by Michael Feldman, HPCwire Editor
Right on schedule, Intel has launched its Xeon 5600 processors, codenamed “Westmere EP.” The 5600 represents the 32nm sequel to the Xeon 5500 (Nehalem EP) for dual-socket servers. Intel is touting better performance and energy efficiency, along with new security features, as the big selling points of the new Xeons.

For the HPC crowd, the performance improvements are the big story. Thanks in large part to the 32nm transistor size, Intel was able to incorporate six cores and 12 MB of L3 cache on a single die — a 50 percent increase compared to the Xeon 5500 parts. According to Intel, that translated into a 20 to 60 percent boost in application performance and 40 percent better performance per watt.

Using the high performance Linpack benchmark, Intel is reporting a 61 percent improvement for a 6-core 5600 compared its 4-core Xeon 5500 predecessor (146 gigaflops versus 91 gigaflops). You might be wondering how this was accomplished, given that the 5600 comes with only 50 percent more cores and cache. It turns out that Intel’s comparison was based on its two top-of-the line Xeon chips from each processor family. The 146 gigaflops result was delivered by a X5680 processor, which runs a 3.33 GHz and has a TDP of 130 watts, while the 91 gigaflops mark was turned in by the X5570 processor, which runs at 2.93 GHz and has a TDP of 95 watts. Correcting for clock speed, the 5600 Linpack would be something closer to 128 gigaflops, representing a still-respectable 41 percent boost.

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