A new stepping has improved Intel's dual socket Xeon 54xx Line, as the top bin has increased from 3.2 GHz to 3.4 GHz (Xeon 5492). Stepping E also decreases power consumption significantly: a Xeon 5482 3.2 GHz which previously came with a 150W TDP now dissipates 120W.  Both the Xeon at 3.2 and 3.4 GHz are targeted at the HPC and workstation, and have a 1.6 GHz FSB.

 

 

For the servermarket, the Xeon X5470 at 3.3 GHz is launched (120W TDP). The Xeons for the server market continue to use a 1066 MHz FSB.

 

 The most spectacular announcement is the L5430 which needs only 12.5W per core but runs at 2.66 GHz. The pricing of this lower power version is quite competitive and puts even more pressure on AMD. AMD's fastest low power Opteron is still limited to 1.9 GHz. With the current trend towards green IT and blade servers, the importance of the low power CPU market will only increase.