 high end model that operates at 3.5GHz.

CPUs with Intel HD on-die GPUs have only a small price premium over their non-graphics counterparts, that ranges between 3% and 9%.

All Intel E3-1200 series microprocessors are compatible with motherboards using the H2 socket (similar to LGA 1155).

Later this year, Intel plans to release a new series of Xeon CPUs based on the Sandy Bridge E architecture that features improved performance.