Update: A tipster has provided us pictures of two more unreleased chips, the flagship Xeon E5-2699 V4 and the Xeon E5-2696 V4. Both chips are some of the fastest available processors and the samples leaked are final OEM samples which will be selling this quarter. You can find the benchmarks along with pictures of the processors in the gallery posted below. Do note that the flagship 22 core chip will feature a price point of $4000 US and will hit retail channels in April 2016.
Intel is launching their high-performance Xeon E5-2600 V4 family codenamed Broadwell-EP this quarter which will be aimed at the server market. There's still some time left in the launch however, over the several months, we have found a huge array of listings over at Chinese retailers and the latest listing is spotted over at eBay on which a user is selling an 18 core Xeon E5 V4 chip for a price of $999 US.
18 Core, 36 Thread Broadwell-EP Xeon E5-2600 V4 Chip Selling For $999 US on eBay
The listing on eBay shows a 18 core chip with 36 threads since it is a hyper-threaded processor. The chip clocks in at a base clock of 2.20 GHz with a maximum turbo frequency of 3.0 GHz and 2.60 GHz across all cores. Intel's Xeon E5-2600 V4 lineup is based on the company's 14nm Broadwell architecture so there are some key change overs to the design which add to the efficiency of the new lineup.
The seller has clearly mentioned that the chip is an engineering sample but runs fine in all workloads. The stepping mentioned is A0 which means this chip is past the early sampling stages. The chip packs 2.5 MB L3 cache per core and has a total of 45 MB LLC in the die package and TDP of 145W. Since this is a 18 core chip, we believe this could either be a Xeon E5-2696 V4 or the Xeon E5-2697 V4 processor which is likely to feature similar specifications.
Intel Xeon E5-2699 V4 Processor Benchmarks:
Intel Xeon E5-2600 V4 Processor Benchmarks:
Now here's the interesting stuff, we know that Intel is also launching a Broadwell-E lineup with a 10 core SKU. The SKU is rumored to launch with a price above $1000 US. Intel's previous 8 Core SKU, the Core i7-5960X that launched with the Haswell-E lineup sold at $999 US and it was a solid part. The thing that makes this listing too interesting is that the Broadwell-EP chip is said to be compatible with X99 motherboards. The chipset support list includes X10DR series from Supermicro, X99/Z10PE series from ASUS and X99 motherboards from Gigabyte. A list of these is shown below as the seller has detailed:
- Supermicro: X10SR series with BIOS R 2.0, X10DR series with BIOS R 2.0
- Asus: X99 series with BIOS 2101, Sabertooth X99 with BIOS 2101, Z10PE series with BIOS 3101
- Gigabyte: GA-X99 series with BIOS F20
An 18 core chip at $999 US, based on the latest architecture which is the same iteration to be made available on HEDT platforms a few months later although with a lower core SKU does seem really nice of a deal. There are some things to consider first, there's no sort of way to tell how much the processor has been used or if the chip has good stability overall. The benchmarks posted by the user does show that the chip is capable to run but there's no other assurance provided. The score in the benchmarks does show that it is one fast chip to own at this price range for rendering and even other purposes that include gaming and high-end application multi-tasking. You can even find some listings over at Chinese retail sites:
Xeon E5 V4 Chinese Listings:
- Intel Xeon E5-2699 V4 22/44 (16000 Chinese Yuan / $2500 US)
- Intel Xeon E5-2598 V4 20/40 (6500 Chinese Yuan / $1000 US)
- Intel Xeon E5-2695 16/32 V4 (3999 Chinese Yuan / $650 US)
The seller has mentioned that he also has the 22 core OEM production processors available. This is referring to the flagship Xeon E5-2699 V4 processors. There's no mention if he wants to sell them to but more details can be provided upon request to buyers who are interested.
