The "Broadwell" is still "alive" in Intel's roadmap

Aug 21, 2015 07:47 GMT  ·  By

The "Broadwells" are apparently not dead yet. Intel seemed to leave the impression that the Skylake wave would sweep across all platforms while the older-generation CPUs would be completely left behind. It seems we're wrong.

Intel has recently announced that the Xeon E5 v4 will eventually arrive later this year with an increased core count, additional memory bandwidth and will also have many microarchitecture improvements. One of the new improvements brought by the new "Broadwell" is the 14nm process manufacturing featuring in the new "Skylake" CPU line.

The new Xeon E5 v4 chips will feature up to 22 cores and are designed to be drop-in compatible with existing “Grantley” and “Brickland” server platforms. They aren't meant to be incredibly innovative, except that they are also supporting DDR4 memory modules with a 2400 MHz clock-rate. The new 14nm process manufacturing with increased core count will allow the new "Broadwell" chips to have increased performance and lower power consumption.

Skylake supply issues could be keeping the Broadwells in service for longer

According to ComputerBase.de, the new Xeon E5 v4 will be available on the market later this year and will be the company's first servers dedicated CPU that features more than four cores on a 14nm process technology. Although rumored to be cancelled until a later, more advanced Skylake-based Xeon series takes the place of current-generation Xeons, Intel appears to have decided to beef up the "Broadwell" to get near Skylake features in order to keep clients happy until the futuristic "Purley" platform arrives.

Right now, the new CPU, together with the upgraded "Grantley" and "Brickland" platforms, is under tests by various Intel clients with their specific applications, and it's very likely that the new Xeon E5 v4 “Broadwell-EP” will be arriving with the Xeon E7 v4 “Broadwell-EX” as well in late 2015, early 2016.

It's highly probable that the decision made by Intel to prolong the life of the "Broadwell" has been taking in consideration the serious logistical and supply issues the company has with the new Skylake series. It seems their numbers are too low at the moment to satisfy the demand of both client and server database customers at the same time.