14 DAY TRIAL // Now that we've looked at the performance per watt gains of Intel's new Xeon E5-2600 server CPUs, we are exploring the integrated I/O.
Normally, the input/output operations are managed by a different chip, but Intel chose to build the I/O directly into the main processor. This feature is called Intel Integrated I/O (Intel IIO).
What's more, the I/O has unhindered access to the CPU cache, dramatically improving latency and data flow, thanks to Intel Data Direct I/O (Intel DDIO).
Things are made even better by how even PCI Express 3.0 is supported.
Overall, latency is reduced by up to 30% compared to previous-generation chips, and the PCI Express 3.0 triples the movement of data in and out of the CPU.
On a related note, Intel announced the Ethernet Controller X540 alongside the new Xeon, for cheaper, mainstream 10 Gigabit Ethernet implementation.
Low-cost, low-power LAN on motherboard (LOM) should soon include this single-chip 10GBASE-T solution, along with flexible I/O Virtualization and Unified networking.