When most people think of Intel, they think of the company's desktop, workstation, and server products. These are all important areas, to be sure, but Intel is quite active in another business segment that doesn't receive as much attention from the press. Embedded processing may operate largely under the radar (much like embedded products themselves), but it's an important and profitable part of the company's business. Intel made some significant updates to its embedded product line today; the company launched a total of five new 45nm Xeon parts, announcing that it would support the parts through a seven-year life-cycle frequency (versus five previously). Intel also unveiled a new chipset, the 5100 MCH. The new Xeon parts aren't restricted only to embedded products, but Intel chose to focus on their capabilities in that space.

Both the new Xeons and the new chipset offer a significant reduction in power draw. The new Xeon 5200 and 5400 processors are all built on 45nm as opposed to older, 65nm process technology, and are based on the Penryn core. Power consumption on Intel's 65nm Xeons was actually fairly good, but the company believes its 45nm secret sauce will allow customers to design and deploy blade servers with significantly tighter thermal limits. The 5200 series are dual-core parts with 6MB of L2 cache, with frequency ranges from 1.86GHz (E5205, 65W) to 3.4GHz (X5272, 80W). The 5400 series are quad-core parts, as the name implies, and offer a total of 12MB of L2 cache. Speeds range from 2GHz (E5405, 80W) to 3.16GHz (X5460, 120W). There are two other Xeons in the 5400 series, but it's not clear where they fit into Intel's product line.

Both the X5472 (3GHz, covered here in our review of the new Mac Pro) and X5482 (3.2GHz) run on a 1600MHz FSB that the 5000X and 5100 MCH don't officially support. The X5472 stays within the same 120W thermal envelope as the 3.16GHz X5460, but the X5482 has a thermal design specification of 150W. This doesn't sound like the type of chip one regularly drops into a blade server; it's doubtful any of the highest-end processors will be deployed in such settings. The company's new 5100 MCH is also designed for lower thermals, though it sacrifices a few of the features found on the earlier 5000X in order to do so. The 5100 supports 32GB of RAM now (up to 48GB later this year), across six DDR-2 DIMM slots, while the 5000X supports up to eight DIMMs and 64GB of memory. The type of memory used by each platform is also different; the 5000X requires DDR2 FB-DIMMs, while the 5100 MCH uses ECC buffered DD2. This is undoubtedly part of the reason for the 5100 MCH's lower thermals—FB-DIMMs are notoriously power hungry.

The two chipset designs also use different southbridges. The 5000X is paired with the 6321ESB, while the 5100 MCH uses the familiar ICH9-R. The differences between the two are explained by their respective foci—the 6321ESB is a server/workstation part, while the ICH-9R is aimed more at high-performance desktops. Both chipsets offer the same number of SATA ports (6), but the 5100 MCH offers 12 USB2 ports while the 6321ESB has just six. Similarly, the 5000 offers an integrated 10/100/1000 Ethernet MAC, while the 6321ESB does not. Both support PCI-Express in varying configurations, but again, the configuration is slightly different; the 6321ESB offers two independent 64-bit / 133MHz PCI-X (remember it) controllers, while the 5100 MCH does not.

Intel's decision to segment the two products makes sense. The 5100 MCH is aimed specifically at customers who need low-power/low-thermal solutions, possibly for blade servers, and who may find the integrated LAN and additional USB2 ports useful. The 5000X will still be available for customers who need the 6321ESB's additional server capabilities or greater RAM capacity.