Intel Xeon E5 could be moved back one quarter

Newly uneatherd details from Intel's roadmap suggest that Intel's long-in-waiting mid-range Xeon replacement, the E5, might not ship until 2012. Previously on tap for late 2011, they're now "delayed by one quarter," CPU World claimed. No reason was given as to why, or whether or not it meant going to the same 22 nanometer process as Ivy Bridge.

The lineup is expected to include both a single-socket E5-1600 series and a dual-socket E5-2600 line. Of the two, the 2600 would be the largest and include no less than 17 different processor versions, ranging from two cores to four, six, and eight. Peak clock speeds are only known for the 2600 models, which top out at 3.3GHz. The maximum speed likely applies to a six-core or lesser model given Intel's traditional challenge getting full speeds from many-core chips.

Some lower-end E5-2400 chips and quad-socket E5-4600 chips were already due to ship in 2012 but will have been moved back to the spring. A Xeon E3-1200 version 2 is known to be using Ivy Bridge and would get the Panther Point chipset shared with home PCs, which adds USB 3.0 support among other extras.

The delay will affect most companies making workstations and some servers. Apple's Mac Pro, and most other workstations, have been sitting virtually untouched since 2010 after Intel missed its usual Xeon update earlier in 2011. For reasons unknown, Intel has been focused solely on the low-end and high-end this year with the E3 and E7. [via MacRumors]

By Electronista Staff