The Intel Xeon 5670: Six Improved Cores

The new Xeon “Westmere” 5600 series, has arrived. Basically an improved 32nm version of the impressive Xeon 5500 series “Nehalem” CPU. The new Xeon won’t make a big splash like the Xeon 5500 series did back in March 2009. But who cares? Each core in the Xeon 5600 is a bit faster than the already excellent performing older brother, and you get an extra bonus. You choose: in the same power envelope you get two extra cores or 5-10% higher clockspeed. Or if you keep the number of cores and clockspeed constant, you can get lower power consumption. The most thrifty quadcore Xeon is now specced at a 40W TDP instead of 60W.