New Intel Xeon Steppings on the Way Page: 1


Intel Xeon 5100 and 5300 receive minor enhancements

Intel has issued notification to its partners regarding stepping changes to dual-core and quad-core Xeon processors. The changes will affect 5100 Woodcrest and 5300 Clovertown processors and bring them to a stepping G0, which introduces energy efficiency and virtualisation enhancements.

Stepping G0 reduces power consumption during C1E halt states. Intel does not state how much less power stepping G0 processors consume in idle states except “some amount.” Intel improves VT technology in stepping G0. The enhancements include: APIC Task Priority Register (TPR) Virtualization NMI-window exiting Advanced VM-exit information for INS & OUTS All stepping G0 processors will receive new CPUIDs. The Clovertown CPUID will change from 06F7 to 06FB while Woodcrest changes from 06F6 to 06FB. Stepping G0 processors will also receive new SSPEC numbers. Stepping G0 processors will require a BIOS update with new microcode for proper identification. However, with the proper microcode update, users should be able to mix and match processor steppings in multi-processor configurations.

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