14 DAY TRIAL // In the forth quarter of this year, Intel is expected to launch its new high-performance CPU architecture based on the Sandy Bridge-E core, but outside of the LGA-2011 chips the company will also introduce a series of LGA-1356 processors that will be released in the Xeon E5-2400 series.
The processors are known under the code name of Sandy Bridge-EN, and pack similar features with their LGA-2011 counterparts, although they do come with a reduced number of on-die components.
One of the most notable differences is the inclusion of a simpler memory controller that drops support for one of the four memory channels available to socket LGA-2011 processors and that can only drive up to 2 DIMMs per channel.
As a result, Intel E5-2400 processors will support a maximum of 48GB per CPU, compared to E5-2600 models which can use up to 96GB of memory per CPU.
The integrated PCI Express Gen 3 controller has also been simplified and it now packs only 24 PCI-E lanes, compared to the 40 lanes supported by the Xeon E5-2600 CPU family.
Otherwise, the two CPU architectures are nearly identical as they both can sport up to eight processing cores (16-threads thanks to HyperThreading), 20MB of level 3 cache memory, and support all the technologies that Intel has introduced in the Sandy Bridge core (outside of integrated graphics).
Just as their LGA-2011 counterparts, Sandy Bridge-EN processors also use Intel's C600 chipset, just that this is now paired with a LGA-1356 socket.
Also in the first quarter of 2012, Intel will introduce the Cave Creek chipset for Xeon processors that will bring quite a few improvements, but we don't know if this will be compatible with LGA-1356 CPUs.
Outside of these two Xeon processor families, Intel is also expected to release the E5-4600 CPU range that will include quad-socket models. (via CPU-World)