The Grantley and Brickland platform which will support the new Broadwell-EP and EX chip models (respectively) has already spanned the market for three generations. These include Ivy Bridge EP/EX V2, Haswell-EP/EX V3 and the latest Broadwell-EP/EX V4 processors. Broadwell-EP/EX V4 processors will be the last processors to arrive as Intel phases out their current platform and move to the new Purely Platform for Skylake and Cannonlake processors. The new Broadwell-EP/EX series will have a launch schedule as detailed below:
- Broadwell-EP E5 V4 family of processors will be landing in the first half of 2016. This will consist of the Broadwell EP series of processors for one. Which include the Xeon E5 1600 v4 and E5 2600 v4 family of processors for both single and dual socket motherboards. The E5 1600 v4 series will have upto 8 cores whieas the 2600v4 series will rock upto 22 cores and have full support of DDR4 2400 memory. The platform will be compatible with the C610 series chipset. The Broadwell-EP 4S platform (upto 4 sockets on one motherboard) consisting of the Xeon E5 4600 v4 will be launched sometime in Q2 2016.
- Broadwell-EP E7 V4 family of processors, constituting the Broadwell-EX platform, and the nomenclature range of E7 4800v4 and E7 8800 v4 will be launched in Q2 2016. It will also be compatible with the existing Brickland platform.
- The Xeon Phi X200 series of products (Knights Landing) will be available in Q3 2016. Knight’s Landing was built on the 14nm Process and uses modified silvermont cores (x86 ofcourse). It is also one of the first mass produced components developed for this market segment that features stacked DRAM.
Intel Broadwell-EP Xeon E5-2600 V4 Processors (Preliminary Data):
Intel Broadwell-EP Lineup:
| SKU Name | Cores/Threads | Base Clock | L3 Cache (LLC) | TDP | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intel Xeon E5-2699A V4 | 22/44 | 2.4 GHz | 55 MB | 145W | $4938 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2699 V4 | 22/44 | 2.2 GHz | 55 MB | 145W | $4115 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2698 V4 | 20/40 | 2.2 GHz | 50 MB | 135W | $3228 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2697A V4 | 16/32 | 2.6 GHz | 40 MB | 145W | $2891 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2697 V4 | 18/36 | 2.3 GHz | 45 MB | 145W | $2702 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2695 V4 | 18/36 | 2.1 GHz | 45 MB | 120W | $2424 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2696 V4 | 22/44 | 2.1 GHz | 55 MB | 150W | $2321 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2690 V4 | 14/28 | 2.6 GHz | 35 MB | 135W | $2090 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2687W V4 | 12/24 | 3.0 GHz | 30 MB | 160W | $2141 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2683 V4 | 16/32 | 2.1 GHz | 40 MB | 120W | $1846 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2680 V4 | 14/28 | 2.4 GHz | 35 MB | 120W | $1745 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2667 V4 | 8/16 | 3.2 GHz | 35 MB | 135W | $2057 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2660 V4 | 14/28 | 2.0 GHz | 35 MB | 105W | $1445 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2650L V4 | 14/28 | 1.7 GHz | 35 MB | 65W | $1329 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2650 V4 | 12/24 | 2.2 GHz | 30 MB | 105W | $1166 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2643 V4 | 6/12 | 3.4 GHz | 10 MB | 135W | $1552 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2640 v4 | 10/20 | 2.4 GHz | 25 MB | 90W | $939 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2637 v4 | 4/8 | 3.5 GHz | 5 MB | 135W | $996 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2630 v4 | 10/20 | 2.2 GHz | 25 MB | 85W | $667 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2630L v4 | 10/20 | 1.8 GHz | 25 MB | 55W | $612 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2623 V4 | 4/8 | 2.6 GHz | 5 MB | 85W | $444 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2620 v4 | 8/16 | 2.1 GHz | 20 MB | 85W | $417 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2609 V4 | 8/8 | 1.7 GHz | 20 MB | 85W | $306 US |
| Intel Xeon E5-2603 v4 | 6/6 | 1.7 GHz | 10 MB | 85W | $213 US |
Many thanks to our reader
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
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