Haswell-E and LGA 2011-v3
After landing on the LGA 1150 platform in June 2013 the Haswell architecture now reaches LGA 2011-v3 with Core i7-5960X, 5930K and 5820K. This platform opens the way the arrival of DDR4 in our machines.
LGA 1366 and LGA 2011 little background
For several years now, Intel is changing in parallel two LGA platforms. The heart of the range is thus constituted by the LGA 115x chips, with up to 4 cores and memory managed in two channels: – 09/2009: LGA 1156, 45nm Lynnfield – 01/2011: LGA 1155, 32nm Sandy Bridge – 04/2012: LGA 1155, 22nm Ivy Bridge – 06/2013: LGA 1150, 22nm Haswell But the Core i7 more upscale, initially declined to processors for the Xeon range, therefore exist on other platforms Platforms that host processors with more cores and memory channels: – 03/2010: LGA 1366 32nm Gulftown – 11/2011: LGA 2011, 32nm Sandy Bridge-E – 09/2013: LGA 2011, 22nm, Ivy Bridge-E
LGA 2011, LGA 1366 and LGA 1155
If Gulftown, which took over the original Socket Core i7 introduced in late 2008, had no equivalent in the consumer range, Sandy Bridge-E and Ivy Bridge-E in turn are more advanced versions of their counterparts less expensive but with 10 and 17 months of delay. Available with 6 cores, Gulftown had 3 channels 64-bit DDR3 against 4 for the next platform in LGA 2011. Despite the high-end positioning of the processors, the counter of hearts remain blocked by against 6 version Core i7 Sandy Bridge-E, only Xeon advantage of 8 cores integrated on the die. Ivy Bridge-E again the i7 will remain in the hearts 6, this time with a specific version of die 6-core 12 against hearts at most for Xeon.
Haswell-E and LGA 2011-v3
This time it is with 14 months behind that Haswell Haswell-E arrives in our machines. We find in this processor micro-architectural enhancements presented at the time , namely: – The AVX2 instruction set and FMA3 instructions – TSX instruction set, which is however victim of a bug – A muscular scheduler – Passage 6 to 8 ports of executions – a flow doubled the L1 cache – a voltage regulator integrated these improvements are present within a processor that is more limited this time to 6 cores but 8 hearts, however this count being booked as we shall see in Core i7-5960X $ 999. Combined with 20MB of L3 cache, this processor engraved in 22nm occupies an area of 355.5 mm² for a total of 2.6 billion transistors, 38 and 40% increase over its predecessor!
In addition to 8 cores, the processor integrates a PCI-Express Gen3 controller offering not less than 40 lines maximum, but bridled at 28 on the 5820K, far from the 16 lines managed on Socket LGA 1150. These ports can be managed so pretty flexible, with for example 2×16 + 1×8, 1×16 + 3×8 or 5×8 ports, to delight those who need great connectivity with daughter cards. Note, however, that for the most common use, namely an SLI or CrossFire X 2 cards, 2 PCIe Gen3 x8 ports of classic platform are largely sufficient. In RAM like its predecessors Haswell-E incorporates a memory controller managing the 4-channel 64-bit. But while Sandy Bridge-E was limited to DDR3-1600 and Ivy Bridge-E went to DDR3-1866, Haswell-E incorporates a first DDR4 memory controller, a type of memory which we will return more far. The official rate remains fairly low, however, DDR4-2133, a bandwidth of 68.3 GB against 59.7 GB / s before. It is however only a theoretical limitation, in practice via XMP profiles including higher speeds are available, as was also the case in DDR3 LGA 2011. Haswell-E takes place in a new socket LGA 2011-v3, which will also host future Broadwell-E 14nm planned for next year, we confirmed that Intel compatible motherboards with these upcoming processors. Note that the fastening systems for LGA 2011 CPU cooler is compatible with the LGA 2011-v3.