Intel Broadwell EP processor to debut on new generation workstations

Dell, HP and Lenovo have all announced new or enhanced workstations based on the forthcoming Intel Broadwell EP processor, the Intel Xeon E5-2600 v4 series. Key features include more cores than the previous generation Intel Xeon E5-2600 v3 series (up to 44 physical cores per workstation) and up to 1TB of faster 2,400MHz DDR4 memory. Intel has yet to announce the specifications of the new CPUs.

HP’s refreshed HP Z840, Z640 and Z440 desktop workstations feature the optional HP Z Turbo Drive G2 1 TB PCIe SSD, which delivers up to four times the read performance of traditional SSDs. The machines also feature BIOS enhancements, which HP says enables higher system performance, and Thunderbolt 2 for fast throughput of large files.

Dell has updated its Dell Precision Workstations. The newly refreshed Dell Precision Tower 5810, 7810, and 7910 Workstations and Rack 7910 feature the latest professional graphics technologies from AMD and Nvidia and Dell Precision Ultra-Speed PCle drives with up to 4x faster performance than traditional SATA SSD storage. In addition, Dell has also expanded its liquid cooling offerings, which are said to improve system acoustics by up to 38 percent.

Lenovo has launched two new Intel Xeon E5-2600 v4 dual processor workstations, the ThinkStation P910 and ThinkStation P710, which it claims run up to 22% faster than its previous generation machines.

Features include include up to Nvidia Quadro M6000 graphics with 24GB VRAM (with support for three of these cards in the ThinkStation P910), memory up to 1TB on the ThinkStation P910 and 384GB DDR4 on the ThinkStation P710 and new, higher storage capacities for further expandability within the 14 drive bays available in the ThinkStation P910 and 12 drive bays available in the ThinkStation P710.