Revised Xeons hit higher speeds, draw less power

The Tech Report Writes:

"Although much of the focus in recent weeks has been on upcoming chips based on the next-generation Nehalem microarchitecture, Intel isn't yet finished advancing its Penryn-based 45nm processors, as witnessed by today's introduction of a new revision of its dual-socket Xeon server/workstation-class CPUs. This new E-stepping silicon brings a bit of a clock frequency increase and some minor reductions in power draw to the Harpertown Xeons.

Those changes, of course, mean the chip giant will be offering several new models in the Xeon 5400 series. The fastest of those is the quad-core Xeon X5492, which has a 3.4GHz clock frequency, a 1600MHz front-side bus, and a 150W power/thermal rating (or TDP). With the fast bus, the X5492 requires the use of the Intel 5400 chipset, part of the Stoakley platform aimed primarily at workstations and HPC clusters. The X5492 takes over the top of the Stoakley-oriented Xeon lineup from the X5482, a 3.2GHz chip with a 1600MHz bus. Thanks to the move to E-stepping silicon, the X5482 also gets a nice reduction in TDP from 150W to 120W."