Intel Haswell-EP to support DDR4, goes up to 160W TDP

Posted on Monday, June 04 2012 @ 17:17 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
VR Zone delivers word that Intel's Haswell-EP server/workstation chip will support DDR4 memory and that it will be offered with TDPs of up to 160W. The Haswell-EP is anticipated to be released in the second half of 2014. Interestingly, the site also heard that Haswell silicon is designed for power draws of up to 190A on air, implying it could be a massive overclocking king.
The processor will be available at different clock speeds and with the different amount of enabled CPU cores, but the main power characteristics are 120W, 135W, 145W and 160W. There will not be any sub-100W TDP parts, as the company was told that it has to compete against NVIDIA Tesla GPUs, which all come in 225 and 300W range. With Tesla K10 (Dual-GK104, server version of GTX 690 with ECC and 8GB of GDDR5 memory) coming at 375W, and GK110-based K20 drawing 300W with 12GB of GDDR5 memory, it is obvious what Haswell-EP has to do.

Power draw characteristics require dedicated four and five rail solutions to feed the CPU. We were shown a prototype of the platform which draws less than 100 Amps in typical working conditions, with Turbo Mode jacking that up to 120 Amps. What will make overclockers wet is the fact that Haswell silicon is designed to accept draws of up to 190 Amps on AIR, meaning we might get another overclocking king if its able to sustain 190A when you freeze it and increase the voltage to let's say, 1.575V i.e. 300W.


About the Author

Thomas De Maesschalck

Thomas has been messing with computer since early childhood and firmly believes the Internet is the best thing since sliced bread. Enjoys playing with new tech, is fascinated by science, and passionate about financial markets. When not behind a computer, he can be found with running shoes on or lifting heavy weights in the weight room.



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