Intel launches Crystal Forest-Gladden platform

In January we published details on upcoming Crystal Forest-Gladden platform for blade and dense servers. The platform, which was expected to launch in the second quarter, is comprised of Cave Creek chipset, and several low- and ultra-low power microprocessors, built around Sandy Bridge microarchitecture. Based on the fact that a datasheet and specifications of Sandy Bridge Gladden processors were added to Intel website, we presume that the CPUs are now officially launched.

All in all, Intel released 5 new SKUs with Sandy Bridge Gladden core. New chips are designed for uniprocessor servers, and have from 1 to 4 CPU cores, up to 8 MB of level 3 cache, and Thermal Design Power ranging from 10 Watt to 40 Watt.

Celeron 725C is the only single-core CPU for the Crystal Forest-Gladden platform. This model operates at 1.3 GHz and has 1.5 MB of L3 cache. It supports Hyper-Threading, plus many advanced features, including AES instructions and VT-d virtualization, which is very unusual for Celeron brand. The Celeron 725C has very low 10 Watt TDP.

Two new dual-core microprocessors are Pentium B915C and Core i3-2115C. Despite of different branding, these parts are very much alike. Both CPUs have 3 MB L3 cache, and support Hyper-Threading technology, VT-x and VT-d virtualization, as well as AES and AVX instructions. The difference between them is in the clock speed and TDP. The Pentium B915C has 1.5 GHz speed and 15 Watt TDP, whereas the i3-2115C comes with faster 2 GHz frequency, and consequentially higher 25 Watt TDP.

New quad-core CPUs are branded as Xeon E3. These processors support the same technologies as B915C and i3-2115C models. Xeon E3-1105C runs at 1 GHz, and has 6 MB of last level cache and 25 Watt TDP. Intel E5-1125C is twice as fast, and it also has larger 8 MB L3 cache. Power consumption of this model is 40 Watt.

None of the Sandy Bridge Gladden processors support Turbo Boost, or have on-chip graphics included. All chips integrate dual-channel memory controller, with the exception of Celeron 725C, that has only one memory channel. Newly released processors come in a BGA package. The table below contains a summary of new CPUs' features:

Model	Cores	Threads	Frequency	L3 cache	Memory	TDP
Core i3-2115C	2	4	2 GHz	3 MB	DDR3-1333	25 Watt
Mobile Celeron 725C	1	2	1.3 GHz	1.5 MB	DDR3-1333	10 Watt
Pentium B915C	2	4	1.5 GHz	3 MB	DDR3-1333	15 Watt
Xeon E3-1105C	4	8	1 GHz	6 MB	DDR3-1600	25 Watt
Xeon E3-1125C	4	8	2 GHz	8 MB	DDR3-1600	40 Watt