Intel Xeon D-2100 processors now official with up to 18 cores and 36 threads

Earlier today, Intel unveiled the Xeon D-2100 family, an entirely new lineup of 14 nm processors that use "Skylake-server" cores and spreads across three main categories: edge server and cloud, network edge and storage, as well as integrated Intel QuickAssist technology. 

According to Intel's official press release, the Xeon D-2100 chips provide the following performance gains over the Xeon D-1500 processors: 29 percent L3 network packet transfer, 2.9 times network performance overall, and 2.8 times storage performance. Even more, these figures were obtained by running various tests and benchmarks before the release of the latest software patches and firmware updates that take care of the Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities, so the real-life results achieve using these chips might turn out better or worse.

When it comes to the technical highlights of these new processors, we should mention the following (in addition to the maximum of 18 cores and 36 threads, of course): quad-channel 512 GB DDR4 support, 3 GHz single-core Intel Turbo Boost 2.0, 32 PCI Express 3.0 lanes, 20 Flexible High Speed I/O lanes, Intel QuickAssist Technology with up to 100 Gbps of crypto, decrypt, and encrypt accelerated processing offload, up to four 10 GbE adapters support.

The recommended customer pricing revealed by Intel for these chips starts at US$213 for the quad-core Xeon D-2123IT processor, moves up to US$502 for the octa-core D-2145NT, then hits the apex at US$2,407 with the 18-core Xeon D-2191. While we won't see them powering any notebooks too soon, Intel mentioned a list of practical implementations that includes 5G-connected cars, smart stadiums, retail, and medical solutions.