Elsewhere, Nehalem EP benefits from the same detailed enhancements as the Core i7 processor. Thanks to Hyperthreading, therefore, each of the processor's four cores are capable of processing two threads simultaneously and hence no less than 16 overall in dual-socket EP configuration. As for the overall impact of the effort Intel has put into Nehalem, well, it translates into probably the biggest ever step forward in performance for an enterprise class x86 processor.

Familiar silicon

The silicon inside Intel's latest dual-socket Xeon processor is actually rather familiar. It's essentially the same CPU die found in the Core i7 desktop CPU and therefore a monolithic quad-core design manufactured using Intel's 45nm production technology. Likewise, each core has a dedicated L2 cache memory pool of 256KB, supplemented by 8MB of shared L3 cache.

Things get much more exciting, however, when you compare this new Nehalem-based Xeon with Intel's outgoing Xeons from the Penryn family, and indeed to AMD's competing Opteron CPU. Thanks to the combination of Nehalem's high bandwidth, low latency architecture and the raw power of its processor cores, it delivers truly monstrous parallel processing performance.

Nearest rival

In our benchmarks, a pair X5570s running at 2.93GHz are anywhere from 50 to 100 per cent faster than two 2.7GHz "Shanghai" Opterons, the fastest multi-socket AMD processor we have tested. That's right, in some benchmarks, including our computational fluid dynamics test, Nehalem is literally twice as quick. Admittedly, AMD has recently released a slightly higher clocked 2.9GHz Opteron. But suffice to say it's unlikely the extra 200MHz will come close to closing the gap.

Of course, it's not just the Opteron that is left looking a little silly. Intel's previous Xeons also take a brutal beating. In a preliminary run of SPEC CPU2006, arguably the most widely respected CPU performance benchmark in the world, the X5570 is capable of an estimated floating point base score of over 150. A 3.2GHz Xeon based on the old architecture scores just 86. Enough said, really.